MEDIA RELEASE - 12 July 2022

NEFA welcomes the EPA prosecuting the Forestry Corporation for illegally felling giant and hollow-bearing trees in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest in 2020, though maintain this area of outstanding Koala habitat should never have been approved by the NSW and Commonwealth Governments for logging.

Enough is enough, logging of public forests has to stop, NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said.

“It is reprehensible that the in this day and age that the Forestry Corporation are still cutting down these massive awe-inspiring trees, the height of 10 storey buildings and 300-500 years old, that provide the large hollows that many of our iconic animals depend upon for dens and nests.

“These trees provide essential homes for the nationally Vulnerable Yellow-bellied Glider and Endangered Greater Glider.

“It is a tragedy that this was allowed to occur within an area identified as some of the most important Koala habitat in Australia, because the NSW and Commonwealth Governments changed the logging rules in 2018 to remove the need for pre-logging Koala surveys and allow Koala High Use Areas to be logged” Mr. Pugh said.