North East Forest Alliance

MEDIA RELEASE – 6 May 2012

The North East Forest Alliance have again called on the NSW Minister for the Environment and Minister for Primary Industries to stop illegal logging of Rufous Scub-bird habitat in Styx River State Forest, east of Armidale, and instigate an independent inquiry following revelations that Forests NSW have fraudulently ignored their own records of the Rufous Scrub-bird and falsely claimed that suitable habitat does not exist.

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 to the age of the dinosaurs that is now threatened with extinction due to burning and logging of its habitat.

North East Forest Alliance spokesperson Dailan Pugh said that conservation groups have now organised two site inspections by independent experts and written to the Ministers for the Environment and Primary Industries three times presenting evidence and asking for them to urgently stop the illegal logging of the habitat of this threatened species.

“Despite this illegal logging being reported to the new Crown Forestry division of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on March 9 it wasn’t until last Friday, 4 May, almost 2 months later, that the EPA organised their own expert assessment that confirmed our claims that habitat of the threatened Rufous Scrub-bird is indeed being burnt and logged

“We first wrote to the Ministers on the 17 April asking them to urgently intervene to stop the illegal logging, while we still have had no reply, the logging has continued unabated.

“Forests NSW’s Threatened Species Licence requires that all suitable habitat within 320 metres of records of the Rufous Scrub-bird must be protected from logging and burning.

“There is now evidence that Forests NSW deliberately omitted 10 of their own records of the Rufous Scrub-bird from their planning documents and certified that the records did not exist.  They then falsely claimed that suitable habitat did not exist in the area, before targeting the habitat in a pre-logging burn and commencing logging it.

“The EPA’s belated site inspection on Friday confirmed what the experts we engaged have been telling the Government for the past month, that is that suitable habitat for the Rufous Scrub-bird remains despite much of it being destroyed. Unfortunately, aside from being asleep at the wheel, the EPA is a toothless tiger that is unable to place Stop Work Orders on Forests NSW.

“We have also identified to the Ministers other threatened species which have not been appropriately protected and numerous other breaches of Forests NSW’s Threatened Species Licence in this area which are yet to be investigated by EPA.

“The Ministers must now uphold our threatened species laws and stop this rogue Government agency from openly flouting the law and continuing to illegally log the habitat of the Rufous Scrub-bird.  They must immediately stop the logging while the matter is fully investigated and legal action taken against Forests NSW”,

“We know that Forests NSW are desperate for timber to try to satisfy gross over-commitments, but NSW Government Ministers must stop condoning illegal logging to get it” Mr. Pugh said.

Letter to Environment and Forestry Ministers_1May2012

Letter to Environment and Forestry Ministers_30April2012

Letter to Environment and Forestry Ministers_17April2012

FOR COMMENT: Dailan Pugh 66 807063.

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

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.

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

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.)