Urgent Action Needed by YOU

FOREST AGREEMENT REVIEWS – TIME FOR CHANGE

The forest management regimes along the entire eastern seaboard of NSW are currently up for review – in the form of five-year reviews of Forest Agreements and Approvals signed almost a decade ago.

This is an opportunity for major improvements in forest conservation, which are desperately needed in the context of a rapidly warming climate – but the NSW Government seems intent on ticking a box and continuing with business as usual.

The Government is almost five years late in undertaking these reviews, and legally required annual reports for the Agreements and Approvals have not been published since 2002.  Numerous key conservation milestones have never been met.

Let them know that’s not good enough, by making a submission to the Terms of Reference on the reviews – and while you’re at it, making a complaint to the Ombudsman and the Auditor-General about the failed implementation of forest policy over the last 10 years in NSW.

Submissions due 19^th December 2008.  PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY.

See notes below on how to:

1. Make a submission to the Terms of Reference for the Forest Agreement and Integrated Forestry Operations Approval reviews
2. Refer the failed implementation of NSW forest policy to the Ombudsman and/or the Auditor General

1. MAKING A SUBMISSION TO THE TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR THE FA AND IFOA REVIEW

DUE 19^TH DECEMBER 2008

Key points to raise should include:

• The Terms of Reference are too narrow, and should be broadened as necessary to address all of the issues that follow  – especially in light of the extensive delays in undertaking the reviews and the failure to produce annual reports for six years.
• The reviews should ensure that major issues and threats that have arisen since the Agreements were signed are thoroughly addressed, as follows:

1. Consider and prescribe measures to improve the climate change adaptation capabilities of forests and contribute to mitigation:

• Conduct an assessment of the carbon storage of NSW native forests, and improve protection of high carbon storing areas.
• Conduct an assessment of forest species that are at risk from climate change and identify improved constraints on logging to better protect them.
• Identify and protect refugia and corridors to enable species to adapt to climate change.
• Calculate the long-term water volumes forgone due to logging and evaluate the financial and social impacts of diminished water supplies on affected regional communities.
• Prohibit logging on steep slopes and improve soil erosion mitigation requirements to address likely increases in rainfall intensity and erosion potential.

1. Conduct a thorough review of listed Key Threatening Processes and other major threats and deliver much improved measures to ameliorate them, including but not limited to the following:

• Wood-chipping – is the driver for the destructive, large-scale clearfelling of forests in south-eastern NSW, and should be immediately ended in accordance with a long-standing promise by the NSW Labor Party from 1995.
• Native forest biomass/biofuels – this represents an emerging grave new threat to native forests along the eastern seaboard and requires urgent legal protections to prevent exploitation of forests for this purpose.
• Bell Miner Associated Dieback (recently listed as KTP) – which threatens 500,000 ha of forests in northern NSW and is spreading rapidly without resources or regulations in place to control or prevent it.
• Loss of hollow-bearing trees (recently listed as KTP) which represents a long-term threat to fauna in logged forests (particularly the ‘regrowth zone’) and for which current tree retention rates are markedly inadequate especially coupled with high non-compliance of these prescriptions.

• The Terms of Reference and/or the reviews must be sufficiently broad to address the following elements,  (and the proviso at the bottom of the current Terms of Reference which attempts to rule them out should be removed):

1. Land tenure and wilderness – as many of the milestones relate directly to the land tenure issue and a number of those milestones are known to be outstanding or incomplete.  The review should reinstate the operation of the Wilderness Act 1987 across all tenures.
2. Timber volumes – because many of the milestones relate directly to matters which effect timber volumes and much public funding has been invested in improving the understanding of timber resources.
3. Reserve design – as it is the subject of a number of milestones and a key element of the National Forest Policy and recent reports on Climate change and biodiversity conservation.

