Governments host global nature conference while koala and greater glider homes are being logged

 

FOREST ALLIANCE NSW

Media

October 8 2024

 

The Forest Alliance NSW has restated calls to urgently end native forest logging in NSW to stem the decline of biodiversity in Australia.

The call comes as the Federal and State Environment Ministers host the Global Nature Positive Summit in Sydney over the next three days which aims to drive investment in nature and strengthen activities to protect and repair our environment.

 Justin Field from the Alliance said, “45 football fields a day of native forests are being logged in NSW including the homes of threatened species like the koala and greater glider. There is clear hypocrisy in asking for private investment to protect and restore nature while allowing and funding its destruction through native forest logging.”  

Susie Russell from the North Coast Environment Council said, “the NSW Government is currently logging their promised Great Koala National Park and the state owned logging company has been fined and reported for repeated illegal logging including in greater glider exclusion zones. The state and federal governments could act today and stop the destruction. They need to explain to summit delegates why they are failing to do so, when many other jurisdictions have already moved to protect their native forests.”

Steve Ryan from the Nature Conservation Council of NSW said “Australia is ashamedly a global leader in mammal extinctions. If Governments are serious about reversing the decline of nature and the loss of our beautiful animals, we need to stop allowing native forests to be logged.

Stuart Blanch from the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia (WWF-Australia) said, “forests need protection, timber workers need jobs, home buyers need more sustainable timber. Private investment in plantations can play a role to be sure, but native forest logging needs to end and that should be the starting point in a ‘nature positive’ plan.” 

Dr Sophie Scamps, Independent Federal MP for Mackellar said, “Australia needs to get serious about protecting our natural environment and our great Aussie bush. It isn’t rocket science. We could simply stop subsidising the logging of our native forests, it is a loss-making enterprise being propped up by taxpayer subsidies after all. Equally simple would be to end the exemption of native forest logging from our national environment laws.

 “If the Albanese Government was serious about being Nature Positive it would take these commonsense and simple steps. Instead the Albanese Government is pushing off responsibility for protecting our environment to the private sector without taking these critical first steps themselves," Dr Scamps said.  

 

Balance Needed in Independent Forestry Panel

North East Forest Alliance 

MEDIA RELEASE 27 August 2024

The North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) is concerned that the NSW Government’s recently announced Independent Forestry Panel is not independent and is calling for the appointment of a forest ecologist to provide some balance.

The three member Independent Forestry Panel can not be considered independent when Peter Duncan AM was once the Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Corporation and Mick Veitch was previously the ALP’s shadow Forestry Minister, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.

“We would welcome a truly independent and impartial review of logging of public native forests in NSW as the evidence is that it is neither economically nor ecologically sustainable.

“In 2022/23 the Forestry Corporation lost $15 million on its native forestry operations, costing the NSW Government $1,281 per hectare to log the homes of Koalas and Greater Gliders. In addition the Forestry Corporation was paid $31 million of taxpayer’s money for its community service obligations in 2022/23, while also receiving regular massive public handouts.  

“Logging increases the risk of extinction of many threatened species, reduces stream flows and inflows to regional water supplies, increases wildfire risks to local communities, spreads weeds, increases erosion, while reducing the carbon stored in forests and forests’ ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere” Mr Pugh said.

For north east NSW Blueprint Institute (2023) found that ending native forest logging in 2023–24, and instead utilising the land for carbon sequestration and tourism will deliver a net benefit valued at $45 million in present-day dollars. This includes the estimated cost of providing transitional packages to the industry as it shuts down, as well as the cost of breaking wood supply agreements that extend to 2028.

“NEFA considers that if the NSW Government was fair dinkum about undertaking an independent assessment they would ensure the assessment was undertaken by a balanced panel that will fairly deal with our evidence.

“The appointment of an independent ecologist could provide the balance needed” Mr. Pugh said.

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LOWLAND RAINFOREST RESTORATION

Lowland rainforest is listed as endangered and protected under the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act and also the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

Now, an epic five-year project to restore six dry rainforest remnants in the Chambigne area has just been successfully completed by the Clarence Environment Centre’s bush regeneration team, thanks to a $345,000 grant from the NSW Environmental Trust.

 Five of the project’s remnants are located on Clarence Valley Council’s “Rockview” property, part of the regional water supply’s land acquisition for the Shannon Creek dam, with the sixth remnant located in the adjoining Chambigne Nature Reserve.

All six had been under serious threat from invasive weeds, predominantly Lantana, which needed to be painstakingly removed to reduce disturbance. However, with work still to begin, the entire area was reduced to ashes in the 2019 bushfires.

While most of the remnants suffered significant damage, the fire, combined with the severe drought conditions at the time, actually killed much of the Lantana on the periphery and surrounding areas.

