Today, these missed opportunities are doing more damage than ever. The biggest fossil fuel crisis in history has pushed us into a new reality, with the head of the International Energy Agency declaring the imminent death of the fossil fuel era: “The damage is done … This will have permanent consequences for the global energy markets for years to come.”
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/share/a72b6f56-e28c-41d3-a446-a6f272e64179/TRFJ6xr
As the economic and ecological ruin of native forest logging is exposed, evidence of illegal surveillance and threats adds to the case for a royal commission.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/share/ef9246a7-caa7-4fd0-8721-fe0b0a1595ba/VB4guRRe
URGENT SUBMISSION DEADLINE 5pm 24th JUNE.
Summary
The State is proposing to increase the uptake of ‘Complying Development’ applications to fast track housing.
Complying Development replaces Tweed’s building assessment codes with statewide, cookie cutter, ‘sea of roof’ style, building codes, that bypass consideration of virtually all other Tweed planning controls, bypass public exhibition, and bypass your right to legal appeal.
The character of our Shire would be stripped away, forming one urban sprawl to the next under these State building codes.
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Please feel free to use the following Caldera Environment Centre Submission as a template.
Submission Objecting to the Proposed NSW Variations and Changes to Complying Development.
URGENT SUBMISSION DEADLINE ALSO 5pm 24th JUNE.
Summary:
The State is proposing another, whole new development pathway, called Targeted Assessments. This would be for virtually all other residential developments that still doesn’t fit the Complying Development criteria.
The State’s cookie cutter building codes would again replace Tweeds building codes for these Targeted Assessments, and Tweed’s other planning and environmental controls would be weakened so much as to be virtually ineffective except in the most extreme cases.
Tweed has the highest number of threatened species in Australia, is a fragile, steep, wet, active, erosion caldera, and has an urban population within the midst of this stunning ‘National Iconic Landscape’. We have an obligation to protect this region in Australia’s public interest.
The Tweed volcano:
Over 3 million years of eruptions, layer upon layer of volcanic lava flows covered the landscape, spreading as far south as Alstonville and west past Kyogle, to a height of 800 meters above the current height of the core, forming ‘shield volcano’, a large dome mound of layer upon layer of lava flows, each set into hard volcanic lava basalt rock.
The hard volcanic lava basalt rock, in contact with and oxygen and rainwater over 20 million years, ‘chemically weathered’, electron transfers chemically deconstructing the lattice of bonds of the hard rock, deconstructing the hard rock into the soft, fine, red colour clay / loam friable soil of the volcano today.
With the NSW removal of public consultation for neighbouring buildings approval, with the TSC vote to permit un-rate-chargable second remote dwelling construction, with the public apathy of defeatism … what on earth will become of the landscape ecology and what can be done to arrest the building out of the Tweed rural and natural environment. A Daring Dialogue at the Kambucha Cafe Tuesday 9th June 6.30pm.
Please also be aware of the Draft Growth Management Housing and Employment Strategy (GMHES) (soon up for exhibition) and a new fast track proposal by the state that will bypass the low rise housing (1-2 storey) DAs and their local conditions such as site placement, compensatory bush regeneration etc.
NSW State government are taking authority away from local councils to set the conditions for new building approval, State approval conditions will apply.
The State approval conditions are unknown at this time.
Note also that Public Notice and Right to Comment requirements on local building proposals are separately being removed.
The current Council set conditions for building approval reflect not only local environmental concerns but also the will of the local population.
Locally set environmental conditions for building approvals on rural land have been fought for and have been decided in favour of by the majority votes of democratically elected Tweed Shire Councillors.
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The Caldera Environment Centre position on this issue is:
RED ALERT!!!
Very important – submissions needed please before 5pm 3rd June.
Proposed NSW Community Participation Plan.
NSW Labor and the Liberals have teamed up again this time to attack your right to community consultation on local development applications.
Thrilled by their latest success in December that will entirely strip your local Councillors of any powers to determine development applications, they are now trying to cut the community out too.
Under their new proposed Community Participation Plan a development application won’t be publicly advertised for comment if it apparently meets all the planning controls, whether it’s the house next door or a high rise.
The problem is that planning controls can be open to interpretation and arguable, eg bulk and scale, visual impact, privacy, environmental impact or even hazard risk impacts. That’s why we have consultation.
Stakeholder Consultation Report, attached, interesting bits highlighted for quicker reading.
Highlights:
Submissions from more than 1500 individuals and 160 organisations.
Viewpoints and evidence in support of environmental concerns tended to submit that:
• Native forest harvesting in NSW has major impacts on biodiversity and endangered species and should cease as soon as possible.
