Australian farmers have had enough of federal and state governments’ reclamation of their land by stealth. So, on Sunday 1 July as a form of civil disobedience, thousands of farmers across Queensland, NSW and Victoria will cut down a tree. On 2 July they will cut down two trees and so on.

How has it come to this? The Federal Government sent Senator Ian Campbell to the Kyoto Conference in 1997 with a simple instruction. Only sign the agreement if the Australian government could insert a clause that allowed them to count the carbon credits accrued from stopping landing clearing in Australia. The clause 3.7 is known internationally as “The Australian Clause”.

In signing the Kyoto agreement Australia pledged to contain emissions to 108% of the level they were at in 1990. Australia is the only industrialised nation that is on track to meet its targets.

Stopping land clearing has netted Australia a saving in emissions of 74million metric tonnes of carbon to October 2006. To put that into perspective, to gain the same reductions in emissions you’d have to shut down the entire economy of New Zealand or Ireland. For the same period the energy industry in Australia has increased emissions by 84 million metric tonnes of carbon.

The Federal government after Kyoto did a deal with the State Labor Governments in NSW and Queensland — in exchange for additional funding — that they would legislate to ban tree clearing in their state under the guise of being responsible environment managers.

It was a win-win for the Federal Government, who could meet its international C02 emission targets whilst allowing the economy to grow at record levels. By getting the State Labor Governments to legislate the Vegetation laws they could “dodge the bullets” from their traditional rural voter base that was affected, all the while trotting out their green credentials to the Australian urban population.

The vegetation management laws introduced in both states are best described as draconian. A farmer who is accused of murder has more legal rights than a farmer who cuts down a state-owned tree. In Queensland, if a Department of Natural Resources officer issues a farmer with a “Compliance Notice” the only recourse a farmer has is in a magistrates court. Our entire legal system is turned around — the farmer must prove his innocence, whereas in any other case the prosecutor must prove the defendants guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

If the government came and took up to 80% of your home or business to meet their objectives you’d expect compensation. Indeed the constitution says that they can’t take your land or assets without “full compensation”. Farmers have had none. This is grossly unfair and farmers after a decade of trying to undo this injustice via political lobbying and the courts are at their wit’s end.

The end result of Governments acting unfairly and unjustly towards its citizens is civil disobedience. History has shown that in a strong democracy, if its citizens can’t rely on their judicial system to uphold their democratically won rights, civil disobedience is the only course of action. The result of Governments behaving badly towards its citizens is, in turn, a protest in the form of its citizens behaving badly.