Latest news with #ForestryCorporation
The Guardian
15-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Half-yearly loss of almost $15m for NSW native forest logging shows industry future shaky, conservationists say
The native forest logging division of the New South Wales government's forestry agency has posted a half-yearly loss of almost $15m, prompting renewed questions about the industry's economic viability. The half-year report for 2024-25, tabled in the state's parliament last week, shows the hardwood forests division lost $14.9m, which is $9m more than the agency had projected – taking the division's total losses since 2020 to $87m. The Forestry Corporation of NSW said in its report that several factors had contributed to the half-yearly loss, including higher than expected land management costs, lower than forecast timber production due to adverse weather conditions, and regulatory changes such as the establishment of 'koala hubs' in the proposed great koala national park. But critics in the conservation sector said the ongoing losses from the division raised questions for the government about its financial sustainability. 'It's long past time premier Chris Minns and treasurer Daniel Mookhey stepped in to stem the losses and re-orientate the timber industry in NSW to a sustainable plantation based future,' said Justin Field from the Forest Alliance NSW. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Field, a former independent member of the NSW upper house, called for more government scrutiny of the financial losses from the hardwood division, saying 'the taxpayer deserves a rethink'. 'Why would they throw good money after bad only to see our native wildlife suffer? It makes no sense,' he said. Forestry Corporation's revenue from all of its operations for the first half of the 2024-25 financial year was $193.9m, according to the report. The report said this was $15m below target 'due to continuous disruptions in hardwood production, a decrease in commercial firewood demand resulting from milder weather, and ongoing suppression of market demand for softwood products'. Sign up to Afternoon Update Our Australian afternoon update breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion A spokesperson for the Forestry Corporation of NSW said: 'overall the balance sheet is in a net asset position of $1.6bn'. 'The claim that native timber forestry operations are loss making and subsidised demonstrates poor understanding of the information and financial accounting in the half-yearly report,' they said. 'Over the past four years, Forestry Corporation has returned more than $13m in dividends to the people of NSW, while providing community services including free public access, free camping and picnic areas, community roads, fire protection and pest and weed management.' But the chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, Jacqui Mumford, said the ongoing losses from the hardwood division suggested 'native forest logging in NSW clearly does not have a viable future'. 'It makes no sense that taxpayers are subsidising a loss-making business that destroys precious habitat when we should be supporting local communities and viable industries that do have a future.' Mumford noted that the softwood plantations division of the forestry agency, which posted half yearly earnings of $14.4m, remained profitable. A government spokesperson said the government was working to finalise the forestry industry action plan – a roadmap for the industry under development. 'We recognise that forestry is facing challenging times, from weather events to regulatory changes,' they said. 'That's why we are working to get this action plan right – to align a sustainable timber industry with the government's key environmental priorities.'
The Age
12-05-2025
- Health
- The Age
Koalas, and taxpayers, betrayed by NSW old-growth forest destruction
We found her next to the house, a young female koala trying to struggle to her feet, but falling back exhausted in the grass, unable to reach her food trees. The 1500 young trees that I planted just over three years earlier to provide habitat stood nearby, ready to sustain her. But even as I urgently called the Friends of the Koala Hospital in Lismore I feared she'd never make it back to feed on them. It was agonising, waiting for the rescuer to come, not being able to ease her distress. It appeared evident she was suffering from chlamydia, flies buzzing around her in the hot sun, as she tried to summon strength to haul herself upright to wave them away. Even if she had a chance of survival, the infection would most probably have rendered her barren. Stress had been the cause of this tragic scene – cars, dogs, but basically the overwhelming loss of habitat. She would die the following day, one of the estimated 15,000 koalas left in NSW. As she lay there suffering by our home at the foot of the Nightcap Ranges in the hinterland of Byron, Forestry Corp was busy further down the coast, logging the proposed Great Koala National Park. Forestry Corp is owned by the NSW government, therefore by you and me. The park, supposed to connect rich coastal koala habitat to large sections of state forests, was promised by Premier Chris Minns to help him win the 2023 election. Yet, based on Forestry Corporation's own maps as of last June, operations from the Hunter to the Queensland border show more than half of the active logging operations were in the footprint of the proposed Great Koala National Park. The connectivity across the forests for all native creatures is being broken by the logging. Koalas, particularly, need corridors to find their food trees. They have few primary food species of eucalypt and must rely on secondary species. They also need medicine trees and shelter trees. Koala habitat was rare and precious even before the devastation of Black Summer when more than 60,000 koalas died or were harmed and, since the floods and cyclones, koala rescue centres have been inundated with injured, mud-caked, diseased and malnourished koalas.
