NEFA’s court case ‘North East Forest Alliance Inc v Commonwealth of Australia & State of NSW’ challenging the extension of the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) will be heard in the Federal Court of Australia before Justice Perry on the 28 and 29 of March. NEFA’s challenge is being run by the Environmental Defenders Office.

NEFA is challenging the 2018 decision to extend the North East RFA, effectively indefinitely, largely based on the Comprehensive Regional Assessment (CRA) undertaken in 1997 and 1998, without a new assessment.

“Should we win, the North East NSW RFA will no longer exempt logging operations from assessment and approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, or exempt wood from the requirements of the Export Control Act 2020, with potential ramifications for all other RFAs, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.

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.

New Koala SEPP a boon for developers and loss for Koalas

MEDIA RELEASE - 22 December 2019

NSW Government's new State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) for Koala Habitat Protection makes it easier for developers, without providing Koalas with the long-overdue and urgent protection they desperately need, according to the North East Forest Alliance.

The new SEPP relies upon mapping of 'highly suitable koala habitat', on the north coast 29% of this has been burnt this year making it urgent that the Government protect what's left from clearing and logging while we wait for the decades it will take to map and protect core Koala habitat as required by the SEPP, said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh

Survivor of Braemar fires.

This koala was spotted just 10 metres from a rally we held at Braemar -
in the middle of the area threatened by logging.

The North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) travelled out to Braemar State Forest in July 2019 to survey and protect koala habitat under logging rules that meant areas significant koala use would need to be protected. What we discovered blew us away with an exceptional population of an estimated 60+ koalas at risk of logging. Scat searches indicate there are over 100ha of Koala High Use areas – unprecedented in State Forests.

What we found was so compelling that we returned multiple times and completed four different audits of koala evidence in the area.

When we submitted this data to Forestry Corporation of NSW they simply announced they would be logging Braemar State Forest under the new logging rules meaning no koala habitat will be protected. We have estimated that homes of over 60 koalas will be decimated if this logging were to go ahead - unthinkable while local koala populations have halved in just 20 years. (source)

With logging due to commence, we are turning to the community to come together in support of Braemar's koalas.

We can stop this devastation, but we need your help.

Take the pledge below to stand up for Braemar's koalas.

A hundred people rallied on Sunday 15th September to protect Braemar - Photo David Lowe

Right to Farm bill a covert means of criminalising forest protests

MEDIA RELEASE - 25 September 2019

The North East Forest Alliance has slammed the Right to Farm Bill 2019 now before the NSW parliament as a covert attack on the rights to peacefully protest or even audit forestry operations on public lands.

Following NEFA's finding last  Sunday of an exceptional Koala population in Braemar State Forest, south of Casino, NEFA is calling on the Premier to intervene to ensure that the required thorough searches for Koalas are undertaken and all Koala High Use Areas protected.

Koala scats were found under 42 trees in a 3ha area of Braemar State Forest marked up for logging, 81 Koala scats were found under this single tree where none had been found by the Forestry Corporation.

Last Wednesday NEFA agreed to call off an action in Gibberagee State Forest (near Whiporie) in return for the Forestry Corporation's promise that within a week a joint inspection with NEFA, and the EPA if they agreed, would be undertaken to inspect the breaches NEFA had documented, now the Forestry Corporation have reneged and refuse to grant access for NEFA to the closed area at Gibberagee to show either the EPA or themselves the breaches.

"The Forestry Corporation cannot be trusted to honour their word. This breach of trust will not be forgotten", said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.

"NEFA considers it outrageous that we are once again denied the chance to show these Government bodies the numerous breaches of the Threatened Species Licence we have found.

"What concerns us most is that based on past experience the illegal logging will continue unabated while the EPA waits for years before verifying our complaints and at best giving the Forestry Corporation meaningless warning letters and cautions.

"Our intervention this time was aimed at trying to highlight the problems to bring this ongoing illegal logging to an end, while ensuring that the Koalas and 8 threatened hollow-dependent animals in the area get the minimal protection they are legally entitled to.

"This attempt has obviously failed", Mr. Pugh said.

Dailan Pugh reaches an understanding with Forestry Corp... that they have now reneged on!

Forest protector and forest friend. Animls like the Yellow-bellied Glider need old forests with tree hollows to nest in.

Githabul Tribe and Conservation Groups Reach Historic Agreement

The Githabul Tribe, Githabul Nation Aboriginal Corporation, Githabul Elders and representatives of conservation groups today launched their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the management of Githabul Native Title Lands in the upper Clarence and Richmond Rivers.

On 29 November 2007 the Federal Court of Australia made a consent determination recognising the Githabul People’s Native Title rights and interests over 1120 sq km in 9 National Parks and 13 State Forests.

