The NSW Legislative Assembly will tomorrow debate to take note of a parliamentary petition to end public native forest logging in NSW. Launched by South Coast based NSW Young Greens Indigenous Officer, Takesa Frank and the Nature Conservation Council, the petition reached 21 000 signatures when it closed in early August, forcing the lower house to debate.
This year the Forestry Corporation has come under significant pressure after it was found to have breached environmental protection laws in a number of logging operations across NSW. The petition also comes after conflict between the Forestry Corporation and members of the community have escalated in recent months, with multiple arrests in Ellis State Forest on the mid north coast last month. In response Bellingen Shire Council, last month passed a resolution calling for the NSW Government to develop a plan for the just transition of the Forestry Corporation NSW native forest sector to ecologically sustainable plantations and farm forestry.
There is wide concern that many forest dependent threatened species are at serious risk of extinction after the Black Sumer fires, including koala populations in the northern part of the state. Minister Dugald Saunders has responded to the petition, indicating that the government views cutting down public native forests as good for climate action.
In September 2022 the ABC reported:
In budget estimates hearings this week, NSW Forestry Minister Dugald Saunders said FCNSW was working with the EPA to protect hollow-bearing trees.
He says they are working towards "better clarification on how [regulation] actually looks on the ground" and ensure they have "the correct policy in place".
In response to a question from Greens MP Sue Higginson about FCNSW's "pattern of non-compliance in relation to giant trees", Mr Saunders recognised there "had been some unfortunate mistakes along the way".
FCNSW chief executive Anshul Chaudhary said most breaches were due to "human error … in an office environment where a map hasn't been updated … which has resulted in a contractor going into an exclusion zone".
Forest groups will gather outside Parliament House tomorrow, urging the government to heed the calls of the community to finally end the industrial scale logging of our public forest estate.
When: Thursday October 13, 2:15pm
Where: In front of Parliament House, 6 Macquarie St.
