PROBLEMS WITH CLOUDS CREEK STATE FOREST LOGGING

Earlier this month a protest gathering in the Clouds Creek State Forest was attended by local residents, political candidates, and representatives from local environment and community groups. The action was called to protest Forest Corp's plan to log the forest early in 2019, including use of “intensive single tree selection” (aka virtual clear-fell).

Clouds Creek's forests are some the most fertile in NSW, supporting tall wet sclerophyll and rainforest communities which, unfortunately, have experienced dreadful over-logging for many decades. Old stumps measuring upwards of 2 metres diameter indicate what used to be, but today trees greater than 700mm are a rarity, with only widely scattered old or deformed trees remaining which were unsuitable for timber.

As part of the Regional Forests Agreement, signed in 2000, all rainforest and old-growth forest was mapped and protected. However, immediately prior to the signing, and knowing those old-growth forests would be “locked up”, the then Forests NSW moved into Clouds Creek and absolutely decimated them.

Protestors at the time managed to blockade and save some areas that are now part of the Nymboi-Binderay National Park, but much of the old growth was lost in that 1999 blitz.

In 2010 to 2012, Forests NSW returned for another round of harvesting, this time supposedly legally, but still managed to interpret the clause calling for a maximum 20% basal area logging rate, to allow rates as high as 80%, which after the trampling and destruction of smaller vegetation by industrial logging machines, is virtually clear-felling.

Following that old-growth logging episode, Koalas which were relatively common in the mid1990s, judging by the fauna surveys undertaken at the time, were found to be virtually non-existent in a 2017 survey conducted by the Office of Environment and Heritage.

Another previously common forest resident, the Greater Glider which was recently added to the threatened species list, also could not be found during the 2018 pre-harvest survey by Forests Corp.

With Government planning to extend the Agreements for another 20 years, and more logging planned, is it any wonder residents and the broader community are appalled by what is happening,

            - John Edwards

This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on January 28, 2019. 

IS NSW FORESTRY MANAGEMENT ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE?

The historic Forest Agreements were signed in 1999, but has the Integrated Forest Operations Approval (IFOA) achieved its stated objective of meeting the principles of Ecologically Sustainable Forest Management (ESFM)? The official evidence shows it has not.

The Auditor General's “2009 Performance Audit”  stated “native forest managed by Forests NSW (FNSW) is being cut faster than it is growing back”, and “current yield from native forests is not sustainable in the long term”.

Over-logging has seriously negative flow-on effects for biodiversity, conservation of which is pivotal to meeting ESFM principles.

By 2012, none of the required 5 yearly reviews of the IFOA had been undertaken. The 2009 Final Report on “Progress with Implementation of NSW RFAs” found FNSW's performance in delivering biodiversity outcomes in logged forests, could not be measured. That report identified  an, “absence of any real comparative data on this issue”, adding this “makes it virtually impossible to determine whether there is improvement or not”.

Boral's failure to obtain Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) accreditation in 2013, shows the FSC believed logging processes carried out by FNSW harmed high conservation values, i.e. endangered species and communities.

One glaring example of FNSW’s duty of care failure, is their continued release of harvest plans calling for high intensity logging rates, which they know triggers the devastating Bell Miner Associated Dieback (BMAD), which threatens eucalypt forests across NSW. (FNSW was represented on the BMAD Scientific Working Group which nominated the disease as a Key Threatening Process.)

The Final Report acknowledged that the EPA's compliance monitoring and enforcement had “attracted considerable and largely adverse comment from submitters”, recommending the need “to give priority to audit and compliance activity, and that auditing be closely scrutinised as part of the NSW Review”.

A 2014 inquiry into the EPA's (Environment Protection Authority) performance found the agency had repeatedly failed in this regard.  It has been rewarded by the Government with a significant boost to its operating budget. However, the EPA is currently working on an IFOA “remake” which will eliminate many of the biodiversity protections they were previously supposed to enforce. Threatened species are the big losers.

-          J Edwards

 This post was originally published in the "Voices for the Earth" column in The Daily Examiner on 31 August, 2015

NSW STATE FORESTS LOGGING KOALA HIGH USE AREAS

Forests NSW have shown yet again that it is incapable of following legal requirements to protect biodiversity in the forests owned by the people of NSW.

Forests NSW are allowing  logging in Koala High Use Areas  in Royal Camp State Forest, 16 km south-west of Casino in northern NSW.  This is despite the fact that logging is prohibited within 20 metres of Koala High Use Areas.

This is yet another breach that the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA)  has identified in this area.( For detailed information see NEFA website.)

NEFA has already appealed several times to NSW Government Ministers to implement the law to stop the illegal logging in Koala High Use Areas.  They have again appealed to ministers (Robyn Parker, Minister for the Environment, and Katrina Hodgkinson, Minister for Primary Industries) to take action.

While those concerned about the protection of this iconic threatened species can hope that these politicians will at last take their responsibilities seriously and bring Forests NSW into line, the past records of both Parker and Hodgkinson indicate that this is unlikely.