Toowoomba Regional Council does not currently have laws that prevent the clearing of mature trees and habitat.

This allows for destructive land clearing, as seen recently in Highfields, and puts Toowoomba behind the other councils in South-East Queensland and community expectations.

Mature trees offer important food and shelter for many animals including parrots, cockatoos, owls, kookaburras, kingfishers, microbats, possums and koalas. Many cavity nesting birds will only nest in nesting hollows that are a few hundred years old. It is not sufficient to knock down mature trees and replant small shoots as it will take one to two hundred years for these plants to offer the same kind of resources to animals.

Planning laws need to be reformed to mandate the protection and retention of mature trees and the planning of housing developments around them.