Save Our Oldgrowth Trees
HOLLOW HOUSING CRISIS AS OLDGROWTH TREES ARE LOGGED
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Hollows in big old trees are essential homes for many of Australia's animals, they can't survive without them. In NSW at least 46 mammals, 81 birds, 31 reptiles and 16 frogs, are reliant on tree hollows for shelter and nests. Oldgrowth trees have been decimated across the landscape, and with them populations of hollow-dependent animals. Across extensive areas there are not enough hollows left to meet the survivor's needs. In a life or death struggle, they have to compete for the dwindling numbers of suitable hollows. PLEASE WRITE TO THE NSW GOVT TO DEMAND THEY STOP CLEARING AND LOGGING ANIMAL'S HOMESAND START THE LONG PROCESS OF RESTORING THEM Millions of oldgrowth trees, and their inhabitants, were burnt in the 2019-20 wildfires. Many have nowhere to live, there is a housing crisis for hollow-dependent species. For their survival it is essential that we urgently save the remnant oldgrowth trees, and begin restoring them. Restoration is slow, it takes 120-180 years for a tree to begin to develop hollows, and it is not until they are over 220 years old that oldgrowth trees develop the big hollows large animals need. We need to protect the oldest trees left so that hollow-bearing trees can be restored as soon as possible NEFA want to stop logging of public native forests, but we can't wait until we achieve this to take action for our imperiled wildlife. We need the Government to act now to stop logging the surviving hollow-bearing oldgrowth trees, and protect the biggest trees remaining so they can become the hollow-bearing trees of the future. Before the fires the logging rules for State forests required the retention of up to 8 hollow-bearing trees per hectare, but in many forests there aren't that many left, and is some they have all been lost. In response to the fires, in June 2021 the NSW Natural Resources Commission recommended to the NSW Ministers for Forestry and Environment that they urgently change the logging rules for State forests to require that (1) where there aren't 8 hollow-bearing trees per hectare left, that the largest trees be retained to make up the difference, and (2) for each of these trees retaining 2 recruitment trees to become the hollow-bearing trees of the future. The problem is that since June 2021 the Ministers have refused to act on the NRC advice , so we need your help to convince them to adopt this NRC recommendation to give hollow-bearing trees, and the multitude whose recovery depends on them, a ch Here's more detail about this issue. Visit here for background information about the fires and the NRC recommendations Visit here for background about the importance of old trees for recovery. |
NSW'S 174 HOLLOW-DEPENDENT SPECIES NEED YOUR HELP NOWPlease write to the NSW Ministers for Environment and Forestry now asking them: Dear Minister ....., Please act now to protect all NSW oldgrowth trees. (Refer to any of the information above to provide context) Please take urgent action to protect and restore hollow-bearing trees across State forests by implementing the June 2021 advice of the Natural Resources Commission by changing the logging rules to require: (1) where eight hollow-bearing trees per hectare are not available, retaining the next largest trees as substitutes, (2) retaining two recruitment trees per retained hollow-bearing tree It is essential that the largest healthy trees are protected as recruitment hollow-bearing trees. Apply these protections to Private Native Forestry through the PNF Code of Practice Protect all trees over 100 years old. Yours Sincerely (etc) Its always best to add your own comments, and ask for a response.
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NEFA turns 30
AFTER 30 YEARS NEFA NEEDED MORE THAN EVER
MEDIA RELEASE 6/6/2019
On 5th June the North East Forest Alliance celebrated 30 years since its inaugural meeting at the Big Scrub Environment Centre in Lismore on World Environment Day in 1989.
"Over 30 years NEFA has made significant progress in its aims to protect oldgrowth, rainforest, wilderness and threatened species, unfortunately these wins are beginning to be wound back at a time when the necessity of protecting forests to avoid climate heating is more important than ever" NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.
Read moreOldgrowth logging based on fraudulent claims
DECISION TO LOG OLDGROWTH AND RAINFOREST BASED ON FRAUDULENT CLAIMS
The NSW Government is using grossly inflated timber commitments to fraudulently justify logging oldgrowth forest and rainforest protected in the Comprehensive Adequate and Representative reserve system, according to the North East Forest Alliance.
With revelations that the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) has based its justifications for logging oldgrowth and rainforests, and other environmental wind-backs, on a 33% increase in timber commitments, NEFA is calling upon the Environment Minister, Gabrielle Upton to honour her predecessors promises by' intervening to direct the agencies to renegotiate an environmentally fairer set of logging rules based on existing wood supply obligations rather than the NRC's grossly inflated volumes.
"Since 2013 a succession of NSW Environment Ministers have repeatedly reassured environment groups that the new logging rules (Integrated Forestry Operations Approval) would result in no erosion of environmental values and no wind-back of the reserve system", NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.
"With the NSW Government now proposing to log oldgrowth forest and rainforest, increase logging intensity, introduce clearfelling, reduce buffers on headwater streams, and remove protections for most threatened species on public land in north-east NSW, it is clear that they lied to us.
Conservation Groups Welcome Environment Minister's Visit
Conservation groups have thanked NSW Minister for the Environment, Mark Speakman, for making the time to accompany them on a brief tour of north-east NSW's forests, for listening, and for showing interest in their concerns about our ailing public native forests.
On Saturday representatives of the North Coast Environment Council and the North East Forest Alliance took the Environment Minister on a tour of forests at Royal Camp and up the Richmond Range, west of Casino.
Forests are carbon 'banks'
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.