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.

Following the finding of yet more widespread and ongoing breaches of logging laws, the North East Forest Alliance is calling on the Baird Government to restore the rights of the public to take the Forestry Corporation to court to enforce environmental laws,

"If the Baird Government refuses to enforce the logging rules, then let us do it" said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.

"For years we have been finding the same sorts of logging offences, time after time after time. The Forestry Corporation are being allowed to flout environmental laws with impunity. The Environmental Protection Authority's (EPAs) lax regulation is clearly not working".

It took a freedom of information request, by the North Coast Environment Council, but the Environment Protection Authority have finally released the membership of the Threatened Species Expert Panel advising on the re-writing of the logging rules for public forests.

The documents show that far from being independent experts they are Government employees, dominated by current and former employees of Forestry Corp.

The North East Forest Alliance has condemned commitments by the Liberal-National Coalition today to repeal the Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995 and the Native Vegetation Act 2003.

“The proposed changes would be an environmental disaster and setback conservation in NSW 25 years,” said NEFA spokesperson, Dailan Pugh.

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.

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

Allocations of Public Resources for Logging

There are 918,145 ha of State forests in north east NSW (Lower and Upper North East RFA regions). A total of 306.472ha (33%) of these forests are zoned for protection in Forest Management Zones (1, 2, 3A) which prohibit logging. Some 40,338ha is claimed to be hardwood plantations and 37,048ha is pine plantations.

These forests belong to the people of NSW and are managed by the Forestry Corporation of NSW (AKA Forestry Commission, State Forests and Forests NSW). In the 1970’s the intent was to cut over the forests of the coastal plain and dramatically reduce logging until the regrowth matured in 2020-2040, keeping up sawlog supplies by one-off unsustainable logging of oldgrowth forest in steeper country and on the tablelands until pine plantations matured in 2010.

In the 1980’s the coastal forests began to be over-logged to maintain revenue and pacify sawmillers, while community alarm at the depletion of oldgrowth forests initiated campaigns to stop the liquidation logging of oldgrowth. The 1990’s saw a greater emphasis on reducing logging to a sustainable level while creating an adequate reserve system encompassing most oldgrowth forest and wilderness. The reserve system was doubled and most oldgrowth and wilderness protected on public lands.

In the 2000’s the State and Commonwealth Governments ignored evidence that yields were over-estimated and issued Wood Supply Agreements to millers for free at intentionally unsustainable levels. Since then NSW taxpayers have spent tens of millions of dollars helping mills modernise, paying compensation to millers for inability to supply, buying back commitments from millers for timber that never existed, buying timber from private land to meet commitments, and establishing plantations. Despite this sawlogs from public native forests continued to decline and the predictions were that the 2020’s will see massive reductions. (see The Battle for Sustainable Yields is Lost).

In 2014 the yield predictions for the next 100 years were inexplicably doubled. Previously predicted dramatic declines in yields in 2023 and again in 2065 were converted into increasing yields over time. How the parameters underlying the modelling were changed to achieve this have not been identified, though it is partially attributable to increasing logging intensity and treating native forests like plantations. Despite this dramatic turn-around the NSW Government separated the yields from native forests and hardwood plantations to change a modelled resource surplus into a deficit to justify major wind-backs of environmental constraints, and the opening up of oldgrowth and rainforest protected in the reserve system for logging. (see 2018 Timber Review).

Export woodchipping began from north-east NSW in the 1980s and because of the massive volumes, low manufacturing coasts and quick returns proved to be very profitable for millers. It was stopped in 2013 due to competition from overseas eucalypt plantations and an inability to get independent environmental certification for north east NSWs logging. Now there is the even bigger threat of burning native forests in furnaces for electricity (see A History of Export Woodchipping from North East NSW). In 2018 the Government offered new commitments of low quality logs to overseas buyers in 10 year agreements, including reassigning all hardwood plantation resources as low quality for export. (see 2018 Timber Review).

Logging Prescriptions

Forestry operations have a profound impact on native plants and animals. Natural forests are normally multiaged, with large numbers of big old trees providing hollows for nesting and denning, along with abundant nectar and seed resources. They also contain mature and young trees providing for succession as trees senesce and die. The understorey may naturally be open and grassy or more often is comprised of a wide diversity of understorey plants providing nesting sites, foraging habitat, and essential food resources for a suite of species. Even the dead trees and logs are critical habitat for numerous species.

In general, forestry aims to remove the mature trees for timber and get rid of the big old trees and unsuitable species that suppress regrowth of commercial species. Understorey and logs are just impediments. The outcomes are often a mess due to loss of critical habitat trees, early removal of potential sawlogs, excessive damage to retrained trees, poor regeneration, escaped burn-offs, significant soil erosion, stream pollution and massive weed invasion.

