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.