“You can use it to market your product, to brand it, to talk to retailers,” he said.

If consumers demand beef from properties with stronger deforestation practices, the bigger retailers would source it from producers with higher natural capital scores, he said.

“So retailers can not only understand the current condition of the land where they are buying their food from, but they can also understand the direction that the landholder is taking it.”

The first annual “report card” from Queensland’s five-year strategy, launched in 2020, to save koala habitat will be released soon.

One of its goals was to begin to repair 10,000 hectares of koala habitat and to set targets on koala population.

Earlier this week Environment Minister Meaghan Scanlon reported 153,000 trees would be planted on 170 hectares of land cleared for grazing near Wivenhoe Dam.

The Queensland government keeps check of land clearing using satellite imagery, although the most recent imagery was captured between 2018 and 2019.

The Wilderness Society says of the 668,000 hectares of bushland cleared in Queensland, 101, 370 hectares was koala habitat.

“And of that 101,370 ha of koala habitat, 73,825 ha was cleared for beef production,” the society’s Queensland campaigner Dr Anita Cosgrove said.

“At the moment, none of the big retailers of beef, such as supermarkets and fast food chains, can guarantee that their beef is deforestation-free,” she said.

“Or that they don’t rely on the destruction of koala habitat to grow the meat.”

The society argued that changes to government regulations and marketing initiatives were needed.

In December 2021, a second conservation group - WWF-Australia = agreed a peace deal was needed between cattle producers, retailers, conservationists and shoppers to slow koala habitat clearing.