Plants are killed by logging, trampling with machinery, burning and being smothered by weeds. Animals are directly killed in falling trees and by being crushed in logs and burrows, and slowly by loss of dens, nest sites, territories and essential food resources.

Of those 175 animal species identified as being of particular conservation concern in north-east NSW, a total of 7 mammals (excluding bats), 27 bats, 31 birds, 16 frogs, 5 turtles, 15 lizards and 8 snakes were identified as being specifically vulnerable to logging, with many of these species, and a number of others, also vulnerable to the associated fire regimes, hydrological changes, stream pollution and weed invasions. For 41 of these 109 species logging is identified as a primary (number 1) threat. (see Threatened Species).

In a natural forest rainfall is mostly intercepted by the canopy or absorbed by the ground cover. Subsurface flows of excess waters then generate streamflows. In logging operations the reduced canopy and widespread soil compaction and baring result in overland flows that transport large volumes of sediments and nutrients directly into streams where they have significant long-term impacts on stream biota (see Logging impacts on streams). Impacts on stream flows are also long lived as the regrowth forest has high water demands and there is less surplus for streams (see How Forests Regulate Streamflows).

It is obvious that if we want to limit the impacts of logging on native species, soils and streams then we need to restrict the scale and location of activities we allow to occur. Regulation of forestry activities was found to be necessary because of the Forestry Corporation’s repeated failures to voluntarily minimise their impacts (see The Battle to Protect Threatened Species, The Battle to Protect Soils and Streams).

Forestry operations on public lands in north east NSW are governed by the Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals (IFOA) for Upper North East Region and Lower North East Region, and the licences they contain. These are referred to as Environmental Protection Licence (EPL), Threatened Species Licence (TSL) and Fisheries Licence (FL). Together with various clauses of the IFOA these constitute the regulatory regime applied to forestry operations on the public’s state forest lands in north-east NSW

The Integrated Forestry Operations Approval is one of the means by which NSW implements obligations and undertakings given in the joint NSW and Commonwealth North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement (Cl 36,48) and is the principal vehicle by which Environment and Heritage Values that are impracticable to include in reserves can be considered. The IFOA, along with the CAR reserve system, is required to provide for the protection of rare or threatened flora and fauna species and ecological communities (Cl 60). A key requirement is to monitor and review the sustainability of forest management practices (ie Cl 53), which includes the IFOA (Cl 52).

While we now have a comprehensive regulatory process for the management of State forests, the prescriptions are inadequate because they are the result of numerous political compromises with expert opinions and evidence often ignored. Neither have they been subject to monitoring and expert review. Even the minimalist prescriptions now applied are routinely flouted by the Forestry Corporation. (see Protecting Exclusion Areas, Doing Surveys, Protecting Threatened Fish, Protecting Habitat Trees).

Commonwealth Requirements

There are a number of species that are threatened at a Federal level and should be taken into account before the Commonwealth Government signs off on Regional Forest Agreements. This is another aspect of government process that is a dismal failure.

See the report "Compliance of Forestry Operations in North East New South Wales with Commonwealth Requirements for Threatened Species and Ecosystem" 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.

For more information on other aspects of logging prescriptions see the following links:

Threatened Species

The Battle to Protect Threatened Species

Protecting Exclusion Areas

Doing Surveys

Protecting Threatened Fish

Stream Health

The Battle to Protect Soils and Streams

Logging impacts on Streams

How Forests Regulate Streamflows

The Need for Stream Buffers

Protecting Streams

Habitat Trees

The Importance of Old trees

Protecting Habitat Trees

NOTE: The Forestry Corporation has undergone many name and structural changes since the Forestry Commission of NSW was first formed in November 1916. In August 1993 the Forestry Commission adopted State Forests of NSW as its trading name and was overseen by a board of Governance. Nothing much changed on the ground. In November 2005 the Forestry Commission again tried to change its image by adopting the new brand name of Forests NSW. On 1 January 2013 Forests NSW was corporatized and became the Forestry Corporation. These names are used interchangeably throughout this site, though to avoid confusion attempts have been made to use the name Forestry Corporation to apply to all incarnations.

Koala Campaign

NEFA have been particularly focussed our efforts on the conservation of Koalas since we caught the Forestry Corporation illegally logging Koala High Use Areas in Royal Camp State Forest in 2012.

We are gravely concerned that Koala populations on the north coast have crashed by 50% over the past 20 years, and that the increase in land clearing and reduction in logging rules will likely see them made extinct in the wild within the next 20 years.

