MEDIA RELEASE 16 September 2025

Conservation Groups Welcome Independent Planning Commission’s Rejection of Proposal to Increase Landclearing for Electricity

North East Forest Alliance and North Coast Environment Council welcome the IPC’s rejection of Verdant Earth's proposal to restart the closed coal-fired Redbank power station, using trees obtained from clearing more than 20,000 ha of land a year, to spew 1.3 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere.

On the September 15, the Independent Planning Commission refused the development application from Verdant Earth Technologies Ltd to restart the Redbank Power Station at Warkworth using biomass instead of coal tailings as fuel.

“Burning forests produces higher CO₂ emissions than burning coal, so it is madness to replace coal with wood to generate electricity as it undermines our transition to a low carbon economy”, said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.

With your help we were successful in our campaigns to stop Singleton Council approving Verdant’s DA as a variation, convince the court to reject Verdant’s appeal, and the 2,900 submissions helped convince the Federal Government to prohibit wood from native forests being eligible for Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) under the Renewable Energy Target (RET). But this monster is still not dead. Its back with an intent to feed the furnaces with wood from clearing thousands of hectares a year.

SUBMISSIONS NEEDED BY APRIL 11