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.
Forest Slaughter
There is a new threat to our public native forests: an extreme clear fell logging proposal.
The new logging licences currently being negotiated by the Forestry Corporation and the Environment Protection Authority, known at the IFOA or Integrated Forestry Operations Approval, are a major step backwards for our forests. They want to zone 150,000 hectares of public forests from Grafton to Taree into an intensive logging zone where clear felling is the norm. North of Grafton and south of Taree the plan is for a massive intensification of logging.
Only a few trees will be required to be protected. This would turn these public native forests into pseudo-plantations, drying up streams and devastating wildlife habitat. The koala and 32 other animal species that are threatened with extinction will be seriously affected.
In the Clarence and Richmond catchments the proposed new rules will see thousands of hectares of stream side forest and threatened species habitat become available for logging.
Dailan Pugh has done a detailed analysis of the impacts. The full report can be found here:
New_IFOA_Changes_in_Forest_Protection-Clarence_Richmond.pdf
We now need to spread the word about this. Standby for campaign actions and be ready to write submissions opposing it when the new IFOA is put on public exhibition.
Submissions
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 on the Local Land Services (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill
Here is a short extract from our submission. Prepared by Dailan Pugh, February 2021
So here we are, in Koala’s darkest hour we are back to discussing how disgracefully the Government intended to treat them, while they explore other avenues to remove protections and hasten their extinction...
For the future of Koalas, NEFA hopes that you can make a difference in this life and death struggle. We hope this submission will help.
NEFA considers that the intent of SEPP 44 to identify and protect “core Koala habitat” was the right way to go. We have already wasted 25 years and thousands of Koalas’ lives as the Government has dithered and actively frustrated this intent. It is more urgent than ever that we identify and protect “core Koala habitat”, and prepare Comprehensive Koala Plans of Management (CKPoMs), though Koalas will be extinct in the wild before we achieve this if we continue in this way.
We urgently need to change tack if we want to save Koalas. Most importantly the NSW Government needs to take on the task of undertaking a systematic scientific process to map Koala habitat within each Area of Regional Koala Significance (ARKS), with the output being the identification of feed trees, key Koala colonies, grades of Koala habitat, habitat links, drought refuges and long-term climate change refugia across all tenures within each ARKS. This then can be used to prepare KPoMs and feed into other processes to protect Koalas.
As identified by the Environmental Defenders Office:
Frankly, we can’t wait another decade to debate the wording of a new koala policy or guideline. We need to address the fact that our laws currently allow clearing of important koala habitat.
This Bill was the exact opposite of the law reform that is needed to save NSW koalas from extinction. And the decision to revert back to the former SEPP 44 is also a significant backwards step.
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 1.5o or 2o 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
Old trees are home for many forest animals
Habitat Trees
It is the bigger and older trees that provide resources in the abundance required by numerous animals. It may take a tree one or two decades before they begin to flower and set seed, which they produce in increasing abundance as they mature. Numerous species of invertebrates, many birds, and a variety of mammals feed on these flowers and seeds. As they mature their trunks and leaves also exude a variety of sweet substances used by many species. Invertebrates harbour within their rough and shedding bark where they are eagerly sought out for food. Yellow-bellied and Squirrel Gliders chew channels through their bark to tap trees for sap. As the trunks and branches thicken the trees provide more stable nesting and roosting sites, while enabling Koalas to hug them on hot days to keep cool.
Once a eucalypt tree is over 120-180 years old they may start to develop hollows in their branches and trunks. In NSW at least 46 mammals, 81 birds, 31 reptiles and 16 frogs, are reliant on tree hollows for shelter and nests. As the trees get bigger so do their hollows, and it may not be until they are over 220 years old that they develop hollows big enough for the largest species. Most eucalypts may only live for 300-500 years, though some are reputed to live for over 1,000 years (see The Importance of Old Trees).
photo: Dailan Pugh OAM
Crown of a Sydney Blue Gum (Koreelah SF) hundreds of years old showing the numerous broken branches and large hollows necessary for large-hollow dependent fauna
Natural forests may support 13–27 hollow-bearing trees per hectare, with numbers varying between species, and increasing on more productive, moister and flatter sites. On agricultural lands the numbers of hollow-bearing trees have been drastically reduced. Similarly they have been significantly reduced throughout the remnant forests by logging, prescribed burning and by culling in Timber Stand Improvement operations.
In State forests in north-east NSW logging prescriptions now require the retention of an average of 5 hollow-bearing trees per hectare within logging areas, though numbers have already been reduced below this level in many forests. Where retained, hollow-bearing trees continue to decline with each logging due to token implementation of prescriptions, poor tree selection, inadequate protection, damage during logging and in post-logging burns, and lax enforcement. (see Protecting Habitat Trees)
Natural forests are generally multi-aged, so that as existing hollow-bearing trees die and collapse there are new trees with developing hollows to replace them (see The Importance of Old Trees). To account for this, logging prescriptions require the retention of an additional 5 sound and healthy mature trees per hectare as recruitment trees to be able to develop into the hollow-bearing trees of the future. Trees meeting this definition are also high-quality sawlogs so the Forestry Corporation go to extremes to avoid their obligations to protect them. This up and coming cohort of future hollow bearing trees is rapidly declining due to natural mortality and logging, along with token implementation of prescriptions, poor tree selection, inadequate protection, damage during logging and in post-logging burns, and lax enforcement . (see Protecting Habitat Trees)
If we are to minimise the hiatus in the availability of hollows for a plethora of native species we must act now to protect, as far as possible, all large old trees, along with sufficient recruitment habit trees to replace existing hollow-bearing trees as they die and to restore hollow-bearing trees throughout native forests.
Media - North East Forest Alliance
MEDIA RELEASE: Time to end logging of public native forests
Posted by Zianna Fuad · September 09, 2021 12:48 PM
Logging Increases Burning
Posted by Dailan Pugh · September 06, 2021 9:05 AM
Kalang Headwaters: Biodiversity Hotspot
Posted by Jonas Bellchambers · September 06, 2021 9:00 AM
About - North East Forest Alliance (NEFA)
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.
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 moratorium 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's new policy