Federal Forest Inquiry a Sham

November 30th, 2011

NEFA is outraged at the bias of the Federal House of Representatives report ‘Inquiry into the future of the Australian Forestry Industry’ and its refusal to consider the timber supply crisis and the over-logging of north-east NSW’s public forests.

NEFA spokesperson, Dailan Pugh, said that most of the evidence presented in NEFA’s 111 page submission was ignored by the inquiry on the grounds that it “criticised the industry”. “What they didn’t ignore they misrepresented. This pretend inquiry was a sham” he said.

“The Commonwealth is party to the North East Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) and claims that it satisfies its national and international obligations for the protection of world heritage, national estate and threatened species.

“While national heritage values were meant to be addressed as part of the RFA, they were not, so the Commonwealth gave the NSW Government an extra two years to complete the process.  A decade later and there has still been no assessment and the Federal Government does not care.

“Similarly the RFA was meant to provide protection for nationally threatened species.  The evidence we presented, such as the illegal trashing of a population of the nationally endangered fern Lindsaea incisa at Doubleduke, that was meant to be protected by a 50m buffer, was ignored because we were being ‘critical’.

“What is most astounding is that the inquiry refused to consider the evidence we presented on the current timber supply crisis due to the over-commitment of wood from north-east NSW’s public forests.

“Ever since new Wood Supply Agreements for timber from public land were given to sawmillers in 2004 Forests NSW have not been able to supply the committed volumes,” Mr Pugh said.

“The NSW Government’s recklessness in issuing these new Wood Supply Agreements has already cost taxpayers millions of dollars to buy back committed volumes and to compensate BORAL for Forests NSW’s failure to supply.  As the crisis worsens, taxpayers exposure to multi-million dollar compensation claims grows.

“In vain efforts to meet shortfalls and reduce their payouts Forests NSW have been over-logging plantations, cutting trees before they mature, increasing logging intensities, logging stream buffers, and logging trees and areas required to be retained for threatened species. They are cutting out the future of the industry and causing immense environmental harm in the process.

“It is appalling, that an inquiry dealing with forestry has completely ignored this crisis and recommended that the Commonwealth Government condone and support this grossly unsustainable and irresponsible logging.

“Local Page MP, Janelle Saffin features in the inquiry’s report despite her electorate being one of the worst affected by the timber supply crisis, rampant illegal logging and widespread forest dieback.

“We call upon Janelle to please explain why the Commonwealth continues to ignore the gross over-logging, fails to identify and protect national heritage values, refuses to take action on the illegal logging of the habitat of nationally threatened species and refuses to consider the dieback of tens of thousands of hectares of public forests in her electorate.   She needs to tell her constituents what she is going to do about it”” Mr. Pugh said.

                       
                                  For further comment: Dailan Pugh 66 807 063

Inquiry documents are at: http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/arff/forestry/index.htm

To see the court documents proving Forests NSW’s  inability to supply: http://nefa.org.au/resources/Summons_Boral_v_Forestry_Commission.pdf

 

Timber Supply Crisis to cost taxpayers millions for non-existent timber.

November 4th, 2011

MEDIA RELEASE, November 3, 2011

 

Court documents obtained by the NCEC confirm that Forests NSW are unable to meet timber commitments and are having to pay out mills for timber that never existed.

NCEC President, Susie Russell, said that ever since the NSW Government gave new Wood Supply Agreements for timber from public land to millers in 2004, Forests NSW have not been able to supply the committed volumes.

“At the time the new Wood Supply Agreements were issued there was abundant evidence that Forests NSW’s resource estimates were grossly overstated and unreliable.  Unfortunately at that time the NSW Government removed a clause that was in previous agreements that allowed timber commitments to be reduced in line with yield reviews.

“Timber giant Boral initiated proceedings in the Supreme Court against Forests NSW in 2010 claiming Forests NSW have been unable to supply them with contracted timber volumes since 2002. The court documents show that Forests NSW were forced to pay Boral half a million dollars in 2006 for undersupply to that time.  Since then supply has been declining and Forests NSW now owe Boral almost twice as much again,” she said.

“Forests NSW have also been forced to buy back timber commitments from other millers

“In vain efforts to meet shortfalls Forests NSW have been over-logging plantations, cutting trees before they mature, increasing logging intensities, logging stream buffers, logging trees and areas required to be retained for threatened species and buying timber from private properties.

“Despite leaving the forest looking like a battlefield and cutting out the future sawlogs, Forests NSW still cannot get them enough wood,” said long-time forest activist with the North East Forest Alliance, Dailan Pugh, who as a result of analysing all FNSW timber yield estimates predicted the timber supply crisis in 1999.