Within a given area Koalas will firstly select feed trees based on species, and secondarily on size, preferring trees over 30cm diameter, with use increasing in line with tree size. They also utilise understory trees for shelter on hot or windy days. In good habitat they have stable home ranges, with a male overlapping a number of females. Logging is targeting the mature trees preferred by Koalas for feeding, with less feed trees there are less Koalas and social systems can break down.

For the past 20 years the Forestry Corporation were meant to thoroughly search for Koala scats (faecal pellets) ahead of logging. Where small numbers of scats are found token feed trees (5 of any size per ha) were required to be retained. Where there were abundant scats they were required to protect small areas around the scats as Koala High Use Areas. Because the Forestry Corporation normally refused to do thorough searches, and because of the minimal protection when found, only some 13 hectares of Koala habitat were protected in any year, and they are allowed to log these next time around. On private land there are few records of Koalas and no need to look before they log, so most Koala habitat is indiscriminately logged.

The Government has decided to remove the need for the Forestry Corporation to look before they log and are instead protect 10 Koala feed trees per ha over 20cm diameter in modelled high quality habitat and 5 per ha is medium quality habitat. The EPA recommended that it should be 25 feed trees per ha over 25cm diameter in high quality habitat and 15 trees per hectare in moderate quality habitat. The NRC over-rode the EPA to support the Forestry Corporation.

The 2018 OEH submission to the IFOA laments that there will "be a reduction in protections offered to koalas", with Koala feed tree retention rates "less than half those originally proposed by the Expert Fauna Panel", noting:

"The increased logging intensity proposed under the draft Coastal IFOA is expected to impact Koalas through diminished feed and shelter tree resources. Animals will need to spend more time traversing the ground as they move between suitable trees that remain, which is likely to increase koala mortality".

It is outrageous that 43% of the high quality Koala habitat on State Forests identified by DPI-Forestry is in the North Coast Intensive Logging Zone where clearfelling will be the norm.

On the north coast Koala populations have crashed by 50% over the past 20 years because they generally prefer the more productive forests left on the coastal floodplains and foothills, the forests that have been most targeted for clearing, logging and urbanisation. If Koalas are to be given a chance it is essential that all remaining colonies be identified and fully protected.

It is evident that the Forestry Corporation can not be trusted to provide the required protection for core Koala habitat and have instead been routinely logging it. In order to provide Koalas with the protection they need the National Parks Association have recently proposed the Great Koala National Park and a series of smaller Koala Parks throughout north east NSW. (see A Blueprint for a Comprehensive Reserve System for Koalas on the North Coast of NSW).

The North East Forest Alliance has proposed that the 2,100 ha Sandy Creek National Park be created over an important Koala population in Royal Camp and Carwong State Forests, south-west of Casino.

We are seeking the protection from clearing and logging of all resident Koala populations across the north coast of NSW.

Forestry Corporation Logging of OEH Koala Hubs

Dailan Pugh, March 2019.

This review focuses on assessing recent logging by the Forestry Corporation of Koala Hubs as identified by the Office of Environment and Heritage.

The Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) have analysed Koala records "to delineate highly significant local scale areas of koala occupancy currently known for protection", which they term Koala Hubs. Based on the data then available these are the known highest priority areas for Koala protection in NSW to increase their survival prospects.

Koala populations in NSW are in precipitous decline. The threats are immense in coastal areas (where most hubs are), making the protection of the 19,785 ha of Koala Hubs on State Forests in hinterland areas the highest priority for the basis of a Koala reserve system to safeguard core Koala populations and begin to stabilise Koala numbers.

Further work has been undertaken by WWF which identifies Koala Reserves based on a broader analysis of Koala Hubs, though this assessment is limited to Koala Hubs as identified by OEH.

This review found that of the OEH Koala Hubs on State forests in north-east NSW, 2,546 ha has been logged over the 4 year assessment period 2015-2018, which is an average of 636 ha logged per annum within Koala Hubs. It is assumed that some 430 ha of Koala hubs have so far been logged since they were identified. Many more are proposed for logging in current harvesting plans,

Outside exclusion zones and plantations there are 12,253 ha of Koala Hubs identified on State Forests, which means that over the past 4 years 21% of the loggable area of Koala Hubs within native forests on State Forests have been logged. Many of these have been logged well in excess of allowable logging intensities, with significant areas subjected to the unlawful logging practices of heavy and regeneration Single Tree Retention.

Of the 2,546 ha logged from 2015-2018, 1,283 ha (50%) has been modelled by DPI Forestry (Law et. al. 2017) as high quality Koala habitat and 574 ha (23%) as medium quality habitat. There are also 590 Koala records within the logged areas of the Koala Hubs. These confirm the importance of these areas for Koalas, and emphasise that this should have been well known to the Forestry Corporation before they logged them.

