The group claims land clearing accounts for 24pc of the State's greenhouse gas emissions.

According to WWF, the Statewide Landcover and Trees Study (SLATs) confirmed 375,000 hectares of forest was cleared in 2005-06, the equivalent of 5.1 million average-sized suburban blocks of land.

WWF says this was in spite of State laws banning broadscale clearing.

It claims legal loopholes - such as allowing landholders to control vegetation regrowth - have "allowed farmers to find new ways to clear an enormous and unacceptable amount of land".

WWF wants another clearing moratorium put in place in Queensland until "the loopholes are plugged in order to help reduce Queensland's carbon emissions, which are the highest for any state per capita in the country".

"There have been a lot of good intentions in recent years, but the fact remains total clearing is relatively unchanged from the 1990s," Nick Heath, WWF's Queensland program leader, said.

"Land clearing is still occurring on a huge scale, causing 41.1 million tonnes of carbon emissions and driving seriously threatened wildlife towards extinction."

At a conservative carbon price of $20 per tonne, closing these loopholes and protecting northern forests will save Queensland and Australia $800m per year.

WWF wants four "loopholes" closed to reduce clearing:

* the regrowth exemption: it says 10-14 million hectares of "recovering Queensland forests" can be cleared without a permit;

* fodder harvesting: WWF says more than 110,000 hectares of mulga is cleared or "harvested";

* urban, mining and infrastructure exemptions in small, but highly biodiverse areas; and

* boosted compliance to tackle unknown amounts of illegal clearing.