Tony Chappel, the CEO of the Environmental Protection Authority, says EPA is contemplating changes to the existing regulations that currently permit Forestry Corp to conduct surveys for nocturnal animals during the day (refer to details below).
Forestry Corp, the publicly-owned logging corporation, is currently undergoing legal proceedings for multiple incidents and has recently come under criticism for failing to detect endangered Southern Greater Gliders before commencing logging, despite ostensibly conducting a ‘survey’ for these nocturnal animals during daylight hours.
This development follows a series of Breach Reports revealing that Forestry Corp is logging in areas with the highest known populations of the endangered Southern Greater Glider.
During budget estimates this month, the Chief Executive Officer of the EPA, Tony Chappel, was grilled by committee chair, Sue Higginson, Greens MLC.
Excerpt from Committee No.7 Planning and Environment, Climate Change, Energy, The Environment, Heritage (2nd November). Full PDF transcript here:
The CHAIR: I remain gravely concerned from what I’ve seen. In relation to the broad area surveys that Forestry Corporation is required to undertake, do you have any purview over how they’re undertaken, and do you have any concerns around those or how they could be improved?
TONY CHAPPEL: I think yes would be the answer to both of those questions. Part of the stop work order that has been referred to at Tallaganda relates to those issues—that the IFOA is an outcomes-based instrument—but I think our observation is sometimes the way the Forestry Corporation seeks to operationalise those outcomes lacks, in our view, sufficient rigour. It needs to be developed in a competent manner. That’s, I think, at the heart of some of our concerns in Tallaganda regarding the way surveys were conducted for den trees and so on. We proposed to Forestry Corporation some adjustments to protocols to both install further precautionary measures within the proposed Great Koala National Park area, but also improve how Forestry Corporation identify and protect important threatened species habitat. So we’ll be aiming to finalise those in the near term.
The CHAIR: Mr Chappel, do you have the power to amend the protocols—as in, the EPA?
TONY CHAPPEL: The conditions of the IFOA are set by the two Ministers, but the IFOA provides that the EPA can adjust or update protocols to deliver adaptive management to some extent within those conditions that are set. The conditions can only be adjusted or remade by a process that involves the consent of both Ministers, but the EPA is empowered to adjust protocols.
The CHAIR: So you can amend protocols?
TONY CHAPPEL: That’s what we’re proposing to do in both of the contexts I just referred to.
The CHAIR: There is real concern around when we do recommend an improvement in forest practice that it is done through site-specific operating conditions, and that they are unenforceable. If the EPA has the power to amend protocols and there is the case to do so, then the public interest would dictate that that is a good regulatory approach.
TONY CHAPPEL: Yes, I think that’s fair. The site-specific conditions where they are implemented are enforceable, but they have to be requested by the Forestry Corporation. The protocol changes that have been made in the koala hubs, for example, are enforceable prohibitions on harvesting. I guess the caveat to freedom of action here as the regulator is we are obligated to consider any impact on timber supply, through the IFOA, of any adjustment. That’s obviously an important consideration, but we’ll make adjustments based on evidence where we assess they’re required, and that’s a process we’re now undertaking.
The CHAIR: You would be aware that Forestry Corporation’s barrister in the Land and Environment Court a few weeks ago stood and said several times, “If the EPA wants to change the protocols, they will. They can. They have the power to do so.”
TONY CHAPPEL: I am aware of that. We’ve put to Forestry Corporation the form of some potential protocol amendments and we’re obviously engaging with them. We need to do that with the full visibility of any impacts and understanding of that. We’ll take that into account. We’re also working with our colleagues in the Department of Primary Industries to get any feedback they might want to offer, but ultimately I think there’s a strong case for clarifying some of the requirements that the IFOA sets out for various threatened species that have been up-listed or severely impacted by fire since the IFOA was made.
The revelation by Tony Chappel comes when Forestry Corporation NSW is facing heightened scrutiny over its financing.
Forestry Corp handed $247 million, loses $28 million
Even with $246.9 million in taxpayer funds, Forestry Corporation incurred a loss of $28 million, according to the report
According to the report, the publicly-owned logging enterprise received grants totaling $246.9 million since the 2019/20 financial year. Concurrently, the hardwood division, accountable for native forest logging, incurred a loss of $28.2 million during the same period.
“Our government is wasting millions of dollars propping up this dying and destructive industry”
“In what other instance is it acceptable for a company to run at an almost $30 million loss after being given $250 million in taxpayer money?”
Nature Conservation Council Chief Executive Officer Jacqui Mumford said.
The report indicates that state-owned logging firms, as well as the private industry, are being sustained by substantial government subsidies and cross-subsidization from the lucrative plantation sector.
The Frontier Economics Report: Public native forest logging: a large and growing taxpayer burden
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