On International Day of Forests it is essential that we recognise that forests support our civilisation, climate and biodiversity. Forests are under unprecedent threat due to increasing droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and floods. At the very time we need them to take our carbon out of the atmosphere and store it safely in their wood and soils, and to mitigate flooding by storing and slowing the water during extreme rainfall events.

Big old trees are awesome, hundreds of years old, towering 8-12 stories high, apartment complexes for hollow-dependent animals with larders for Koalas, gliders, possums and a multitude of honeyeaters.

Forests improve our health, generate rainfall, cool the land, regulate streamflows, sequester and store carbon, reduce flood risk by storing water and slowing flows, reduce landslips by reinforcing soils, and support most of our biodiversity.

Logging Rapidly Smashing Braemar and Myrtle State Forests

Posted by Dailan Pugh · February 11, 2024 11:50 AM

GREATER GLIDERS… are Great

Posted by Sean O'Shannessy · February 10, 2024 7:45 AM

CLOUDS CREEK GREATER GLIDER SANCTUARY DECLARED

Posted by Meredith Stanton · February 10, 2024 7:43 AM

MEDIA RELEASE 30 January 2022

Scott Morrison announcement of $50 million for Koalas is a smokescreen to cover-up his Government’s approval for increased logging and clearing of Koala habitat, while allowing climate heating to run amok, threatening the future of both Koalas and the Great Barrier Reef, according to the North East Forest Alliance.

“Without good policies on habitat protection and climate change no amount of money will save Koalas, said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.

“If Scott Morrison was fair dinkum about protecting Koala habitat the first thing he would do is to stop their feed and roost trees being logged and cleared. Money is no good for Koalas if they have nowhere to live.

“The second is to take urgent and meaningful action on climate heating, as Koalas and their feed trees have already been decimated by intensifying droughts and heatwaves in western NSW, and bushfires in coastal areas.

“If the Morrison Government doesn’t take urgent action on climate heating then neither Koalas nor the Great Barrier Reef will have a future.

The imminent rebooting of the mothballed Redbank Power Station with wood (biomass) from NSW’s native forests will make it Australia’s most polluting power station and an existential threat to the future of our children and wildlife.

Hunter Energy is currently seeking expressions of interest for timber from north of Grafton, West of Dubbo and South of Batemans Bay to fuel their Redbank Power Station, with plans to restart the facility in mid 2021 fed by native forests to make it one of world’s ten biggest biomass power plants.

The community needs to urgently speak up to stop the NSW and Commonwealth Governments from allowing this environmental disaster.

Please sign onto our campaign below as a first step to keep our forests standing.

History

The North East Forest Alliance was formed in 1989 as an alliance of groups and individuals from throughout north-east NSW, with the principal aims of protecting rainforest, oldgrowth, wilderness and threatened species. NEFA has pursued these goals through forest blockades, rallies, court cases, submissions, lobbying, and protracted negotiations. Read the history of our first blockade at North Washpool in 1989.

After our second blockade of North Washpool and a court case we stopped logging of mapped rainforest on public lands in 1990. We managed to get rainforest more fully mapped and protected during forest negotiations from 1995-98. (see A Short History of Reserves in North East NSW)

After a blockade and court case over Chaelundi in 1990, and promises of more to come, we forced the NSW Government to establish moratoria over some 180,000 ha of oldgrowth forest until EISs were prepared. We managed to get oldgrowth mapped during forest negotiations from 1995-98, with mapped “high conservation value” oldgrowth protected. In 2003 we had protection extended to cover all mapped oldgrowth stands over 10ha on public land. Wilderness on public land was also protected as part of that process. (see A Short History of Reserves in North East NSW)

After our second and biggest blockade at Chaelundi in 1991, and another court case, we were successful in getting NSW’s first threatened species legislation, the Endangered Fauna (Interim Protection) Act. It took many more blockades, submissions and negotiations to get requirements for fauna and flora surveys and a comprehensive set of prescriptions for public land in 1996-9. Unfortunately they remain inadequate and poorly applied. (see The Battle to Protect Threatened Species)

It took NEFA’s 1992 blockade of a logging operation at Killekrankie in the New England Wilderness to halt horrendous logging and roadworks that were causing massive erosion, and a threatened court case, to force the Government to agree to adopt Pollution Control Licences for State Forests’ operations. Though a comprehensive suite of prescriptions to reduce erosion and protect streams wasn’t finally applied on public lands until 1996-9. Inadequate as they are, the Forestry Corporation was successful in having over 90% of their operations exempted in 2004. (see The Battle to Protect Soils and Streams)

For north east NSW, NEFA were also instrumental in getting the area of national parks and other conservation reserves increased from 968,335ha in 1989 to 2,033,227ha in 2011, an increase of 1,064,892 ha or 110%, with most of this being protected over the period 1995 to 2004. In addition to this, 311,615 ha of State Forest was incorporated into Forest Management Zones (FMZ 1, 2, and 3A) and Special Management Zones which are counted as contributing to the reserve system and protected from logging, bringing the total protected from logging to 1,376,507ha. The proportion of north-east NSW’s land area in reserves has increased from 10% in 1989 to 21% in 2011, with an additional 3% protected from logging in management zones. (see A Short History of Reserves in North East NSW)

There is still a lot to do, north east NSW still does not have an adequate reserve system, attempts to implement ecologically sustainable forestry have failed, forests are being over-logged, weeds and dieback are being spread through our forests, and their carbon stocks depleted.