• Healthy, protected and intact forests are intrinsically, socially and culturally valuable.
• The forestry industry does not have the capability to deliver beneficial environmental outcomes.
NEFA: “Stakeholder Consultation Report confirms the public want an end to logging public native forests.”
“The Stakeholder Consultation Report for NSW’s Forestry Industry Action Plan (FIAP) raises more questions than it answers, though with 70% of submissions expressing support for ending native forestry it confirms that most people want an end to this archaic and destructive industry.
Council voted 3 to 4 against the proposed single use materials policy, which would have banned plastic lined cardboard coffee cups at public markets on Council land.
Councillor James Owen, voting against the policy, said “Any Councillor who votes for this policy is against small businesses.” No Councillor James Owen, that’s not true. The other Councillors are against waste, single use plastics, and we reckon that if the small business owners of the market coffee shop stalls knew they are ingesting millions of nanoparticles of plastic with every cup of coffee, they themselves wouldn’t drink from a plastic lined cardboard coffee cup.
When the plasticised-cardboard of the take-away coffee cup goes through the temperature change of being filled with the hot liquid, thousands of micro and millions of nano sized plastic molecules fracture and fragment away from the plasticised-cardboard, into your cup of coffee. [Source: (link).]
The Shooters and Fishers Party seek to stop Councils that require consent for PNF in rural zones (most private native vegetation) from doing so, such as Kyogle, Tweed, Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie-Hastings, ect.
They don’t want logging to be subject to the same scrutiny as most other developments that require DAs – such as actually having to survey for threatened species, complying with Council requirements, notifying neighbours, and assessing impacts. They just want to comply with LLS’s tick-a-box assessments.
The Shooters and Fishers have introduced “An Act to amend the Local Land Services Act 2013 and the standard instrument prescribed for principal local environmental plans under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 in relation to private native forestry; and for related purposes“.
Film night and discussion with experts Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop (who wrote the book accompanying the documentary) and Veet Karen, Australia’s 1st professional plant based chef and nutrition instructor.
https://events.humanitix.com/eating-our-way-to-extinction-tl7lrxxc
Wed 22nd April at 6.30pm
The Citadel 21 Queen St, Murwillumbah
Adults $15 l Concession $10
On March 21, at the Southern Cross University campus, hear from frontline campaigners and local experts who know the forests best, to hear about the plan to secure protection for Richmond River Koala Parks.
This is a chance to understand what’s at stake – and how protection is possible when our community stands together.
They are asking, so tell Council “YES” to going back to crockery and cutlery at events and markets.
When the single use plasticised-cardboard take-away coffee cup goes through the temperature change of being filled with the hot liquid, thousands of micro and millions of nano sized plastic molecules fracture and fragment away from the plasticised-cardboard, into your cup of coffee. Almost all plastic we ingest passes through us, though the <1% we retain accumulates primarily in the brain. Lets not ingest plastic.
We note that washable plastic cups or plates will of course still leave the problem of millions of plastic particles shattering and fragmenting from the plastic due to temperature change of the hot food or drink, and ingested. We therefore request and highly recommend the inclusion in the policy that replacement of the single use items is to be with non-plastic cups and plates, even if washable, due to the the plastic ingestion issue.
The opportunity to ‘Have Your Say’ on the Tweed Development Control Plan closes 5pm Friday!
We’ve attached the CEC submission document for your interest, and for copy and pasting all or parts of as your own submission which is allowed and we encourage.
Please do make a submission, it is quick and easy on the Council website (link here: www.yoursay), or forward the attached CEC submission expressing your own support for it (email to tsc@tweed.nsw.gov.au).
To the General Manager Tweed Shire Council,
Submission on the Draft Tweed Development Control Plan 2026.
Tweed Council is commended for the many proposed improvements to the Tweed Development Control Plan.
Please find below some further requests for inclusion in the Plan.
The Tweed Development Control Plan (DCP) is the Plan by which Council Controls Building and Development Works.
Section B2 of the plan, ‘Preservation of (Urban) Trees and Vegetation’, applies restrictions on the clearing of vegetation.
The CEC support that the draft includes a new protection level for urban local natives at 3 m or higher, previously 5 m, and exotics protected at 40 cm stem diameter, previously 80 cm.
These new reduced limitations are reflected in Table B2.1, urban vegetation which cannot be cleared without Council approval.
Link to Tweed Shire Council’s website to Have Your Say: www.yoursay
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Update: The application has been withdrawn.
An exploration licence application to sample the mineral content of the sand that is being pumped by the Tweed Sand Bypass at Fingal Head NSW to the Gold Coast beaches was advertised in the Tweed Valley Weekly Public Notices on 19th Feb.
