Please send an email to the Minister for Environment and Energy Matt Kean today. Below is a draft which you can copy & paste (or personalise as much as you can) and email to him and his ministerial colleagues listed below. Their parliamentary and electoral office phone numbers are also listed so you can follow up your emails and explain to their staff what you want from them.

Please share a link to this page on your social media and ask your friends to also write and call to save our forests from the furnaces.

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Dear Minister,

I am excited to note the bipartisan support for the recommendation that native forest biomass not be allowed in energy generation facilities in the parliamentary inquiry into “Sustainability of energy supply and resources in NSW” that reported to the NSW Government in August 2021.  I would like to know how will you act to implement the inquiry's recommendations?

The committee:

• stated that “Native forest biomass isn't a renewable energy source. It reduces the ability of NSW forests to absorb atmospheric carbon and produces carbon emissions”.
• recommended the NSW government exclude native forest biomass from being classed as renewable energy, and ensure that it is not eligible for renewable energy credits.
• want the definition of native forest biomaterial under the Protection of the Environment Operations (General) Regulation 2009 amended to prevent the burning of wood from native forests to generate energy,

These are excellent recommendations and I call on you as minister for Energy and Environment in the NSW Government to accept and implement them expeditiously.

A strong message was also sent to those wanting to profit from burning our forests including the power stations at Condong and Broadwater on the north coast, the proposed Redbank power station in the Hunter Valley and the Vale's Point power station that adds wood to its coal: 'Reconsider and invest instead in genuine renewables!'

You have promised to ensure that there is a doubling of the koala population by 2050. Will the NSW Government now remove the perverse incentive for logging by shutting down the market for native forest biomaterial in power stations that is threatening our forest biodiversity so egregiously?

With a Climate Code Red, our forests are the best technology we have for removing carbon from the atmosphere. We need them to be allowed to get on with the job. What are you going to do to ensure that they can?

Yours sincerely

(etc...)

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