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“The RFAs are widely perceived in the scientific community to have failed to deliver the intended protection for environmental, wilderness and heritage values that state and federal governments committed to when they signed the National Forest Policy in 1992”. (Concerned Scientists)
South East Forest Rescue takes a firm stand on environmental protection of the native forest estate and expresses deep alarm at the welfare of forest-dependent threatened species and the cumulative impacts of industrial degradation of native forests that are exacerbating extinction rates and destroying soil, water, and carbon capacity.
The Regional Forest Agreement ‘negotiations’ were flawed. Scientists became increasingly concerned when a political decision was made to further modify the RFA measures so that scientifically-based criteria were no longer independently applied as a first step in establishing an ‘Ecological Bottom Line.’ This was a crucial decision as it was very unlikely that any RFA would deliver Ecologically Sustainable Development, as the modified criteria allowed ecological values to be traded off against economic values. The principles of ESD are now widely accepted after their introduction in 1992 through the signing of the Rio Declaration: the Convention on Biological Diversity. Commonwealth, State and Local governments became bound by the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment 1992, which contains the ratified principles. These principles are being systematically ignored by the RFA regime.We call for the Independent Assessor of the review to have full and frank regard for the urgency of action on climate change and ending the rampant degradation of the native forest estate.
With Australia’s existing plantations able to meet virtually all our wood needs, whether for domestic consumption or export, native forests are available for immediate climate change mitigation.
We believe that current State management has gone beyond its scope as the public caretaker, has broken it’s pact with it’s citizens and is needing immediate reform. We suggest indigenous ownership of all public native forest, complete stop on private land deforestation, complete transfer of wood product’s reliance to the plantation timber industry and the salvage recycled hardwood timber industry output, a single authority for national native forest stewardship modelled on the New Zealand example and an immediate nation-wide program of catchment remediation and native habitat reafforestation. We assert that urgency is needed in the forest reform outlined.
We maintain that the pretence of implementing Ecologically Sustainable Forest Management has failed, is corrupt, and has not delivered on obligations. These unacceptable outcomes are at the expense of the current and future generations and are to the detriment of our unique flora and fauna. Currently on the South Coast of New South Wales thousands of hectares of native forests are being clearfelled every year. The Forestry Commission, trading as Forests NSW, descriptions for these practices vary from ‘Australian Group Selection’ to ‘Modified Shelter Wood,’ yet they all amount to clearfelling or patch clearfelling on the ground. Old-growth, rainforest and mature age forests are being logged at an unsustainable rate. Eighty percent of trees felled are turned into woodchips, either at the Eden chipmill or at the various saw mills on the South Coast and then trucked down to the chipmill. To meet wood supply commitments, the native forest managed by Forests NSW is being cut faster than it is growing back. FNSW have continuously logged over quota since the implementation of the RFAs. We believe this to be immoral and uneconomic.
The almost complete consensus of public opinion is the requirement to leave the land in a better state than it was found and to eliminate or drastically reduce all native forest logging immediately. In concurrence with the Stern Report and the Mackey Report, action to avoid further deforestation should be an urgent priority. Accordingly, if no action is taken, the health of native forests and therefore the Australian public will be severely detrimentally affected.
The RFAs have not been properly implemented, review timeframes have not been met and key components have not been conducted. The conditions on logging under legislative regimes, on which the RFAs rely to deliver ‘ecologically sustainable management’, are inadequate, frequently breached and very poorly enforced. In addition, third party appeal rights have been removed in NSW and there is no avenue for the community to enforce the law directly, despite the transparent failure of the NSW Government to enforce it properly itself.
There was a need to monitor post-approval of harvest plans to assess the actual impact of operations, and to have ensured that conditions of approval were complied with. Insufficient resources were directed towards non-compliance activities and, as a result, there was no systematic monitoring of logging operations. There should have been vigorous processes for the monitoring of all operations and this should have been supported by appropriate funding. This should have been implemented and regulated by an independent authority.
Government owned and managed native forest logging practices have resulted in illegal logging, destruction of old-growth trees in special protection zones and multiple breaches of procedure. There should be no exemption for RFA forestry operations which are demonstrably unsustainable, for which key agreements relating to sustainability reviews have been ignored and/or wood supply contracts signed outside the timeframe of the RFAs.
SEFR do not support exclusions for particular activities or areas, unless there is genuine duplication of assessment requirements, and it is guaranteed that best practice assessment will occur. This is not the case under the RFAs.
We call for a judicial inquiry into the nature, extent and effect of any unlawful or otherwise inappropriate logging or workplace practice including any practice or conduct relating to, but not limited to;
(i) the Forestry Act 1916, the Forestry and National Park Estate Act 1998, the Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals, the Regional Forest Agreements or other laws relating to forestry.
(ii) fraud, corruption, collusion, anti-competitive behaviour, coercion, violence, false and misleading statements.
The nature, extent and effect of any unlawful or otherwise inappropriate practice or conduct relating to;
(i) failure to disclose or properly account for practices and financial transactions.
(ii) inappropriate management, use or operation of industry funds for redundancy or any inappropriate use of funds, given that Forests NSW native forest sector is currently running at over fourteen million dollars in the red. In 2001 the Auditor-General raised concerns over the liquidity situation of FNSW further stating:
the situation needs to be monitored closely by the Board of the Forestry Commission and the Government.
The inquiry should inquire into whether any practice or conduct that might have constituted a breach of the law should be referred to the relevant Commonwealth or State agency.
If FNSW can prove it has adhered to the RFAs and IFOAs management obligations then the RFAs must be inadequate and flawed instruments with which to protect the environment and the communities interests. If, on the other hand, the RFAs are found to be delivering positive environmental outcomes then FNSW must be found to be mismanaging the native forest estate to a serious degree.
Forests NSW as the agency of the RFAs has shown itself to be a complete economic and environmental failure ergo the RFAs are not “durable,” the obligations and commitments that they contain are not ensuring effective conservation and therefore the RFAs are a complete failure.
The RFA regime has effectively postponed inevitable environmental protection measures for ten years. As a matter of urgency these measures can no longer remain in limbo. There are significant economic, environmental and social benefits to support ending native forest logging and to ensure a swift transition of logging operations into the existing plantation estate.
The legislators have not enacted the legislation, the regulators have not regulated and the workers are not complying, thus we call for clause 8 of the RFAs to be triggered immediately, giving effect to ending the RFAs as the mode of native forest management.
11:32 PM
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