Over the period 2015 to March 2017 in the Lower North East forestry region, of these logged Koala hubs 22 ha is identified as being subject to the unlawful logging regimes of Regeneration Single Tree Retention (STS), 116 ha to heavy STS, and 348 ha to medium STS. It is evident from Harvesting Plans that intensive logging of Koala Hubs is more widespread than indicated by these figures, which is also shown by satellite images. This shows that many of these Koala Hubs, and surrounding areas, were subject to more intensive logging than the logging rules allowed.

It is essential for the future of Koalas that a moratorium be immediately placed on all remaining OEH Koala Hubs on State Forests, along with potential habitat within one kilometre, while further ground based assessments are undertaken to delineate the full extent these "highly significant" resident populations which, based on current records, are the highest priority for protection on public lands.

You can read the full review document here: Forestry_Logging_of_OEH_Koala_Hubs.pdf

Illegal logging of Koala habitat at Gibberagee State Forest prompted peaceful action as shown in the NEFA video below.

NEFA President Dailan Pugh, OAM presentation at the

Nature Conservation Council (NCC) Koala Forum in Lismore December 12th, 2018

You can find NCC's Koala campaign here: https://www.nature.org.au/koalas

Koalas and Logging of Public Lands

Koalas and Loggers prefer larger trees.  Koalas preferentially select individual trees of preferred species for feeding. They prefer larger and older trees because they: provide more forage have less toxins are more stable and comfortable.  You can read Dailan's powerpoint presentation here:
Koalas and Logging of Public Lands.

GOOD KOALA ADVICE IGNORED BY GOVERNMENT

As a result of documents obtained under Freedom of Information it's now clear that the NSW Government ignored it's own scientist's advice when deciding on the koala reserves. Not only did it choose areas that were already protected and where there were few or no koala records...it DIDN'T choose the areas that have been identified as Koala 'Hubs'.

You can read an analysis of the information obtained in this new report by Dailan Pugh for NEFA. September 2018

NSW'S NEW KOALA RESERVES AREN'T NEW AND DON'T HAVE
MANY KOALAS

Dailan Pugh, NEFA. June 2018

The NSW Government announced there would be 12 "new" Koala Reserves as a keystone of its Koala Strategy:Creating new reserves for koalas and protecting habitat corridors is a key pillar of the Strategy. More than 20,000 hectares of state forest on the Central Coast, Southern Highlands, North Coast, Hawkesbury and Hunter with koala habitat will be set aside as new koala reserves. Over 4000 hectares of native forest with koala habitat will be transferred to the national parks estate.

It is fraudulent for the NSW Government to pretend that these are new Koala Reserves. Ten of the 12 Koala Reserves are already protected as part of the informal reserve system (as FMZs 2 and 3). Four have no records of Koalas, and only 2 have "contemporary" records. Only 3 of the north-east reserves have high quality Koala habitat identified within them, and 2 of these have no "contemporary" records to substantiate the models... (View full PDF document)

NEFA Submission to NSW Koala Strategy

If there is a genuine desire to stop the slide of NSWs Koalas into extinction then the primary requirement is for the current NSW Premier to direct her Ministers and their agencies to implement the intent of current legislation. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, we just need to make what we have work better.

She needs to direct that the agencies immediately identify and protect remaining core Koala habitat and habitat linkages across all tenures. This will require the allocation of significant resources to undertake the required mapping of core Koala habitat and to provide financial incentives to private landowners to conserve core Koala habitat in perpetuity. There is also a need to rehabilitate degraded habitat and to replant essential habitat linkages.

Sandy Creek National Park Proposal

North East Forest Alliance, Revised March 2017

It is proposed to create the 2,100 ha Sandy Creek National Park in the headwaters of the Richmond River south-west of Casino. The proposal is comprised of two parts, including part of Royal Camp State Forest (compartments 13-16, 1,500ha) and the whole of Carwong State Forest (600ha). These forests are primarily proposed for protection for their exceptional importance for Koala conservation in an area where populations are in decline and in danger of extinction. The proposal is comprised of inadequately reserved ecosystems, includes 2 Endangered Ecological Communities, and incorporates the known habitat for the Critically Endangered Regent Honeyeater, 3 Endangered plants, one Vulnerable plant, and 17 Vulnerable animals. There is the potential to improve its long term integrity by voluntarily acquiring intervening freehold land which has also been assessed as being of high value for Koalas... (View full PDF document)

Clearing our Koalas Away is a damning new report by Dailan Pugh that puts together intensive logging maps recently obtained via Freedom of Information, and the EPAs new koala habitat model.

Authorised by Daniel Peterson for the North East Forest Alliance
at 115 Molesworth Street, Lismore, 2480

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

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