Forests

Private Native Forestry Regulation

Our private forests represent crucial landscape links between protected areas and essentially support our reserve system in adequacy. Many private forest areas are critical climate change corridors. Climate change corridors may be latitudinal, latitudinal or longitudinal linkages of vegetation that will allow for migration of flora and fauna species as the effects of climate change rapidly impact on habitat quality, climatic needs and the distribution patterns of our native animals and plants.

In the past, logging on private land was essentially unregulated. The environment movement, having a recognition of the value of these areas, have been advocating for at least 10 years for some sort of basic regulation to take place. Until August 2007, logging approvals were made under an exception to the Native Vegetation Conservatin Act 1997. In August 2008 the government finally introduced a mandatory Code of Practice for logging on private land in NSW. This regulation was gazetted under the Native Vegetation Act 2003. The code was finalised after almost 2 years of deliberation, testing, arguments and problems using massive amounts of government resources. However, although a step forward, the technical and practical aspects of the code mad for a very poor environmental outcome.

Currently logging operations are approved under the Code of Practice by the provision of a Private Native Forestry Property Vegetation Plan under the Native Vegetation Act 2003. Up unitl now there have been at least 600 logging approvals made under this system covering 225, 000 hectares.
The list of approvals can be found at http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/pnf/approvedpnfpvps.htm.

Public land logging in the same amount of time has only covered 45000 ha. This shows private land land logging to be three or four times that on private land. Major cause for concern!

Private land logging is still occurring under a veil of secrecy. Logging approvals are not subject to the same public accountability provisions as clearing approvals, and the Department of Environment Climate Change and Water (DECCW) has twice refused a Freedom of Information request by North Coast Environment Council to gather some basic information on the implementation of the Code.

The grounds on which the Department refused the Freedom of Information request were spurious and very ill-considered. Their claim that there was no public interest in releasing the information is nothing short of outrageous.

These poor FOI decisions by DECCW were successfully appealed by the NCEC to the Administrative Decisions Tribunal and the documents were released after 18 months of legal wrangling.

This is an important precedent – it means that the community will have access to basic information about what logging is occurring in their catchment or local area.

The provision of this information has confirmed the fears of the environment movement – that large areas of oldgrowth and rainforest are being approved for logging.

Major Issues

Apart from this lack of Transparency the Code has many technical failings – that have not to date been reviewed or monitored in any form. In particular the code provides inadequate protection of riparian areas – only a 5m hard buffer (logging exclusion) on most streams, despite a body of scientific information showing this leads to detrimental impacts on water quality and high conservation value habitats. Additionally, inadequate protection of oldgrowth forests – half of all mapped oldgrowth forests are directly available for logging. The other half are subject to a field inspection, which can then approve logging. Information obtained in Parliament shows that approximately 2/3 of areas inspected are being approved for logging.

Rainforest areas are similarly available for logging after a discretionary inspection by DECCW field officers.

No guaranteed protection for Endangered Ecological Communities – they can be approved for logging under a loophole in the form of an ‘ecological harvest plan’. One of these has been approved to intensively log a floodplain EEC, despite no guidelines having yet been developed for ‘ecological harvest plans’.

There is no requirement to conduct surveys for threatened species or cultural heritage sites prior to logging, and no protection measures triggered unless these attributes are already known to occur. Therefore, ignorance provides a loophole to allow unfettered destruction of threatened species habitats and cultural heritage sites.

No protection for key areas to assist in climate change adaptation – ie no protections for refugia and corridors.

There are provisions which allow for environmental protections to be wound back if they affect more than 10% of a property, but no similar provisions to allow environmental protections to be increased if they are less than that (which they usually are).

There is no secure protection for areas excluded from logging, which can be degraded by roading, construction of infrastructure, and other measures.

What next?

The Code of Practice was apparently a transitional process to allow the development of whole new Private Native Forests Act, which has not yet been implemented but which may well be worse than that already in place.

More than $20 million was allocated to smooth this ‘transition’ for the logging industry.

Examples of problems in the field

There have been numerous examples of poor environmental outcomes under the Code of Practice, despite the difficulty in finding information:

• Rivers and streams silted up and water quality degraded by logging approvals issued upstream, particularly logging on very steep slopes.

• Incursions onto neighbours land, including incursion onto a Voluntary Conservation Agreement area.

• Threatened species hotspots approved for logging without any prior threatened species survey.

• Important koala habitats, previously regulated to prevent logging of feed trees, destroyed.

• Local roads heavily degraded by log truck usage.

• Approvals given for areas refused approvals under previous regime – areas of preliminary listed Endangered Ecological Communities approved for logging for firewood.

• Endangered Ecological Communities approved for logging under an ‘ecological harvest plan’.

What you can do....

The best approach is to email the Minister for the Environment and Heritage: The Hon Robyn Parker MP at info@environment.nsw.gov.au or write to:

         The Hon. Robyn Parker MP
         PO Box A290
         Sydney South NSW 1232

Tell Ms Robyn Parker MP that the Private Native Forestry regulations are a debacle and the code of practice has major fundamental flaws.