Minerals sought include Rutile, Zircon and Ilmenite.
If sampling is successful the aim is to build a processing plant next to / connected to the Sand Bypass to extract these heavy minerals from the pumped sand.
The extracted minerals would be trucked out through Fingal Head.
We don’t know the specific method of extraction or its actual impacts but concerns from initial research of such activities include:
While a mining company’s scrapping of plans for a tailings dam in Tasmania’s Takayna rainforest is welcome, its revised site reflects how little the environment minister cares. By Bob Brown.
“MMG was flagging the withdrawal of its contentious plan to dump its acid wastes in the Takayna/Tarkine rainforest at McKimmie Creek. That project involved constructing a pipeline from Rosebery, north over the Pieman River into Takayna – discounting the values of the rainforest and its wildlife to zero.
Read more: https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/share/22750/VkQBExYS
Also, a reminder of the March for Forests in March event, Lismore, Sunday 22nd of March.
Cardboard take away coffee cups are plasticised, because, if not, the cardboard cup would soak and fall apart when filled with liquid.
When the plasticised-cardboard of the take-away coffee cup goes through the temperature change of being filled with the hot liquid, thousands of micro and millions of nano sized plastic molecules fracture and fragment away from the plasticised-cardboard, into your cup of coffee. [Source: (link).]
Mostly the plastic we ingest passes through us, however, we accumulate plastic nano-particles and studies show them throughout our bodies.
The plastic nano molecules we accumulate accumulate primarily in our brains, we don’t know why, however plastic accumulates in our bodies mostly in our brain, Plastic accumulates in the brain at ~10 times higher levels than in the liver or kidneys (91% vs. 4% and 4% of total plastic mass in these organs). [Source: (link).]
The Wollumbin / Mount Warning shield volcano and its erosion caldera is a unique volcanic landform which has functioned as a refugium, over the 20 million years since it’s formation, for a core area of Gondwana rainforest flora.
The Caldera is located in a major climatic transition zone, between temperate and tropical floral and faunal species, giving high species diversity under a wide range of habitats, its volcanic origins and very high localised rainfall make this a very complex and interesting landform.
20 million years ago the continent, bearing its Gondwanic rainforest flora, was moving north, away from Antarctica. The continent had been passing over one of the earths hotspots, and this had given rise to a chain of volcanic activity down the east coast of the continent, including the volcanic eruption and subsequent laval covering of the landscape which was the formation of the Mount Warning / Wollumbin Shield Volcano. The height and spread of the laval mound of the volcano is estimated at 2km high and a spread which for example extended 30km out onto the continental shelf beyond the current sea level.
Key purposes of the Act until now have been: to ensure that ‘development’ is done in an environmentally sustainable way; to protect the environment; to ensure community participation – they are rewriting it so that they can ignore all of those things.
Example: One of the many changes is a new assessment pathway that is “unconstrained and expressly prohibits consideration of environmental impacts and the public interest.” note the EDO.
The intention behind the changes is to allow development in otherwise environmentally protected areas.
The Act is New South Wales’ primary legislation for land use planning and development assessment. It governs environmental planning instruments like State Environmental Planning Policies (SEPPs) and Local Environmental Plans (LEPs).
In 1823 John Oxley was the first European to see the Tweed Valley, and he wrote of it: “A deep rich valley clothed with magnificent trees, the beautiful uniformity of which was only interrupted by the turns and windings of the river, which here and there appeared like small lakes. The background was Mt. Warning. The view was altogether beautiful beyond description. The scenery here exceeded anything I have previously seen in Australia.”
Oxley was sailing up the eastern coast of Australia from Sydney in search of a penal settlement site “for difficult convicts”. Sailing further, they decided on Redcliffe, part of now Brisbane (perhaps explaining something of the Queensland culture of today).
Plastic does not decompose back to its original naturally occurring elements. The plastic existing today, if exposed to sunlight, temperature change or abrasion, will degrade into smaller particles, though those particles will still exist, hundreds of thousands to millions of years from now.
The CEC note the growing awareness of the public to the issue of our unwanted ingestion of these plastic molecules, and the retention of these molecules in our bodies.
Bioaccumulation of microplastics in human brains.
Microplastic flakes found in ‘almost all’ bottles of mineral water on sale.
Sunday December 14th 3pm & 7pm.
You might have caught Follow the Rain on Netflix;Steve Axford and Catherine Marciniak’s gorgeous stop-motion fungi imagery and documentary, affectionately known as “the Fungi film”.