• The review must not just consider, but must deliver, on milestones that have not been met such as the reservation of high conservation value Crown lands and World Heritage Assessments for east coast eucalypt forests.  All annual reports (required by the Forest Agreements) since 2002 must be available before the review begins.
• The Terms of Reference should include an aim to assess ‘the effectiveness and efficiency of the agreement (and Approval) in meeting the Governments goal and policies’ as required by the Forest Agreement.  This should include addressing all the policies set out in the preamble to the Forest Agreement, plus more recent relevant policies, particularly the National Biodiversity and Climate Change Action Plan and the NSW Biodiversity and Climate Change Adaptation Framework.  The review should consider achievement of milestones against the objectives of the National Forest Policy Statement across all land tenures.
• There have been no threatened species prosecutions by DECC for five years, despite numerous legitimate complaints by the community.  This review must reverse the current slack culture of compliance in relation to logging operations, and dramatically improve the controls on logging and their enforcement.   It should recommend that third party rights are reinstated as a key measure to improve compliance in the future.

• The review of the Integrated Forestry Operations Approval must assess the on- ground effectiveness of the license conditions in protecting threatened species and environmental features, and identify improvements.

Individual Forest Agreements and Integrated Forest Operations Approvals and the Draft Terms of Reference are available at: www.environment.nsw.gov.au/forest agreements

Please get your comments in by 19th December 2008.

Email them: info@environment.nsw.gov.au

or post to:

The Resource and Conservation Unit
Department of Environment and Climate Change
PO Box A290,
Sydney South NSW 1232

2.REFERRING THE FAILED FOREST PROCESS TO THE OMBUDSMAN AND THE AUDITOR GENERAL

Write to the NSW Ombudsman and the NSW Auditor General asking for them to inquire into the failed implementation of forest policy in NSW.

2. Ombudsman’s office

Website: http://www.ombo.nsw.gov.au

Use website for online complaints or mail to address below

Telephone; 02 9286 1000                   Fax:  02 9283 2911

Email: nswombo@ombo.nsw.gov.au

Address:  level 24, 580 George Street, Sydney, NSW 2000

3. Auditor General

Website:  hppt:// www.audit.nsw.gov.au

Phone:  92757100                                Fax: 92757200

Email: mail@audit.nsw.gov.au

Postal Address: GPO Box 12, SYDNEY NSW 2001

Points in making your referral.

• There have been no annual reports submitted on NSW Forest Agreements since 2002 despite a legal requirement to do so.
• The five-year review was legally required for the UNE, LNE and Eden forest Agreements in 2004 and is only now being commenced.
• The eight-year review of timber volumes required by the UNE and LNE Forest Agreements in 2006 was not conducted, and new long-term (20 year) wood supply contracts were signed without a review of volumes.
• There have been no threatened species prosecutions of Forests NSW by DECC for five years, despite numerous legitimate complaints by the community.
• There have been massive shortfalls and time delays in meeting the requirements of the National Forest Policy Statement.
• The Government has failed to meet many of the key milestones and targets set down in the NSW Forest Agreements.
• There is a clear bias in those milestones that have been achieved towards the interests of the timber industry and against conservation interests.
• Key conservation outcomes required by the Agreements have not been met – including proper protection of high conservation value Crown lands and assessment of the World Heritage potential of our northern and southern eucalypt forests.
• The Forestry and National Park Estate Act 1998 has a requirement for a five year review which has not occurred.
• Numerous key elements of the Commonwealth-State Regional Forest Agreements for NSW have also not been met, including the five-year review, the annual reports and other important provisions (including a timber review and world heritage assessment).
• The review of the FAs and IFOAs will be a case of the Ministers reviewing their own failings and shortcomings. An independent review is required.

For more information – contact me on the numbers below.

Carmel Flint

North East Forest Alliance

16 Roslyn Ave

Armidale, 2350

Ph 0267 724904

Mo 0400 521474

Science supports ‘Caring for Forests’

“The ground-breaking study from the Australian National University’s Brendan Mackay into the importance of eucalypt forests in carbon storage is good reason to re-visit the Regional Forest Agreements,” claimed NCEC President Jim Morrison.