NEFA makes submissions to the NSW Government on a wide range of issues affecting our forests. These detailed submissions can be found using the hyperlinks to the relevant topics below.

NEFA Submission to the Independent Forestry Panel

We now have a chance to stop logging of public native forests in NSW. The time for submissions to the Independent Forestry Panel closed on October 13 2024. Now the emphasis is on lobbying politicians, particularly Premier Minns, to act. Here is NEFA's submission:

NEFA Submission to the Independent Forestry Panel

NEFA Submission to Kyogle Council proposal to no longer require consent for logging

Kyogle Council recently admitted that there are 133 illegal Private Native Forestry Operations that have not submitted Development Applications to seek consent. Their solution is to remove consent requirements from their LEP so that loggers only need to comply with the tick-a-box Local Land Services process where threatened species are not required to be looked for and protected, where impacts on the local amenity, communities and infrastructure are not considered and where their plans are secret and the community has no say. 

NEFA Submission to Kyogle Forestry Planning Proposal

NEFA submission on EIS for proposed modification of the Redbank Power Station in the Hunter Valley to burn wood from landclearing instead of coal

Verdant Earth Technologies Limited is proposing on restarting the disused Redbank Power Station near Singleton by burning 850,000 tonnes of biomass from native forests each year. The original intent was to obtain the biomass from intensified logging operations, now they are saying it will mostly come from landclearing.  If this gets approved it will herald a new wave of clearing and environmental destruction as vast areas of native forests are burnt for electricity under the pretense that its clean energy because the millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide released doesn’t exist.

Redbank EIS April 2024

NEFA submissions on proposed modification of the Redbank Power Station in the Hunter Valley to burn wood instead of coal

On behalf of NEFA, Dailan Pugh has made 3 submissions on the proposed biomass (wood) fired Redbank Power Station in the Hunter Valley. Singleton Council exhibited the documents 3 times, each with new information. This development is a major threat to our region's forests. The power plant will burn a million tonnes of wood a year, much of it from native forests.

You can read the submissions here:

June 2021

September 2021

December 2021

NEFA Submission on the Local Land Services (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Here is a short extract from our submission. Prepared by Dailan Pugh, February 2021

To read the full submission click here.

North East Forest Alliance Submission to NSW Bushfire Inquiry

Prepared by Dailan Pugh, April 2020

Due to climate heating bushfires are becoming more frequent and intense. As evidenced in 2019-20, droughts and heatwaves are drying forests out and making them more flammable. The fires were of unprecedented extent burning through 2.4 million hectares of north-east NSW with unprecedented intensity, as evidenced by the burning of 35% of rainforests. The fires likely killed in the order of 350 million vertebrates, leaving many species teetering on the brink of extinction. The situation is dire and urgent action is needed to stop further climatic deterioration and increase the resilience of forests.

To redress the unfolding calamity we need to move towards net zero emissions of CO₂ as soon as possible, though we cannot limit climate heating to less than 1.5^o or 2^o C unless our forests remove excess carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their wood and soils. Clearing of native vegetation must cease, right now. Stoping logging of public native forests is a logical next step as the regenerating forests will store ever increasing volumes of carbon as they age and fulfil the essential role of immediately reducing atmospheric carbon - stoping logging of north-east NSW's State Forests will sequester 6.5% of NSW's annual emissions. By 2050 we need to have undertaken extensive regeneration and reforestation to draw down more atmospheric carbon. Huge gains can be made by rewarding landholders for the volumes of carbon they store in soils and trees.

We need our forests more than ever, not just because of their intrinsic worth and beauty, but for the ecosystem services they provide us, such as generating rainfall, cooling the land, calming winds, regulating streamflows, and capturing and storing the carbon we emit. With forests increasingly stressed by droughts and fires they are losing their ability to mop up our excess carbon - there is no time to waste if we want to avoid the worst of the climate catastrophe.

Click on this link to read the full NEFA submission.

