nefanews: [Final?] Forest Media 31 (April 2023)

Hi, I [Dailan] started doing regular media summaries in late 2019. The format has changed over time. My coverage significantly improved when NCC gave me access to their daily media monitoring results – I thank them for it. I find it interesting to keep up with what’s happening in NSW and around the world, though it takes a large part of my time. I wanted to keep going untill after the election, though will now be calling it quits, instead focusing on occasional articles.

New South Wales

The North East Forest Alliance welcomed the election of the Minns Labor government with their promise to create a Great Koala National Park, and called for a moratorium on logging within the park proposal until the promised assessment is complete. The Bellingen Environment Centre also did a media release calling for an immediate moratorium, saying the unions and industry have no role in what should be a scientific review.

The Echo also has a longer article talking about the need to protect forests to mitigate climate heating, issues around Doubleduke, including the EPAs statement that their requirement to protect the gully of the giants has lapsed – and the only way to reinstate it is if the Forestry Corporation agrees, and the request for a moratorium on the GKNP.

Along with NBN, ABC radio has an interview with Penny Sharpe about the Grear Koala National Park, where she reaffirms her commitment to it, rules out a moratorium (again), that it needs to be worked out with unions and industry, and mentions corridors linking existing reserves (a worrying theme). As in the ABC interview, the Coffs Coast Advocate has an article claiming the vote for the National’s Singh in Coffs Harbour shows the community does not support the Great Koala National Park.

The Australian Forest Products Association has urged the new State Government to address the state’s looming timber supply challenges as a priority and the Australian Forest Contractors Association to protect forest workers from workplace harassment and trespass, while praising the previous government.

News of the Area covers the story about Mark Graham being visited by the riot squad at 10 pm at night, claiming they were enforcing bail conditions, though Mark’s bail conditions were not to enter State forests, not to stay at home.

Save Bulga Forest welcomed the change of the status of the two compartments the focus of their campaign since 20 December has been changed to “suspended”, showing the Forestry Corporation, having been able to log for only 2 days, have backed off for the time being as a result of community pressure, resulting in the camp being closed and a focus on the Government to permanently protect it.

The Forestry Corporation are obviously feeling brave since the ALP ruled out putting any part of the Great Koala NP under moratorium, or they are looking for some other Koala habitat to log, on the 29 March they approved compartments 6 and 7 of Braemar SF for logging. These are the compartments where we found an exceptional density of Koalas in 2019, with most Koalas killed in the 2019 fires, though a remnant population is still there, and most of their feed trees survived the fires – so they can rebuild. This is part of NEFA’s Sandy Creek Koala Park – that the ALP committed to protect (in a smaller form) 2 elections ago, but has since dropped it.

The Echo wrote a belated article on the $15,000 fine for breaches in a PNF operation in Kyogle Shire, and the bigger problem this uncovered with 133 approved PNF operations unlawful because they did not obtain consent from Council – a 13 year problem, Council recently wrote to the 133 PNF operators telling them their logging is unlawful and they require DAs.

NSW Election:

Many forest protectors were delighted that the National Party forestry fiefdom was finally overthrown, particularly as the new Labor government at least has a commitment to protecting “a” Great Koala National Park, and maybe Koalas elsewhere. The initial results suggested they would easily achieve a majority in the Lower House, as counting proceeded it became apparent that they would likely be a minority Government, one or two seats short of a majority, with there likely to be nine independents and three Greens they have multiple choices for getting support – though they still need to get it through the Upper House. The progressive vote in the Upper House also went backwards as counting proceeded, and now seems destined to be a finely balanced house with 21 Labor and progressives and 21 Coalition and conservatives, with the final balance depending on who takes on the role of president. Irrespective, with 4 Greens and (hopefully) 2 progressives, Labor is going to have strong reliance on their vote. Many of the Liberal seats picked up late in the process gave the moderates a lead within their party.

As noted by the Guardian, there are some common themes among the independents: gambling reform, including advertising of betting services; reforms to the planning system to ensure consideration of climate change impacts; prohibitions on conversion practices and other LGBTQ+ issues; reforms to land clearing; expanding koala protections; and other environmental reforms.

Wollondilly was the only electorate to be lost to a “teal”, Judy Hannan, leading the defeated Liberal member Nathaniel Smith to accuse the NSW Liberal Party of failing to protect one of its most ardent right-wing warriors.

Australia

With an average deforestation of 416,840 hectares of forests per year between 2015-2020, Australia ranks fifth in the world, and the only developed country on the list, the good news is that our deforestation is down from the pre-2000 rate. An article by Dr David Shearman argues that land clearing, even by bits and pieces, and logging of native forests, has to stop. He particularly focuses on South Australia.

