Rule of law doesn’t apply to forestry corporation

Pictured left: NSW Forestry Corp CEO Nick Roberts

There’s been a smelly plume of unaccountability and wanton ecological destruction wafting from the NSW Forestry Corporation for many years.

The private enterprise arm of the toxic O’Farrell state government is tasked to ‘man- age’ our valuable natural assets, but instead destroys our heritage and makes a financial loss while doing it. Echonetdaily reported last May that ‘NSW taxpayers were slugged nearly $120 million last year to fund the ongoing logging’ of the state’s forests.’

And now it’s at our doorstep. Old-growth blackbutt on private property adjacent to the Whian Whian State Conservation Area, just west of Goonengerry National Park, is being logged by the Corporation.

While it’s legal to log privately owned land when requirements are met, the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) claim the area is home to endangered koala habitat and at least four other species that are threatened with extinction.

This means they are acting illegally, they say. It’s just another in a long list of incidents that NEFA has reported. Around a year ago, NEFA found numerous koala scats in logged parts of the Royal Camp State Forest near Grafton. Later the Corporation was slapped with paltry fines of less than $1,000 by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) for logging a koala high-use area. Then last June, it appeared they were up to the same thing in the Koreelah State Forest near Woodenbong.

There is little doubt that the EPA needs to be strengthened to ensure better outcomes for forest protection. But like the ACCC or the Press Council, they have little bite. The Forestry Corporation’s ‘Native Forest Operations’ have no place in modern times – plantation timber can more than provide for our needs. Stop killing koalas, Nick Roberts.

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