Tell Ms Robyn Parker also of your concerns regarding the degradation and destruction of:

• Endangered Ecological Communities,

• Rainforest,

• Old-growth forest,

• Riparian zones and

• Threatened specie habitat and ask for stronger protection of these valuable natural heritage commodities.

Legislation and Regulation Reviews

Reviews currently being conducted or recently passed:

-  Review of NSW Forest Agreements and the Integrated Forestry
   Operations Approvals

-  Review of the NSW Forestry and National Parks Estate Act

-  Review of the Federal EPBC Act

-  Review of the Federal EPBC Act.

RFA Review

Final submissions on the RFA review report have been made. Not only was the RFA fundamentally flawed at the beginning but the review process and resulting report were inadequate. The following is an except from the combined environmental groups submission for NSW RFA's.

The Regional Forest Agreements in NSW have not been implemented properly. The first five-year review is being conducted almost five years late. Annual reports have not been completed in time or at all. Key milestones have not been met or have been inadequately addressed.

Unfortunately, the draft review report continues the pattern of poor quality implementation that has shadowed the RFAs from commencement. The reporting against milestones in the draft report is misleading, and deliberately so. The review implies a level of achievement that has simply not occurred. Review of milestones by environment groups shows that more than 30 milestones have not been completed or not completed on time, and the few that have been completed have been inadequate. Notably, the review makes no attempt to address climate change – which was not considered when the RFAs were signed and which is now one of the single gravest threats to biodiversity of forests. A review process that does not consider or address grave new threats to the future of forests is clearly little more than tokenism.

Given the failings of the draft review report as set out in this submission, and the failings of the RFAs themselves and their implementation, urgent action should be taken to:

• Remove the exemption under the EPBC Act 1999 for forestry operations in these RFA areas

• Reinstate third party rights to commence legal proceedings under all relevant State and Federal laws

• Create an independent scientific panel with powers to review and enforce provisions of RFAs – which includes a genuine scientific review of the efficacy of RFA measures in protecting environmental values rather than a tick-a-box exercise against arbitrary milestones.

The final draft of the review report should be altered dramatically from the current draft, to ensure that:

• The impacts of climate change on the forests is addressed and recommendations made to improve protection and management in order to both mitigate against, and adapt to, accelerated climate change.

• The review of progress in meeting milestones is completely recast, to provide an honest and accurate account of the very poor progress rather than deliberately obfuscating and hiding that failure as per the current draft.

• It clearly and adequately reviews the obligations contained within the body of the RFA, particularly commitments to World Heritage assessments of eucalypt forests, instead of being narrowly focused on the milestones only.

• It sets out a real environmental monitoring program to identify and measure trends over time and risks (such as BMAD) and put in place feedback loops to improve environmental protections.

RIVER RED GUMS

Excerpt from NPA website:
http://www.npansw.org.au/website/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=378&Itemid=463

Background

River Red Gum wetlands on the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers of south-western NSW are unique to the planet. The Barmah-Millewa and Koondrook-Perricoota forests are two of the largest contiguous Red Gum forests left in the world.

River Red Gum wetlands provide an irreplaceable refuge for plants and animals in one of the most heavily cultivated and poorly protected landscapes in Australia.

This region is known to provide habitat for at least 69 plants and animals threatened with extinction, including species such as the Barking Owl, Regent Parrot and Southern Bell Frog.

Vast tracts of Red Gum are already under severe stress and are dying as a result of changed water regimes, yet they are still being targeted for intensive logging, patch clear felling and grazing.

The destruction of these unique wetland forests is not delivering a good economic outcome.

A recent report by independent economic consultants shows that a much greater economic return would be derived from protecting the River Red Gum forests then is currently being derived by exploiting them.  In fact, taxpayers are unknowingly paying to have these precious forests destroyed due to indirect subsidies from the NSW Government to the logging industry.

The majority of red gum that is logged (more than 80%) is used only for low value products such as firewood, fence posts and railway sleepers.

What is the NPA team doing?

• Our aim is to campaign to secure large new National Parks, in the Red Gum wetlandforests on the NSW side of the Murray and  other major rivers.

• We support these new National Parks being handed back to the Traditional Owners to own and manage, as Aboriginal-owned National Parks where that is sought by Traditional Owners.

• We are improving our knowledge of the conservation significance of Red River Gum forests through expert biodiversity surveys.

• The Red Gum Icon Project is a cross-border campaign run by NPANSW and the VNPA.  Click here to access detailed information on the Cross Border Red Gum Icons campaign.   

ACTION!

How you can help . . .

• Campaign with us to get the remaining River Red Gum protected.

• Send an e-lobby message to the Premier about creating large new Aboriginal-owned Red Gum National Parks

• Donate to NPA so we can continue this valuable work.

Related Links . . .

http://cpd.org.au/article/time-coherent-forest-policy-finally

http://www.nrc.nsw.gov.au/Workwedo/Forestassessment.aspx