The threat of prosecution by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has led to Forestry Corporation NSW (FCNSW) ending logging plans in Tallaganda State Forest.
This follows an investigation, and possible prosecution, by the EPA for failing to conduct adequate assessments for threatened species. A stop work order (SWO) for logging in Tallaganda was issued to FCNSW in August 2023 after a dead Greater Glider was discovered near logging.
Reports from 2023 had estimated that NSWFC had breached regulations 1,215 times in logging operations in Tallaganda State Forest, one of the last strongholds of the endangered greater glider.
‘When I walked through the logged areas of Tallaganda it was heartbreaking. It has been important to expose this destruction to as many people as possible. This must be a turning point. Australians want action. That starts with permanently protecting Tallaganda State Forest,’ said Dr Kita Ashman, Threatened Species and Climate Adaptation Ecologist, WWF Australia in November 2023.
FCNS failing lawful responsibilities
However, FCNSW are still conducting logging in state forests where they have failed to identify habitat for threatened species and were to recommence logging in Flat Rock State Forest yesterday, 31 January said Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson.
However, FCNSW are still conducting logging in state forests where they have failed to identify habitat for threatened species and were to recommence logging in Flat Rock State Forest yesterday, 31 January said Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson.
‘The Forestry Corporation are logging forests without fulfilling their lawful responsibilities to identify and protect habitat trees for threatened species, including those that depend wholly on old hollow-bearing trees and the EPA is now allowing it to continue. It is extinction logging, there is no other way to describe what is happening,’ said Ms Higginson.
‘The Forestry Corporation’s decision to end their plans to log in Tallaganda has only occurred because the EPA used their regulatory powers in response to community reports of unlawful logging. We know that the community has reported at least 8 other instances of non-compliance and unlawful logging by Forestry Corporation in our public native forests since the end of last year, so why has the EPA not acted and issued stop work orders in these forests too?
‘Flat Rock State Forest is about to be logged and neither the EPA or the Forestry Corporation have identified Greater Glider habitat trees, despite community records and evidence demonstrating their presence. The relief from the community, that Tallaganda has been removed from the current logging schedule, is overshadowed by the fact that other habitat for threatened species is being logged and more areas are at imminent risk from logging.
‘The community has picked up where Forestry Corporation and the EPA have failed. They are doing the work and making the reports, but logging is still set to commence in areas where it should not lawfully be allowed to.
‘Forestry Corporation is a state-owned corporation, it is the public who own this logging company, but they have become a rogue operator that is trashing critical areas without completing their responsibilities. The EPA must act on the advice and evidence of the community and immediately issue stop work orders in all forests where there is evidence that threatened species habitat has not been recorded and protected and is instead being destroyed,’ Ms Higginson said.
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