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.