“The NSW Government’s recklessness in issuing the new Wood Supply Agreements in 2004 has already cost taxpayers a fortune, and exposed us to many millions of dollars in future compensation.  The environmental costs are astronomical,” he said.

“The crisis is real and ongoing. The gross over-cutting now happening must be stopped immediately. Timber quotas must be immediately reduced to a sustainable level. The legal dispute between the Government and Boral is perhaps the only opportunity this Government will have to make these changes. Failure to do so could lead to further massive compensation payouts as well as doing irreparable damage to our public forests,”  Ms Russell said.

For comment Susie Russell 0429655044 or 65 504 481 or Dailan Pugh 66 807 063

To see the court document see: http://nefa.org.au/resources/Summons_Boral_v_Forestry_Commission.pdf

Boral summons Forests NSW to court over Wood Supply Agreement!

October 31st, 2011

Boral (as Allen Taylor & Duncan’s Timber) summons to Forests NSW & the State of NSW for alleged breach of Wood Supply Agreement, seeking admission and damages. (27pp pdf scan attached, 1Mb, tasty reading!)

Summons Boral v Forestry Commission.pdf

NEFA Welcomes Prosecution of Forests NSW

October 17th, 2011

MEDIA RELEASE 17 October 2011

NEFA welcomes the belated prosecution of Forests NSW for logging an Endangered Ecological Community in Doubleduke State Forest, west of Evans Head in north-east NSW.

The prosecution was commenced by the Office of Environment and Heritage in the Land and Environment Court on Friday in response to detailed complaints made by the Clarence Environment Centre and NEFA over 16 months ago.

As well as logging, killing and damaging some 1,500 trees and shrubs in the Endangered Ecological Community Sub-tropical Coastal Floodplain Forest, NEFA reported breaches of numerous statutory licence conditions, including failure to identify and protect Yellow-bellied Glider feed trees, locations of endangered plants, and a wetland

NEFA spokesperson, Dailan Pugh, said that since then Forests NSW and their Minister have repeatedly claimed that they did nothing wrong. “We welcome this opportunity for the truth of our claims to be tested in court”.

“Due to removal of third party rights we were not able to take proceedings ourselves and have had to rely upon the Office of Environment and Heritage to act on our complaint”.

“We have since made similar complaints about logging in Grange State Forest west of Grafton and Wedding Bells State Forest north of Coffs Harbour and hope that they will be similarly investigated and prosecuted should the evidence warrant it”.

“We have assessed that Forests NSW are liable for fines of up to $16 million for logging the endangered ecosystem at Doubleduke. In the result of a guilty finding, we trust that the court will ensure that any resultant fines are sufficient to act as a meaningful deterrent and that appropriate rehabilitation orders are issued”.

“We hope that this signifies a new will to enforce threatened species laws in north-east NSW’s public forests”. Mr. Pugh said that when they were recently (8/06/2011) tested in southern NSW, Justice Pepper of the NSW Land and Environment Court commented on Forests NSW that ‘the number of convictions suggests either a pattern of continuing disobedience in respect of environmental laws generally or, at the very least, a cavalier attitude to compliance with such laws’.

NEFA’s Doubleduke audits are available at:
http://nefa.org.au/audit/Doubleduke/Prelim_Audit_Doubleduke_SF_1.pdf

http://nefa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Audit_Doubleduke_Supp1_Nov_2010.pdf

The Intercontinental Deluxe Guide to Blockading

August 6th, 2011

Read the NEFA classic ‘The Intercontinental Deluxe Guide to Blockading’

or download a zipped copy

 

Inquiry into Forests NSW urgently needed.

July 22nd, 2011

Forests NSW’s culture of denial and cover-ups, and ineffective regulation, are responsible for Forests NSW’s repeated failures to comply with NSW’s environmental laws according to the North East Forest Alliance.

Commenting on Forests NSW’s denial of allegations of breaches of environmental laws for protection of the Endangered Oxleyan Pygmy Perch, two Endangered Ecological Communities, Endangered plants and Koalas in logging operations in Wedding Bells State Forest, inland from Woolgoolga, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said:

“Over the past 18 months our audits have exposed systematic breaches of the licences and conditions Forests NSW are required to apply when logging public forests in north-east NSW.

“What we find most disturbing about Forests NSW’s denials is their refusal to admit and learn from their mistakes.  Because of this culture of denial they repeat the same breaches time and time again.

“This culture led Justice Pepper of the NSW Land and Environment Court to recently (8/06/2011) comment on Forests NSW that ‘the number of convictions suggests either a pattern of continuing disobedience in respect of environmental laws generally or, at the very least, a cavalier attitude to compliance with such laws’.