As a special event for the arts and nature lovers of Murwillumbah, the world-class musicians behind the music to Follow the Rain are coming to perform live at The Citadel.
Carla (flute & voice) and Romano (violin & piano) accompany additional fungi time-lapse imagery to channel the hidden pulse of the fungal kingdom. Fusion arts and improvisation at its most exquisite.
The Mushroom Whisperers is an immersive experience, perfect for the intimacy, acoustics and intention of The Citadel. We invite you to join us in this enchanting world where music and nature intertwine.
NRG: The NSW Far North Coast Regional Water Supply Project will be assessing regional options to improve long-term water security in our region. Several information sessions will be held to inform the public about the project. One will be held online; the others will be local drop-in sessions. See details below, as provided by the project:
Online session:
Wednesday 19 November 2025, from 10.30 am – 12 pm via MS Teams. To register, go here.
Drop-in sessions:
Sessions will be held in Tweed Heads, Byron Bay, Ballina, Mullumbimby, Casino, Lismore and Murwillumbah.
Registration for drop-in sessions is not required.
We look forward to sharing project updates.
For more information, visit the project webpage.
Below is a concise summary of legislation changes over the past 30 years that have removed existing legal protections and increased the destructiveness of logging of native forests.
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1. Native Vegetation Conservation Act 1997 (NSW) – [Later replaced by the [even worse] Native Vegetation Act 2003:
The 1997 Act claimed to regulate land clearing but instead allowed exemptions for forestry operations from existing regulations under Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals (IFOAs).
The 2003 Act relaxed restrictions further, introducing self-assessment for landholders and reducing oversight on clearing activities.
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2. Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment Act 2005 (NSW):
This amendment reduced scrutiny and simplified development approvals, reducing environmental impact assessments for forestry and other projects.
Dear Tweed Shire Council,
I strongly support the proposed funding in Council’s budget for maintenance of Tweed’s Littoral Rainforest remnants, as has been proposed by Councillor Firth and is awaiting a vote of the 7 Councillors.
Regarding the Literal Rainforest remnants:
4 Council owned small pockets of land with trees and related ecologies.
Council is deciding soon that Council can’t afford weed control and basic vegetative management, so they won’t approve it in the budget, so it will continue to be uncared for.
The 4 small patches of rainforest are almost all that is left of what was once the best remaining rainforest on the mainland, The Rainforest of the Tweed Volcano Caldera.
There has been some hope that the Federal changes to the EP(BC) Act (the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act) may result in improvements for native forests, such as by adopting and applying strong environmental standards that over-ride RFAs, though an assessment of the new laws by EJA maintains that we will be worse off on most counts (https://envirojustice.org.au/environment-law-reform-scorecard/). EDO also consider that the positives are undermined by extensive exemptions and opportunities for ministerial discretion (https://www.edo.org.au/2025/10/31/epbc-act-reforms-make-it-to-parliament-edos-first-impressions/). It seems that for forests we will still suffer under 25 year old “evergreened” RFAs, applied through nice sounding intents, such as ‘ecologically sustainable’ and ‘adaptive management’, that can actually mean whatever the Governments want (usually nothing). Given that we already have species recovery plans that are meant to apply to forestry, but in practice make no difference, it seems the national standards will be more of the same.
This is the most significant reduction in development controls in 50 years, and it’s being done with zero public consultation. If passed, these reforms will be a giant step backward for environmental protections in NSW and significantly undermine the progress we are aiming to achieve.
If passed this Bill will:
At the next Tweed Council Monthly public access meeting is a plastics issue, namely mowing it smaller vs picking it up first.
Plastic does not decompose, it may degrade into smaller pieces when exposed to sunlight or temperature change but it will always remain. We either pick it up or live with it as forever litter’. Should Council pick it up or leave it lying around forever?
If it’s on the roadside, is mowing it smaller and smaller the best solution? Council Administration Staff seem to think so.
Plastic is a forever molecule, the plastic today will still be here in 500 million years. Plastic does not decompose back to natural elements. It may degrade, if it is exposed to sunlight, temperature change, or abrasion, though that is it just getting smaller, it will NEVER go away, it will never decompose back to its natural elements.
Councillor Nola Firth has submitted to Council the following Notice of Motion:
In Tweed shire we are currently collectively dumping 320 tons of soft plastic into landfill per year. There is considerable community concern on this issue. Single use soft plastic is recognised as a serious waste of our precious finite resources and as a killer of wildlife on land and in our rivers and seas. This is of particular concern in our biodiverse shire where we have the most threatened species in Australia.