“The State and Federal Governments review of their Forestry Agreements are well overdue. Conservationists have been arguing for some time that in view of climate change and the need for Australia to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we should be taking another look at how we treat our forests.

“The report released yesterday: Green Carbon. The role of natural forests in carbon storage provides the science to back up our arguments. It says that unlogged forests provide significantly more carbon storage than previously thought. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC has used the figure of 217 tonnes of carbon per hectare stored in forests. But this is a serious underestimate with older forests providing from 640-2000 tonnes of carbon stored per hectare.

“It confirms our view that older mature forests with bigger trees are providing a unique environmental service to the community and the economy. As such they should be protected from logging and any other activity that degrades them and hinders their carbon storage capacity.

“Clearly the ongoing destruction of our high carbon storage forests is madness in the face of melting polar icecaps,” Mr Morrison said.

“We are calling on the NSW Government to include climate change and green carbon storage as part of their review of the Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals which along with the RFAs dictate how and where logging can occur in our publicly owned forests.

“The report also has implications for the Private Native Forestry Code of Practice where the Government rejected our view on the importance of conservation of older forests and the largest trees.

“80% of Australians are clamouring for genuine action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Now we know that saving our forests, particularly the older more mature ones, is a simple action that will have that effect. It’s time our governments faced facts and stopped subsidising the big timber companies and put their money into forest conservation,” Mr Morrison said.

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100,000 HECTARES APPROVED FOR LOGGING UNDER VEIL OF SECRECY

The North Coast Environment Council has today raised the alarm about logging on private lands, with more than 100,000 hectares approved for logging by the Department of Environment and Climate Change statewide in just 10 months, under a veil of secrecy.

“We have grave concerns about the implementation of the Private Native Forestry Code of Practice by the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC),” said Ms Susie Russell, vice-president of the North Coast Environment Council.

“In just 10 months they have approved 108,492 hectares of forests in NSW for logging. That equates to 517 football fields of forest approved for logging or patch-clearfelling each day for the last ten months.

“It is being done under a veil of secrecy. Logging approvals are not subject to the same public accountability provisions as clearing approvals, and the Department has twice refused a Freedom of Information request by NCEC 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.

“The logging approvals they issue operate for up to 15 years and suspend the operation of the threatened species laws. They can allow logging in areas mapped as oldgrowth forests, rainforests or endangered ecological communities.

“DECC has made getting a logging approval a tick the box exercise, and some areas that were protected under the previous regime are now being opened up for logging. No site inspections are required and no routine monitoring is carried out.

“Concerned members of the public have no-one to turn to. The agency that was once an environmental champion is now the logging advocate. NCEC is being contacted by people across the region who are distraught and frustrated at the situation.

“Logging results in a net loss of carbon from forests. It leads to invasions of weeds and feral animals and destroys threatened species habitats. Logging water catchments results in major reductions in water supply and reduces water quality.

“It seems the Department is completely out of touch with the community and think the public has no legitimate interest in this matter. As we hurtle towards runaway global warming the community has a stronger stake than ever in the future of our fragile forests.

“ Their health is central to our ability to survive the global warming that is already in the system. Resilient, healthy forest ecosystems are a crucial buffer against the impacts of climate change on both humans and the environment. Many threatened species already on the brink will not survive if their habitat continues to be destroyed at the current rate,” Ms Russell said.

released June11

IFOA review

NCEC is trying to determine what is happening with the review of the Integrated Forestry Operations Approval and whether public submissions will be called. Watch this space.

Private Native Forests and Landclearing Laws Watered Down

Changes to the Code of Practice for Private Native Forestry and the Native Vegetation Regulations published in the Government Gazette last Friday, further weaken the conservation provisions relating to logging on private land and will increase landclearing, claims NCEC and National Parks Association of NSW.