“NEFA is particularly concerned that Forests NSW rely upon inaction by the supposed regulators, Fisheries NSW and the Office of Environment and Heritage, to justify their culture of denial.

“Last year NEFA identified similar breaches of legal requirements to protect Endangered Oxleyan Pygmy Perch, an Endangered Ecological Community, Endangered plants and Koalas in logging operations in Doubleduke State Forest inland from Evans Head,

“We had these breaches verified by independent botanists and zoologists.  It took the Office of Environment and Heritage over six months to investigate our complaints.  The then Minister for the     Environment said that many of our complaints had been confirmed.  Yet a year after we first reported them the Office of Environment and Heritage are yet to take action on a single one of our confirmed breaches.  They keep telling us that they haven’t completed their investigations.

“Now Forests NSW are using the inaction of their Government colleagues as justification for denial of our complaints over Wedding Bells. It is apparent that until they are brought to account they will go on flouting NSW’s environmental laws.

“It is clear these breaches are both serious and systemic. Katrina Hodgkinson and Robyn Parker, Minister for the Environment, need to urgently instigate a full and independent inquiry into Forests NSW’s ongoing failure to implement the 1999 Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals and the ongoing failure of both Fisheries NSW and the Office of Environment and Heritage to ensure compliance with environmental laws,” Mr Pugh said.

Forests important part of solution to carbon pollution.

July 15th, 2011

MEDIA RELEASE 15 July 2011

The proposed tax on Carbon pollution must take into account the significant value of native forests for carbon storage, given the results of new research published in the journal Science yesterday that forests soak up to one third of the world’s emissions of Carbon dioxide.

NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said that there can be no doubt that NSW’s forests are part of the solution to climate change if we now stop woodchipping them and urgently reduce logging intensity.

“Logging of publicly owned native forests in NSW costs taxpayers between 8-14 million dollars a year in industry subsidies.  The over-commitment of resources to private companies has now become so chronic that forests NSW are rapidly increasing logging intensities and frequencies, and routinely breaching environmental laws, to extract every tree they can. This is rapidly depleting their carbon stores.

“Despite the over-logging the NSW Government can’t meet commitments and taxpayers are going to have to pay companies millions of dollars in compensation for not supplying the unrealistic annual volumes that were given to mill owners in 2004 for free by the previous Government.

“A 2008 study by the Australian National University on south-east Australia’s forests had already established that logging of natural forests reduces carbon storage by 40-60% and that it takes an average of 152 years to return to 90% of the original storage capacity.  The bigger the trees the more carbon they sequester and store.

“The study identified that south-east Australia’s native forests have the potential to sequester the equivalent of about a quarter of Australia’s 2005 CO2 emissions each year for the next 100 years if left alone.

“Logging of public native forests needs to be limited to high-value low-volume products and we need to urgently stop using them for low-value high-volume products like woodchips.  Allowing the existing carbon stocks of native forests to remain and increase over time is in the best economic interests of all NSW’s citizens.

“If we now allow logged forests to recover their natural structure they will reduce our CO2 emissions, help remove CO2 from the atmosphere, allow water yields to streams to increase over time and be a boon to our threatened native species.

“It is a win win for the NSW environment and economy” Mr. Pugh said..

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT DAILAN PUGH ON 66 807063.

A CSIRO PR of today on the recent research is at:

http://www.csiro.au/news/Forests-absorb-one-third-our-fossil-fuel-emissions.html

The article published yesterday is available at:

http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/who_is_who/pep_canadell.htm

The 2008 ANU study is available at: http://epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon_citation.html

Wedding Bells logging illegal, Inquiry urgently needed.

July 12th, 2011

MEDIA RELEASE 12 July 2011

Wedding_Bells_Supporting_Report

A North East Forest Alliance audit of logging operations in Wedding Bells State Forest, inland from Woolgoolga and north of Coffs Harbour, has revealed numerous and serious breaches of environmental laws designed to protect the Endangered Oxleyan Pygmy Perch, two Endangered Ecological Communities, Endangered plants and Koalas.

“There should be an immediate halt to logging in this forest, urgent rehabilitation of illegally logged streams and rainforest, and an inquiry into Forests NSW’s ongoing disregard for environmental laws,” said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.

“The most worrying aspect of this audit is that it confirms that over the past 12 years both Forests NSW and Fisheries NSW have failed to implement required measures to protect Endangered species, such as the Oxleyan Pygmy Perch.

“Forests NSW have also refused to duly consider Koalas in their planning processes and have been logging Koala habitat without taking any specific actions to minimise impacts on them.

“Our audit also identified that logging had occurred in two Endangered Ecological Communities.

