Glenn Morris, a farmer and an environmentalist, says crackdowns on deforestation can't come soon enough as the cattle industry faces increased scrutiny.
Beef farmer Glenn Morris only had to look up to know the world was changing.
During a heatwave in 1998, Mr Morris stood on a cattle property in the NSW Hunter Valley and saw the trees cowering.
"At that point it was the hottest year on record and I was watching mature gum trees just get scorched by the hot winds," Mr Morris told AAP.
That moment spurred him into action: he got his Masters in sustainable agriculture to better understand land management and its relationship with the climate.
He oversees two cattle properties in northwest NSW, where he plants and maintains trees, uses biological soil inputs and carefully grazes stock to rest paddocks and generate compost.
With thousands of hectares under his watch, Mr Morris is an environmentalist who considers himself lucky to be able to affect change on the land.
"If we don't wake up and start looking after these ecosystems we're in so much trouble," Mr Morris said.
"It's our moral responsibility to do what we can."
Farm land management is shaping up to be an election issue in rural Australia, as pressure continues to mount on the beef industry over deforestation.
It was the subject of several debates at Senate estimates hearings in late February, when senior public servants were quizzed about talks with the European Union over new deforestation rules.
From the end of 2025 exporters will need to prove products sold in the EU have not come from land that has been deforested since December 2020.
The regulation, which aims to cut carbon emissions, says the main driver of deforestation is the expansion of agricultural land, mostly linked to cattle farming, but also timber and cocoa.
The government has made a submission to the EU that Australia should be considered a country at low risk of deforestation.
Officials from the agriculture department told the Senate hearings Australia was ranked second for net increases in forest area by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Australia's forest coverage was "extensive and expanding", increasing by an average of 446,000 hectares per year between 2010 and 2020, the hearings were told.
There were 1.74 million hectares cleared in the five years to 2021, but 1.24 million hectares of regrowth and further expansion, Australian Bureau of Agriculture Resource Economics and Sciences executive director Jared Greenville said.
But he stopped short of giving a definitive answer to a suggestion from a Liberal senator that Australia does not experience deforestation.
Dr Greenville said: "I would say that there are areas of clearing and areas of regrowth. To put that in a net sense, we certainly are increasing our forest area."
Scientists and conservationists argue net figures on deforestation are misleading.
The clearing of old growth forests, for example, and re-planting seedlings are not equivalent ecological activities, climate scientist Brendan Mackey told AAP.
"It's an accounting sleight of hand, it's like a magician's trick," said Professor Mackey, director of the Climate Action Beacon at Griffith University.
"We need gross accounting and additional information about what's been lost and the regenerational planting that's happened."
NSW government data released in 2024 showed agriculture was the leading driver of land clearing in the state, followed by infrastructure and native forest logging.
The data showed that 45,000 hectares of land was cleared in 2022, pushing the five-year tally above 420,000 hectares, or more than one-and-a-half times the size of the ACT.
The Australian Conservation Foundation stresses it is a minority of farmers responsible for deforestation, but its investigations have shown those who clear land are doing so on a large scale.
"We can see support from most farmers," said Nathaniel Pelle, the foundation's Business and Nature Lead.
"We can hopefully drive practice change on the small minority of farmers still bulldozing the bush."
This closer focus on deforestation is also coming from Australian consumers.
Supermarket giant Coles recently announced it had submitted a no-deforestation commitment to the Science Based Targets Initiative for validation.
It had been the last store standing after Woolworths and ALDI announced deforestation-free targets in 2024.
Cattle Australia says farmers abide by some of the strictest vegetation management laws globally. Pic: AgriShots
Cattle Australia, which represents 52,000 grass-fed cattle producers, has long contended that the nation's farmers abide by some of the strictest vegetation management laws in the world.
The grass-fed industry covers half of Australia's land mass, grazing across more than 350 million hectares.
There is a sophisticated legal system that protects that landscape, with 136 pieces of legislation, chief executive Chris Parker told AAP.
"You only get healthy Australian beef off healthy country," Dr Parker said.
"There is no incentive for producers to be damaging their country and damaging the biodiversity because if you damage the country, you're not going to get productive, healthy cattle."
The farming organisation's definition of deforestation is illegal land clearing, along with trees that exceed height and coverage thresholds of forests.
That definition differs from international environmental standards.
Dr Parker said the cattle industry is a "broad church" with a place for everyone, though agriculture needed to be able to set minimum assurances for supply chains and consumers.
Mr Morris - who once rode his horse Hombre over the Sydney Harbour Bridge to protest land clearing - takes up a particular position in that broad church.
"I'm a farmer ... there's things I can do, but every person is making a difference with their purchasing decisions," Mr Morris said.
"We want to pay at the supermarket or the butcher shop ... knowing that that beef has looked after the landscape."