Local Members Asked to Repudiate Attempts to Open Up National Parks for Logging and Shooting

Posted on 22/04/2012 by Susie

MEDIA RELEASE 21 April 2012

The North East Forest Alliance says the decision of the NSW Legislative Council to inquire into the past conversion of crown lands and state forests in northern NSW into national parks appears to have the intent of paving the way for the opening up of National Parks for logging and shooting under the guise of “sustainable use”.

NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said that “all national parks in northern NSW are up for grabs, though we expect the Coalition will be targeting the 50% of national parks created since they were last in power.

“The fact that the inquiry is chaired by the Shooters and Fishers Party and dominated by the Coalition leaves little doubt that the outcome has been pre-determined.

“There is currently a timber supply crisis in northern NSW. In 2004 the Labor Government gave 20 year guarantees of large sawlogs from state forests to millers at levels that simply did not exist.

“The Government has not been able to provide the committed volumes any year since and the situation is rapidly worsening, with only 60% of commitments supplied last year. The Government has already had to buy back commitments and compensate millers, and are now liable for massive compensation payouts.

“It is now becoming apparent why the Coalition Government has not heeded our call to reduce timber commitments. They appear to have a different solution.

“The National Party was well aware of the supply crisis before the election and some members expressed their preference for opening up national parks for logging, though the Coalition denied they had any intent to do so.

“The Government should be urgently reducing logging down to sustainable levels rather than removing the protection afforded to national parks.

“The Nationals need to realise that the community has moved on and no longer accepts the widespread logging of rainforests, oldgrowth forests, wilderness and threatened species habitat that occurred when they were last in power.

“We are calling on people to contact their local State Government member and ask them for personal commitments that they will not support the revoking of national parks or opening them up for logging and shooting” Mr. Pugh said.

Posted on 18/04/2012 by Susie

Conservation groups have written to the NSW Minister for the Environment and Minister for Primary Industries asking them to take urgent action to stop illegal logging of Rufous Scub-bird habitat in Styx River State Forest, east of Armidale, and instigate an independent inquiry.

The Rufous Scrub-bird is a small secretive understorey bird of highland wet forests in north-east NSW. It is a living fossil with a lineage dating back 97 to 65 million years but is now listed as vulnerable to extinction, with burning and logging recognised as primary threats.

North East Forest Alliance Spokesperson Dailan Pugh said that in 2007 a Forests NSW ecologist saw Rufous Scrub-birds at 7 locations in compartment 502 of Styx River State Forest.

“Forests NSW identified these records as extremely reliable and they were included in NSW’s Wildlife Atlas.

“Forests NSW’s Threatened Species Licence requires that all suitable habitat within 320 metres of such records must be protected from logging and management burns.

“When a local conservationist inspected the area in March he was shocked to find that Forests NSW had burnt the bird’s habitat and were in the process of logging it. When he checked their logging plans he found that all the records of the Rufous Scrub-birds had been deleted” Mr. Pugh said.

North Coast Environment Council President Susie Russell said she had met with the regional forester about the issue. “I was told that when planning the current logging Forests NSW questioned their ecologist about his records and decided that he had erroneously identified a common bird for the Rufous Scrub-bird.

“In an astounding move, apparently without undertaking new surveys, Forests NSW then attempted to delete all records made by their ecologist and proceeded to ignore both the records of the Rufous Scrub-bird and the mapped habitat in their planning process.

“We know that Forests NSW are desperate for timber and it seems they are prepared to go to any length, including breaching their licence conditions, to obtain it” Ms Russell said.

Clarence Environment Centre spokesperson, John Edwards, said that in response to Forests NSW’s claims that no suitable habitat existed in the area, he organised a visit to the area by two experienced ornithologists.

“Contrary to Forests NSW’s claims, both experts agreed that there are extensive areas of ideal habitat for the Rufous Scrub-bird and that it appeared that logging areas would have been good habitat prior to being trashed.

“Conservationists are dismayed that despite it being over a month since blatantly illegal logging of the habitat of a threatened species was reported to the new Environmental Protection Authority they have failed to undertake a proper investigation and refused to stop the logging.

“We have therefore appealed to the responsible Government Ministers to immediately stop the logging while an independent inquiry into this sordid affair is undertaken” Mr. Edwards said.

NEFA Welcomes Prosecution of Forests NSW

Posted on 17/10/2011 by Susie

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

Inquiry into Forests NSW urgently needed.

Posted on 22/07/2011 by Susie

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.

Stakeholder Consultation for certification audit of Boral Timber Fibre Exports

Posted on 17/05/2011 by Susie

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

Old Growth Forests: Now you see ‘em, Now you don’t!

Posted on 03/09/2010 by Susie

Media Release September 1, 2010

New figures obtained through NSW Parliament show that the Department of Environment has approved at least 7,898 hectares of Oldgrowth Forests for logging in northern NSW over a 3 year period.

This follows on from news that the Department intends to allow industrial logging in Endangered Ecological Communities throughout NSW.

“Oldgrowth Forests are the very best habitats for many of our most unique animals, which need old trees to make their nests and take shelter,” said Susie Russell, NCEC Vice-President.

“These new figures provided to Parliament show that 5,265 football fields of oldgrowth forests have been approved for logging by the Environment Department every year for the last three years.

“The Department of Environment is taking areas of oldgrowth that were mapped by the NSW Government and under pressure from landholders who want to log them, deciding they’re not oldgrowth after all.

“The Department should be putting protection of the environment first, and it is clear from these figures that they are not.

“They are no longer operating as a conservation agency but are instead behaving as a forestry agency. They seem to have mistaken their role. They are facilitating industrial logging in northern NSW, instead of protecting the environment.

“These alarming figures should immediately cause changes to the process of logging approvals – the loopholes which allow these areas to be ‘re-assessed’ by the department and opened up for logging should now be closed.

“We are asking the NSW Government to put an immediate end to this flawed ‘re-assessment’ process that is destroying oldgrowth forests at such a rapid rate,” Ms Russell said.

North East Forest Alliance

Protecting oldgrowth forests in NE NSW for over 21years

Author Archives: Susie