North East Forest Alliance Submission to Private Native Forestry Review

Prepared by Dailan Pugh, January 2019

It is evident that Private Native Forestry has never been undertaken on an Ecologically Sustainable basis because of political interventions, lack of political will, opposition from some landholders, failure to adopt best practices, refusal to adopt science-based prescriptions and consider relevant environmental research, refusal to require pre-logging surveys and apply mitigation measures for threatened species, inadequate retention and recruitment of old trees, failure to undertake assessments to identify ecosystems and features requiring protection, inadequate protection of streams and riparian buffers, failure to take into account forest degradation and require rehabilitation, failure to monitor the effectiveness of prescriptions and apply adaptive management, failure to undertake effective regulation, secrecy surrounding PNF operations, and contempt for genuine community concerns.

Click on this link to read the full NEFA submission.

You can visit the LLS Government site here: https://www.lls.nsw.gov.au/sustainable-land-management/pnforestry/private-native-forestry-review-2018

See also the report immediately below which formed the basis of a submission to a Commonwealth Senate Inquiry into Threatened Species.

Compliance of Forestry Operations in North East New South Wales with Commonwealth Requirements for Threatened Species and Ecosystems September 2018

This report reviews the protection applied both in theory and practice to nationally threatened species and ecological communities in forestry operations in the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement (NE RFA) area.

North East Forest Alliance submission to:

Photo: Dailan Pugh giving evidence to the Inquiry into the EPA's regulation of forestry practices at Royal Camp State Forest

North East Forest Alliance Submission to the Federal Inquiry into: The effectiveness of threatened species and ecological communities' protection in Australia, Prepared by Dailan Pugh for NEFA, December 2012

North East Forest Alliance submission to the Federal Inquiry into the Australian forestry industry, Dailan Pugh, North East Forest Alliance, March 2011

Sandy Creek National Park Proposal

World Heritage Listing

The outstanding natural universal values of north-east NSW’s rainforests have long been recognised, though have only been partially protected for political reasons. As noted by the Department of the Environment (2014):

Although rainforests cover only about 0.3 per cent of Australia, they contain about half of all Australian plant families and about a third of Australia's mammal and bird species. The Gondwana Rainforests have an extremely high conservation value and provide habitat for more than 200 rare or threatened plant and animal species. The distributional limits of several species and many centres of species diversity occur in the property. The Border Group is a particularly rich area with the highest concentration of frog, snake, bird and marsupial species in Australia.

Since 1986 rainforest has been added to the World Heritage List in an incremental political process, with Governments only willing to add rainforests protected through other processes. There are still numerous qualifying rainforests protected over 1995-2003 that are yet to be added, and the commitment to incorporate eucalypt forests with universal values by 2002 has yet to be progressed.

In order to entrench the protection of national parks created as an outcome of the 1982 Rainforest Decision, the ‘Subtropical and Temperate Rainforests of Eastern Australia’ were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1986 for their outstanding natural universal values:

• as an outstanding example representing major stages of the earth's evolutionary history

• as an outstanding example representing significant ongoing geological processes and biological evolution

• containing important and significant habitats for the in situ conservation of biological diversity.

When a renomination was being proposed in the early 1990’s NEFA proposed a greatly expanded property based on protecting rainforest, oldgrowth and wilderness. Our proposal was ignored. In 1994 Queensland reserves, along with Oxley Wild Rivers National Park (93,220ha) and 16 generally small and disjunct flora reserves on state forests in NSW, were added to the renamed Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves of Australia.

The NSW and Commonwealth Governments initially committed to undertake an assessment of World Heritage values as part of the Comprehensive Regional Assessment process. The outcome was meant to be a renomination to complete the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves of Australia.  A World Heritage Expert Panel identified that World Heritage values of north-east NSW’s forests related to rainforest and Eucalyptus dominated vegetation, with supporting values including representation of passive marginal swells and Aboriginal ceremonial sites.

The required assessment of the values was not done. The March 1999 Forest Agreements committed NSW to undertake studies of rainforest and to nominate additional qualifying areas of reserves for World Heritage Listing as extensions by 1 April 2001. They also agreed to identify qualifying eucalypt and Aboriginal dreaming sites by 2002. In 2007 the name of the world heritage property was changed to Gondwana Rainforests of Australia.

In 2009 the rainforest assessment was finally undertaken, though other values were not considered. In 2010 the NSW, Queensland and the Commonwealth Governments submitted a Tentative List of 459,739 ha of NSW national parks to the World Heritage Centre which were proposed, along with Queensland reserves, for future nomination as additions to the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage area on the basis of rainforest values.

No further progress has been made. There has still been no assessment of the values of Eucalyptus dominated vegetation, passive marginal swells or Aboriginal ceremonial sites. An expansion of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage property will increase recognition of these reserves’ values, provide another layer of protection, attract tourists, and require the Commonwealth to assist in management costs. It is long overdue. (see Assessing World Heritage Values)

Global Warming

It is already apparent that global warming is affecting our climate and will go on doing so into the foreseeable future. Aside from the environmental costs, there are significant social and economic consequences. The sooner we start reducing our emissions the better.