This led to a rethink, and the launch of an ambitious plan to expand one small quarter hectare remnant, across steep slopes and gullies, to measure more than 20 hectares.

Most of that area had once been rainforest but was cleared for grazing early last century. However, over the last 50 years or more it had been largely neglected, allowing it to become invaded by a variety of weeds with Lantana forming an almost impenetrable barrier.

The bushfire changed all that, consuming not only the Lantana, but most of the regenerating rainforest. However, it opened up the area for the weed team which has been able to keep on top of the weeds and allow nature to take over.

The natural regeneration that occurred was amazing, starting with a dense cover of Acacia, now standing over 5 metres and providing shade for a wide range of emerging rainforest trees and shrubs. 

The biggest challenge now is to keep fire out for a prolonged period and obtain ongoing funding to ensure the good work isn’t wasted.

 

-        John Edwards

 

 Published in the "Voices for the Earth" column in The Clarence Valley Independent , August 14, 2024.

GREATER GLIDERS THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION

 Greater Gliders, a nocturnal species and the world’s largest gliding marsupial, weigh up to 1.3 kg and are capable of gliding up to 100m through a forest. Once abundant in eucalypt forests throughout Queensland, NSW and Victoria, the species was federally listed as endangered in July 2022.  

Professor David Lindenmayer, a world-leading expert in forest ecology and biodiversity conservation, said recently, “Forty years ago when my colleagues and I did spotlighting surveys, the southern greater glider was the most common animal we’d see. Now, this amazing species is endangered. In many areas it is hard to find; in others it has been lost altogether.”

Glider populations declined by 80% in the last twenty years as a result of habitat destruction – including forest destruction, bushfires and climate change.  Gliders are amongst the range of species relying on tree hollows which can take over 100 years to develop.  So old growth forest provides the required habitat of large tree hollows where they shelter and breed.

Recently the role of NSW Forest Corporation (Forest Corp) logging in destroying endangered species habitat for Greater Gliders and Koalas has been highlighted with community members reporting numerous breaches of regulations which are supposed to offer some protection for these species.   Breaches in Styx River SF and Sheas Nob SF are amongst the latest reported.

Although the NSW Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has imposed fines on Forest Corp for breaches, environmentalists are concerned that the prosecutions and fines are not enough to bring Forest Corp into line and that effective action is needed from the Environment Minister and Premier to stop the habitat destruction.

One of the community groups campaigning to stop forest destruction is the Blicks River Guardians which last Friday at Billys Creek celebrated 150 days of saving the Greater Gliders in Clouds Creek SF.  The Guardians have identified over 40 gliders to date in bushfire impacted older forests along Billys Creek and the Blicks River in areas scheduled for industrial logging by Forest Corp.

Campaigners like the Guardians are urging people to call for effective Government action to stop the destruction.

-        Leonie Blain

Published in the "Voices for the Earth" column in The Clarence Valley Independent , August 7, 2024.

 

POLES APART

A minor furor has just erupted causing North Coast politicians to come out in support of the beleaguered timber industry yet again.

This time it’s over the decision by Essential Energy to replace timber power poles with more fire-resistant synthetic poles.

While the debate rages over the economic loss incurred by the industry versus the never-ending cost of replacing rotting, termite-ridden, and burned-out wooden poles, incurred by consumers, the common-sense solution of putting the lines underground, receives little support.

 The official response to calls for power lines to be relocated underground is that it’s too costly. Energy providers argue that overhead lines are easier to repair, resulting in faster power restoration after outages. This argument appeases consumers but ignores the fact that underground cables are far less prone to the most common cause of disruptions, extreme weather events. It also ignores the fact that the frequency and intensity of those extreme events, including bushfires, are increasing and will continue to increase with climate change.

One factor supporting the underground option is the routine maintenance cost of overhead lines, a figure I couldn't find. However, Essential Energy’s 2022-23 annual report revealed some eye-opening facts. They conducted over 297,000 pole inspections, 67,830 drone flights along 32,000km of powerline, with over 830,000 inspection photos taken, and presumably analysed.

As well, vegetation was removed from almost 187,000 spans of powerline, removing more than 20,000 hazard trees, with a further 9,991 spans inspected for bushfire-related vegetation maintenance.

During that same financial year 7,638 poles were replaced along with more than 15,000 wooden cross-arms.

The cost is clearly phenomenal, but despite all of that, Essential still reported 24,657 unplanned power outages during that period, placing considerable doubt over the cost-effectiveness of that maintenance program.

More than half of the ACT’s power network is underground, much of it planned when the city was founded a hundred years ago. So clearly it can be done.

 No one seriously advocates for the immediate placement of all power underground, but surely it should be considered in the planning for all new developments.

 

-        John Edwards

  Published in the "Voices for the Earth" column in The Clarence Valley Independent , July 3, 2024.