But NSW Farmers President James Jackson said the statistics are misleading and he has committed to work with government to improve the data.

"There is not any net clearing in NSW. There's hasn't been since about 1990," he said.

"There's been more trees grown in NSW than there's been pushed out since about 1990. That's how long since there was any net clearing in NSW. It's simply nonsense to describe this as some sort of catastrophic increase in clearing."

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Data released by the Department of Planning Industry and Environment shows 54,500 hectares of woody vegetation was cleared for farming, forestry and development in 2019, the latest year on record. The statistics do not include land destroyed in bushfire that year.

The North West region, which includes Tamworth and Moree, was the busiest, with a total of 24,430 hectares of vegetation cleared in regulated land, typically farm land. In the Central West Local Land Services region, the second busiest, just 21,991 hectares was cleared.

"When combined, these two regions accounted for 61 per cent of the total vegetation loss on rural regulated land," the 2019 reporting said.

The region also had the state's highest rate of "unexplained" clearing, with 91 per cent of clearing put into that category.

Mr Jackson said the data didn't include a "net" figure - all the new trees that grew in 2019 - and included a number of other errors, including rampant double-counting. Much of the "unexplained" clearing is unknown only because one department won't tell another the explanation, he said.

"The big question that should be asked: is it enough? Is there enough management of invasive natives, for instance, in the western division. Are we getting enough environmental and ecosystem degradation because we're not clearing enough?" he said.

Independent MLC Justin Field said the figures proved there was a need for "an urgent overhaul" of the state's land clearing laws.

"At the end of the day koalas need trees and no amount of money can protect koalas if the NSW Government keeps allowing their trees to be cleared or logged," he said.

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