Federal regulation is urgently needed to address this situation. The report (also on this agenda) on soft plastics recycling indicates the difficulty we as a regional council have in accessing soft plastics recycling. Even within cities it is not yet available for everyone. The primary cause is lack of created demand for recycled plastic despite its problematic plenitude and the willingness of community to recycle it. There is an urgent need for government action to achieve mandatory industry change, recycling support and community education.
Councillor Firth moves that Council write to the Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, the Minister for the Environment (NSW), Minister for Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (NSW), local state members, local federal member, the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation and Soft Plastics Stewardship Australia:
NCC: “The NSW Government’s proposed changes to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act opens the way for reckless developments of all kinds.
“This is a code red for environmental protection in NSW. If passed as is, the reforms on the table would have devastating consequences.”
“These extreme changes to our environmental protection laws would strip away environmental scrutiny, making it easier for damaging developments to slip through.
EDO
The revised Development Control Plan(DCP), when it soon goes on exhibition for Public comment, will be an opportunity to support stronger protection of both native and non-native trees.
Greens Councillor Nola Firth comments:
“Tweed Shire Council compared to other NSW Councils has had scant protection for non-native urban trees.
“Non-natives here in the Tweed were only protected if they had a diameter of more than 80cm at breast height. To bring us into line with many other councils and to keep our precious trees intact, the diameter in the DCP is now 40 cm.’
So please have ‘Your Say’ on this change. It’s also an important opportunity to establish housing and landscaping controls that reduce emissions and urban heat, and protect biodiversity.”
“The many benefits of trees in urban areas are recognised through Council’s Cool Towns: Tweed Shire Urban Forest Program which aims to increase the average total canopy cover in urban areas from 26.8% to 35% by 2030 and then to 40% by 2040 [!].
“We’re [TSC] asking everyone to help restore our urban forest when trees are removed.
“We’ve drafted a new Compensatory Planting Policy to guide how important trees and vegetation are replaced when they’re approved for removal.
“Please read the New Compensatory Planting Policy draft before submitting your feedback so your input can be properly considered in the final recommendations.
“Share your feedback by 4pm Wednesday 22 October 2025.”
From The Nimbin Good Times, by Mark Pestell.
In 1972, a group of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the top five Universities in the USA, published a groundbreaking report that would shape the global environmental debate for decades to come. Entitled ‘The Limits to Growth’, commissioned by the Club of Rome (clubofrome.org), the report presented a sobering possibility: if humanity continued to pursue unlimited economic and population growth on a planet with finite resources, global systems could begin to collapse around the year 2040.
http://www.nimbingoodtimes.com/archive/pages2025/nov/NGT-1125-8-15.pdf
by Mark Pestell November 2025 page 14
ON 7 SEPTEMBER THE NSW GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCED THEY ARE GOING TO CREATE THE FULL GREAT KOALA NATIONAL PARK, AN HISTORIC CONSERVATION WIN AFTER A 10 YEAR CONCERTED COMMUNITY CAMPAIGN.
NEFA:
“This park will protect 12,000 Koalas and enable their populations to recover as their feed trees regrow. This is the sort of action we need if we want to double their population in NSW.
“This park will also protect the homes of 108 other threatened species from further degradation, most notably for the nationally Endangered Southern Greater Glider, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Hastings River Mouse, and Rufous Scrub Bird.”
From the Byron Echo Volume 40#32 January 14
Australian researchers have discovered a hidden climate superpower of trees. Their bark harbours trillions of microbes that help scrub the air of greenhouse and toxic gases. It’s long been known that trees fight global warming by consuming carbon dioxide (CO2) through photosynthesis. But a new study published in Science shows their microbial partners take up vast amounts of other climate-active gases too. The study, conducted primarily by Dr Bob Leung at Monash University’s Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI), and Dr Luke Jeffrey at Southern Cross University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, rewrites our understanding of how trees and their resident microbes shape the atmosphere. For more information, contact the Media Office at Southern Cross University at scumedia@scu.edu.au
CEC Co-ordinator Rhonda James (pictured left) presented at the NSW Weeds Conference. Rhonda spoke on the keys to the successful 30 year bitou bush management program in The Tweed and Byron Shires.
Rhonda is notably also the Convenor of the Caldera Environment Centre.
“Weeds are one of the top three causes of species extinction (along with habitat loss and feral animals).”
Tweed Shire Councilor Cr. Nola Firth (pictured right) was later interviewed by Tweed Valley Weekly Editor Johnathon Howard on this issue, link to article here: https://calderaenvironmentcentre.org/thursday-coming-tweed-shire-council-monthly-meeting-a-trio-of-environmental-concerns/
Pic: Rhonda @CEC; TSC Councillor Nola Firth.