The MoU proposes:

• ·       Transferring care and control of 29,700ha State Forests for which Githabul Native Title rights are recognised, from the NSW government to the Githabul Tribe.
• ·       Preparing a comprehensive Plan of Management to safeguard conservation and cultural values and prioritise rehabilitation works.
• ·       Achieving an adequately funded comprehensive 15 year rehabilitation plan to arrest and repair forest dieback as part of a Githabul caring for country program.
• ·       Creating more NPWS positions and training for Githabul Working on Country in National Parks in the Kyogle area.
• ·       Transferring the care and control of Crown lands around the Tooloom Falls Aboriginal Place to the Githabul Tribe.
• ·       Promoting the establishment of a Cultural and Tourism Centre at Roseberry Creek.
• ·       Obtaining World Heritage Listing for the National Parks in the region.

Industrialised Logging: Cause of Bushfire Danger

Bushfire danger is increasing as a consequence of climate change predicted by scientists.1 Heavy logging and burning of forests increases rather than decreases flammability. Forests permitted to exist in their natural state (with dense shading canopies and intact boundaries) lose less moisture from drying wind and direct sun. An unlogged forest can remain cooler and damper - for longer. It has been demonstrated that it can slow, and even halt a fire. 2

Native forests left to recover, close canopies, create shade, cool all below

The effect of logging and/or burning natural areas as a fire preventative measure has long been debated. Scientific study of the relationship between industrialized logging and fire has now taken place and it is imperative that the findings are acted upon.3 Supported by scientific studies of comparable forest situations in other continents, this research provides conclusive evidence that industrialised logging of moist native forests alters natural fire regimes.

It does so by increasing susceptibility to ignition4, fire severity5, changing fuel load and condition6 and increasing fire frequency. These factors compound and escalate so that fire burns hotter and faster through stands of regrowth forests that have been heavily logged than in unlogged moist forests or in ones that have been allowed to recover to maturity.

Here is the typical disaster scenario of the heavily logged forest. For the first five or so years the logged area is (naturally), statistically unlikely to suffer severe fires. After seven years the hazard begins to increase. Most of those initial regrowth seedlings have succumbed to competition from their more vigorous neighbours and their dead, skinny, dry stems add a fine fuel to the ground. The mature canopy has been lost in the logging operation and the forest and the dead regrowth fuel has dried out in the sun. 15 years after the heavy logging event this regrowth forest reaches the peak of its flammability, illustrated by the following diagram of the likelihood of a crown (canopy) fire based on forest stand age.

If a moist forest is never logged, or is allowed to regrow to maturity (forty to several hundreds of years), the fire hazard is vastly reduced. Here is what happens.

The recovering process involves a return of original understorey species such as rainforest plants and tree-ferns which shade the ground, keeping it cool and moist. Then mosses grow and cover any fallen woody debris. These mosses can hold ten times their own weight in water. The dense understorey and ground cover reduces air movement and water loss through evaporation, contributing to general dampness. These moist conditions at ground level are unfavourable to fire and by the time the trees are approaching forty years old, and 50 metres tall, the risk of crown-fire is once again reduced.

So, if moist native forest is heavily logged the loss of a mature protective canopy exposes it to drying out by wind and sun. The moisture holding understorey is lost. Species able to withstand frequent fire become dominant. The forests become a tinderbox ready to burn.

To reiterate: The study of impacts of logging in moist Australian forests conducted over a number of years has now yielded these conclusive results:

‘Logging can alter key attributes of forests by changing microclimates, stand structure and species composition, fuel characteristics, the prevalence of ignition points, and patterns of landscape cover. These changes may make some kinds of forests more prone to increased probability of ignition and increased fire severity. Such forests include tropical rainforests where fire was previously extremely rare or absent and other moist forests where natural fire regimes tend toward low frequency, stand replacing events’.7

Note that: ‘Climate change is likely to drive substantial changes in fire regimes (Cary 2002; Westerling et al. 2006; Flannigan et al. 2008; Pittock 2009). If industrial logging changes fire proneness, then interactions between logging and climate change could lead to cumulative negative impacts, including those on biodiversity.’

Fires spread rapidly through regrowth of logged forests

Currently our native forests are being treated as ‘factories’

Claims that logging, ‘thinning’ and burning forests will lessen fire risk are dangerously misleading. To adopt the recommendation that logging native forests will lessen fire risk would enhance the fire risk to many Australians and their homes.

‘Industrialized’ forests are proven to burn on a scale and with a ferocity not previously seen. It is time to halt this practice. Allow native forests to regrow to maturity to lessen fire risk.