“NEFA identified similar failings in Doubleduke State Forest last November and then again at Grange State Forest.  Despite the Environment Minister confirming some of our allegations, the Office of Environment and Heritage is yet to take any action to enforce the law,” he said.

“The evidence is that Forests NSW will not comply with the intent of environmental legislation unless they are forced to, and both Fisheries NSW and the Office of Environment and Heritage have proven themselves unwilling and incompetent regulators.

“The Minister for Primary Industries (Forestry and Fisheries), Katrina Hodgkinson, must immediately stop all logging in Wedding Bells State Forest until Endangered Ecological Communities have been clearly delineated for protection on the ground , the required Aquatic Habitat Assessments have been completed and measures implemented to protect headwater streams.

“It is clear these breaches are both serious and systemic. Katrina Hodgkinson and Robyn Parker, Minister for the Environment, need to urgently instigate a full and independent inquiry into Forests NSW’s ongoing failure to implement the 1999 Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals and the ongoing failure of both Fisheries NSW and the Office of Environment and Heritage to ensure compliance with environmental laws,” Mr Pugh said.

The 1999 Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals for north-east New South Wales were signed by the NSW Ministers for Planning, Forestry and Environment in 1999.  They included a variety of conditions to regulate forestry activities on public lands, including a Fisheries Licence to protect threatened fish, a Threatened Species Licence to protect threatened plants and animals and an Environmental Protection Licence to protect water quality in streams.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT DAILAN PUGH ON 66 807063.

The NEFA Audit Report for Wedding Bells is available at http://nefa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Wedding_Bells_Supporting_Report.pdf (It will open in a new window. Save that to keep a copy of the report.)

MINING CHANGES POSITIVE BUT DON’T GO FAR ENOUGH

May 23rd, 2011

Media Release, 23rd April 2011

The North East Forest Alliance has congratulated the NSW Minister for Planning on making some improvements in mining regulation in NSW, but say the transitional reforms still fall a long way short of what is needed.
“The reforms announced by Minister Hazzard on Saturday are a step forward, but they fall a long way short of the full moratorium on coal seam gas exploration and production which communities throughout NSW have been calling for” said Carmel Flint, co-ordinator of the North East Forest Alliance.
“This is only a moratorium on new exploration licences, not on new exploration. Exploration across the 25% of NSW where licences have already been granted will continue unchanged, and there will be no extra information provided to the public about that drilling before it occurs.
“Furthermore, the reforms appear to do nothing about coal seam gas production, and will presumably allow the Government to approve large new production projects if they so choose.
“The other major failing of the reforms is that they do nothing to protect high conservation value bushlands. Our State Forests and State Conservation Areas are increasingly being targeted by coal and gas companies, and this does nothing to protect them.
“The North East Forest Alliance is calling for a proper moratorium on all coal seam gas exploration and production in NSW and strong legal protections for bushland and native wildlife from the impacts of mining” Ms Flint said.

More information or comment, Carmel Flint on 0400 521474

Stakeholder Consultation for certification audit of Boral Timber Fibre Exports

May 17th, 2011

BORAL are trying to get their wood certified as Forest Stewardship Council ‘lite’ known as Controlled Wood. If successful they will be able to say that all logging on private and public land in NSW both native forests and plantations, is done without damage to ‘high conservation values’.

High Conservation Values include:

1.    Areas containing globally, regionally or nationally significant concentrations of biodiversity values (e.g., endemism, endangered species, refugia);

2.    Areas containing globally, regionally or nationally significant large landscape level forests, contained within, or containing the management unit, where viable populations of most if not all naturally occurring species exist in natural patterns of distribution and abundance;

3.    Areas that are in or contain rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems;

4.    Areas that provide basic services of nature in critical situations (e.g., watershed protection, erosion control);

5.    Areas fundamental to meeting basic needs of local communities (e.g., subsistence, health); or,

6.    Areas critical to local communities’ traditional cultural identity (areas of cultural, ecological, economic or religious significance identified in cooperation with such local communities).

As any observer of forestry practises in NSW would know. These values are not being respected or protected. In many areas they are being destroyed.

The certifying body Woodmark, (Soil Association) are seeking comment from stakeholders before deciding whether to award BORAL the light green tick.

You will find the two related documents linked below.

The file CA-CW-COC-007 etc contains a questionnaire. Please complete it and send it in to Woodmark. Send photos of some logging in your area as well. If you are sending your response by email please send us a copy too.
Submissions close June 13
You can email us at contact@nefa.org.au

Stakeholder Consultation for certification audit of Boral Timber Fibre Exports letter & email

CW risk assessment – Annex 3 BTFE April 2011