Irrespective of what we now do, we have already locked in ongoing warming for decades to come. Anticipating and adapting to inevitable climatic changes is essential to minimise future costs

The climate changes already initiated by global warming are having significant impacts on our forests and their inhabitants. As climate change accelerates it will have profound and dramatic consequences (see North East NSW expected climate changes).

Across Australia droughts and rising temperatures are putting forests and woodlands under increasing stress. Stressed trees are more vulnerable to insect and fungal attack, and many are dying. In extensive areas the remnant the big old trees, so vital for animal’s food and homes, are dying out.

In north-east NSW large swathes of forest are being affected by dieback apparently being aggravated by climate change (see: Logging Dieback), while in rural landscapes on the northern rivers Forest Red Gums are rapidly deteriorating. Undoubtedly there are numerous other changes occurring that are not being documented.

As heat waves become more intense animals too become stressed, in extreme events animals may just drop out of the trees dead. Hundreds of thousands of flying foxes died in heatwaves in 2014 across eastern Australian, with 5,000 being killed at just one site at Casino.

Many plants and animals have climatic tolerances beyond which they can not survive. As the climate changes they are being forced to track the changes. If they are unable to move due to inhospitable barriers, or if they run out of suitable habitat, they die.

Increases in extreme weather events are causing more frequent extreme fire weather and thus fires. As fires become more frequent and intense they are causing a change in forest structure and species. These impacts are being accentuated by burning-off and clearing for fire breaks. As fire intensity increase so too does the risk of tree dwelling animals being burnt alive.

Many plants can only regenerate from seeds and take more than a decade to mature, flower and seed. Often a single fire can result in the death of all mature individuals. If the regrowth is burnt before it matures there is no seed left for regeneration. Too frequent fires are causing the loss of some species from large areas. Vast swathes of Alpine Ash forests in the Snowy Mountains have already been eliminated by too frequent wildfires.

Rainforests are particularly vulnerable to fire. In north east New South Wales the increasing frequency of extreme fires will eat into rainforest margins and eliminate many smaller stands. Impacts are being exasperated by logging of buffer areas promoting weeds and making them more fire prone.

Disturbances, such as logging, destabilise and degrade ecosystems, increasing their vulnerability to climate change. We need to build resilience back into our forests by restoring natural processes and ecosystem functions to better enable them to resist the consequences of climate change.

Allowing forests to regrow and recover allows them to sequester and store significant volumes of carbon. What is good for the forests is also good for us. (see Carbon Storage)

North East NSW expected climate changes

Carbon Storage

Sequestering and Storing Carbon in Forests

Logging Dieback

Logging Dieback is the dominant form of Bell Miner Associated Dieback affecting forests in northeast NSW.  Bell Miner Associated Dieback (BMAD) is spreading through our forests as a consequence of logging opening the canopy and promoting understorey dominance by lantana. It is principally a problem of wet forests and gullies, though is increasingly affecting surrounding forests subject to lantana invasion. For over two decades the Forestry Corporation have intentionally procrastinated over the causes and management of BMAD so that they can go on logging affected and susceptible stands. (see The Battle to Redress Logging Dieback)

March 2018: Dailan Pugh has reviewed the extent and effect of Bell Miner Associated Dieback (BMAD) on the NSW section of the Border Ranges (North and South), one of Australia's 15 Biodiversity Hotspots and part of one of the world's 36 Biodiversity Hotspots. These forests are recognised as being of World Heritage Value.

Read the Review: Killing Our Forests with Their Songs

Read an earlier NEFA report For Whom the Bell Miners Toll.

The causes of logging dieback continues to be debated but many scientists agree that logging and weed invasion are the primary causes of logging dieback. (see The Causes of Logging Dieback).

Carbon Storage

Forests are the lungs of the earth. They play a vital role in sequestering and storing carbon. Carbon storage has been significantly diminished in vast areas of NSW’s forests due to logging. As trees grow their carbon storage increases. By simply stopping logging of regrowth forests will allow trees to mature and increase their carbon storage.  (See: Sequestering and Storing Carbon in Forests)

Protecting degraded forests is part of the solution to climate change, continued logging is part of the problem.  Allowing regrowth forests to mature will avoid significant releases of CO₂ and allow carbon to be sequestered and stored in the tree trunks and soils of the regenerating forests. The regenerating forests will continue to store carbon in ever increasing volumes as they mature over decades and centuries.

Climate change represents a significant environmental, economic and social cost to the people of NSW. Increasing carbon storage in forests and avoiding emissions represents a significant economic benefit to all people in NSW.

Global Warming

Burning Our Forests