Sydney Morning Herald
12-05-2025
- Health
- Sydney Morning Herald
Koalas, and taxpayers, betrayed by NSW old-growth forest destruction
We found her next to the house, a young female koala trying to struggle to her feet, but falling back exhausted in the grass, unable to reach her food trees. The 1500 young trees that I planted just over three years earlier to provide habitat stood nearby, ready to sustain her. But even as I urgently called the Friends of the Koala Hospital in Lismore I feared she'd never make it back to feed on them. It was agonising, waiting for the rescuer to come, not being able to ease her distress. It appeared evident she was suffering from chlamydia, flies buzzing around her in the hot sun, as she tried to summon strength to haul herself upright to wave them away. Even if she had a chance of survival, the infection would most probably have rendered her barren. Stress had been the cause of this tragic scene – cars, dogs, but basically the overwhelming loss of habitat. She would die the following day, one of the estimated 15,000 koalas left in NSW. As she lay there suffering by our home at the foot of the Nightcap Ranges in the hinterland of Byron, Forestry Corp was busy further down the coast, logging the proposed Great Koala National Park. Forestry Corp is owned by the NSW government, therefore by you and me. The park, supposed to connect rich coastal koala habitat to large sections of state forests, was promised by Premier Chris Minns to help him win the 2023 election. Yet, based on Forestry Corporation's own maps as of last June, operations from the Hunter to the Queensland border show more than half of the active logging operations were in the footprint of the proposed Great Koala National Park. The connectivity across the forests for all native creatures is being broken by the logging. Koalas, particularly, need corridors to find their food trees. They have few primary food species of eucalypt and must rely on secondary species. They also need medicine trees and shelter trees. Koala habitat was rare and precious even before the devastation of Black Summer when more than 60,000 koalas died or were harmed and, since the floods and cyclones, koala rescue centres have been inundated with injured, mud-caked, diseased and malnourished koalas.
The Guardian
10-05-2025
- The Guardian
NSW forestry agency should be shut down for repeatedly breaking law, critics argue
A former magistrate and one of Australia's most experienced scientists have launched an extraordinary attack on the New South Wales government's logging agency, describing it as effectively a 'criminal organisation' that should be shut down after a string of court convictions. Prof David Heilpern, a NSW magistrate between 1998 and 2020 and now the dean of law at Southern Cross University, said the state's Forestry Corporation should be 'disbanded' as it was was no longer fit for purpose. The corporation has been convicted of more than a dozen environmental offences, including a judgment in the land and environment court last year that found the agency was likely to reoffend and had poor prospects of rehabilitation. 'If they were a bikie group they would be a criminal organisation. Anyone with that number of convictions the vernacular is to call them a criminal organisation,' Heilpern said. 'Are they a criminal organisation within the meaning of the legislation? The answer is no. However, it's clear that it's unprecedented for any statutory organisation to have that number of serious offences over matters of environmental importance.' Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email A NSW Forestry Corporation spokesperson said Heilpern's suggestion that the corporation be compared to a bikie gang was 'ridiculous'. 'Forestry Corporation will not respond to this analogy,' they said. 'Where breaches have occurred, they have been unintentional and without malice. Forestry Corporation deeply regrets any breaches and has heavily invested in its compliance systems and processes to minimise the room for human or technological errors.' Heilpern's comments follow a judgment in the NSW land and environment court last year that fined the Forestry Corporation $360,000 after it failed to accurately map two environmentally significant areas in the Yambulla state forest. The court found the forest agency had logged 53 eucalyptus trees in one of these areas, causing actual harm to the trees and affecting the refuge of native fauna and flora species after the black summer bushfires. The judgment also found the logging of the trees had caused potential harm to three threatened bird species that lived in the forest. In her judgment, Justice Rachel Pepper noted the Forestry Corporation's 'lengthy record of prior convictions for environmental offences' including polluting a forest waterway, inadequate threatened species surveys, unlawful harvesting of hollow-bearing trees, and harvesting in koala and rainforest habitat exclusion zones. Pepper accepted submissions from the state's Environment Protection Authority that the forest agency was likely to reoffend and did not have good prospects of rehabilitation. Heilpern said this demonstrated the Forestry Corporation 'are not fit for purpose which is to lawfully and in an environmentally sound way manage our forests'. 'They aren't offences involving failing to cross a t or dot an i. They are offences involving illegal logging of state forest without appropriate levels of environmental protection. It's completely unprecedented,' he said. 'Whether or not you declare them a criminal organisation, they're clearly not fit for purpose to manage our forests. They should be disbanded.' Sign up to Clear Air Australia Adam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisis after newsletter promotion The Minns government has been under pressure over the future of native forest logging, having committed to establishing a 'Great Koala national park' in the state's north before the 2023 election. Areas of the park have continued to be logged while community groups and conservationists wait for a decision from the government about the park's boundaries. The native hardwood forest division of Forestry Corporation has disclosed losses of $72m since 2020-21, including $29m in 2023-24. The scientist David Lindenmayer, a distinguished professor of ecology and conservation biology at the Australian National University, said: 'NSW Forestry Corporation has been prosecuted in the land and environment court repeatedly – what does that tell us about the organisation? 'From any perspective you look at it, this really is a criminal organisation in terms of crimes against the environment, crimes against biodiversity but also crimes against the state's finances. Because when this organisation conducts these crimes it actually loses money for the state.' The Forestry Corporation's spokesperson said logging operations produced 4m tonnes of timber each year and 'as you would expect, the vast majority of these operations are fully compliant with the law'. They said the agency often 'protects more trees in its operations than required by the regulation'. A spokesperson for the NSW agriculture minister, Tara Moriarty, said 'there are comprehensive regulations in place and the minister expects Forestry Corporation of NSW to comply with them'. The Greens MLC Sue Higginson criticised the state government for 'allowing and defending' the agency to continue to operate. 'For the Forestry Corporation, breaking the law and harming the environment and wildlife has become like a game of charades played under the protection of the state,' she said. 'They get caught, investigated, prosecuted, a criminal conviction, a fine – which the public pays – and they carry on and do it all again. 'There is just no integrity, accountability or justice in this model of operation.'