A new report card on Australia’s environment for 2022 identifies the wet La Nina years have been a boon for our rivers, wetlands, waterbirds and vegetation, except in the Top End in the Northern Territory, southern inland Western Australia and western Tasmania which missed out, and those millions of fish. The ocean around Australia was the warmest on record and the Great Barrier Reef suffered its fourth bleaching in 7 years. The combination of habitat destruction, invasive species and climate change took a big toll. The 2019/20 wildfires were primarily responsible for 30 species being added to the official list of threatened species, increasing it to 1,973 species, with abundances of threatened species declining about 3% a year.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has introduced the Nature Repair Market Bill to parliament aimed at establishing the market-based scheme, her green Wall Street, creating financial credits for landowners who restore and protect important habitat, leading to the creation of biodiversity offsets whereby developers can pay for destroying habitat – likely a repeat of the failed NSW biodiversity offsets and failed carbon offsets. The Nationals claimed that it is their previous bill, developers welcomed it, and conservation groups condemned it – there is likely to be a Senate inquiry.

The Greens have criticised some environment groups, notably ACF, for undermining their negotiations with the ALP over the safeguard mechanism, accusing some groups of being too interested in “access to government and perceived influence”.

The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) claims The Greens amendments to the National Reconstruction Fund to remove native forest harvesting eligibility from the National Reconstruction Fund “was a stunt with no practical effect“, welcoming the Albanese Government’s explicit guarantee that projects involving the processing of native forestry products will be eligible for funding.

VicForests is appealing the 2022 Supreme Court decision that the company failed to adequately survey and protect the endangered greater glider and yellow-bellied gliders in its operations, which led them to halt logging in East Gippsland and the Central Highlands while they developed new survey techniques to comply with the court orders, claiming a lack of procedural fairness and a shifting of regulatory definitions. Vicforests are trialing drones to undertake the court ordered surveys for Southern Greater Glider and Yellow-bellied Gliders.

Species

Bangalow Koalas are celebrating planting of their 250,000^th tree, halfway to their goal of 500,000 trees by 2025.

The Deteriorating Problem

The IPCC Synthesis Report was considerably watered down in the process of achieving unanimous buy-in from delegates of all 195 nations involved, particularly relating to the environmental costs of burning fossil fuels and consuming meat, while inflating the claimed benefits of capture carbon and storage technologies.

Scientists warn that business as usual will cause sustained melting of Antarctic ice, likely resulting in the rate of circulation of deep ocean currents in the southern hemisphere slowing down by 40 per cent by 2050, causing deoxygenation of waters at the bottom of the ocean, a reduction of nutrients in upwellings, the monsoon to the north of Australia becoming much drier, more rainfall north of the equator, and less rainfall south of the equator.

Due to record-high temperatures in 2022, 500 wildfires burnt 306,000 hectares in Spain, and following a winter drought and unseasonal hot temperatures, an early fire has burnt over 4,000 hectares and forced 1,500 people to flee their homes, leading to concerns that this could be another bad year as climate heating leads to mega fires.

As fires increase so too does the aerial application of the pretty pink ammonium phosphate-based retardant, in California the Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology have waged a decade long legal battle against its use near streams because of its significant impacts on aquatic ecosystems, particularly fish, also questioning its effectiveness in most conditions, creating a panicked reaction from many, resulting in lawfare.

Turning it Around

NASA researchers have used satellite images and an artificial intelligence algorithm to count 9.9 billion trees and measure how much carbon they store across 10 million square kilometers.in the semiarid Sahel, a belt of land stretching across Northern Africa, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, with the method ready to be deployed elsewhere in the near future.

If you are interested in what’s happing regarding forests in Europe, North America or India regarding global promises to end forest loss, Deforestation Inc. reporters checked and found authorities were failing on a number of key forest protection measures. Their earlier revelations that one of North America’s largest pulp and paper manufacturers, Paper Excellence, that now controls nearly 54 million acres of Canadian forests, is linked to entities in Indonesia and China has created controversy in Canada. Deforestation Inc also have a lengthy article about voluntary timber certification, highlighting how shoddy the processes are, focusing on KPMGs role in developing voluntary standards and their vouching for an Indonesian company with a supply chain beset by deforestation allegations and a project in Canada that led to an Indigenous forest’s “death by a thousand cuts”.

More than 28 million credits have been sold for the Cordillera Azul National Park project in Peru, which aimed to stop deforestation, yet tree loss has more than doubled, according to satellite analysis tree canopy loss jumped from an average of 262 hectares (650 acres) per year in the five years before the project launched to an average of 572 hectares (1,400 acres) per year from 2009 to 2021, in addition to this the worth of the project was greatly overstated.

Dailan Pugh