After the massive destruction of the 2019 NSW bushfires, the Environment Protection Authority moved to protect the affected forests while they recovered.
EPA issued more than half a million dollars in fines to NSW Forestry Corporation for dodgy logging practices since the fires.
Then, suddenly in 2022, the EPA wound back their investigations into Forestry Corp and local campaigners now say EPA officers won’t come out to see alleged breaches and excessive logging.
Why the change of EPA attitude towards Forestry Corp?
“What’s changed so much, from May to September, to allow for the transition of the forest from sensitive to harvestable?” Nick Hopkins, a member of Coastwatchers Association asked when logging plans for Shallow Crossing changed, sharply reducing the “sensitive area exclusion zones”.
Tony Chappel started his new job as CEO of Environment Protection Authority in July 2022. The right wing Liberal Party government that appointed him was defeated at the March 2023 election.
Mr Chappel’s CV includes stints with Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), and the nation’s biggest polluters: AGL Energy and Whitehaven Coal.
Tony Chappel was chief of staff to NSW Premier Mike Baird and Planning Minister Rob Stokes during the O’Farrell-Baird Liberal Party governments.
Tony Chappel’s is highly credentialed in managing media stories for the coal and gas industries, and for politicians. There are criticisms that the environmental watchdog overseeing the biggest polluters and the controversial forestry industry is now a ‘captured agency‘.
Managing the media
One well known technique in managing media coverage is to issue press releases on topics that are embarrassing or are contrary to the preferred narrative late on a Friday afternoon. Mainstream journalists have gone home for the weekend and media outlets are manned by sports journalists.
In the year since his appointment as CEO of the EPA, Tony Chappel has issued EPA’s press releases under his name.
However, on 10 November 2023, EPA were obliged to inform the public that EPA’s Stop Work Order on Forestry Corp at Tallaganda State Forest had been extended, yet again, because of Forestry’s non-compliance.
Not only was the press release issued at 5.03pm on Friday, after journalists had gone home, but an underling put his name on it. These press releases are automated. The issuer chooses the time that the release goes out. To date, no mainstream media has covered the story. Read our coverage here: EPA’s Stop Work Order extended in Tallaganda State Forest
Complaints to the EPA go unheard
Save Bulga Forest campaigners say that their complaints to the EPA are falling on deaf ears, and the local EPA officers won’t come out to the nearby Yarratt State Forest to investigate despite photographic and anecdotal evidence from local qualified ecologists and campaigners that
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Damning report into Forestry Corp ‘buried’
After the Black Summer bush fires, NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes asked the Natural Resources Commission to prepare a report examining forestry operations following clashes between the Environment Protection Authority and Forestry Corp over ‘so-called ‘site specific conditions’ that limited the amount of native trees that could be felled in state forests.
The Commission completed the report and sent it to Mr Stokes, Deputy Premier & Forestry Minister John Barilaro, and Environment Minister Matt Kean, all ministers in the Liberal National Party Government.
The report was promptly ‘buried’ and not released. Mr Barilaro said the report was “being considered by the NSW government and remains Cabinet in Confidence”.
“It is totally unacceptable that a taxpayer-funded assessment of how to manage environmental risks from logging after the bushfires would be hidden under cabinet-in-confidence rules,” Independent MP Justin Field said.
it was “a gross act of bad faith” by Forestry Corp and Mr Barilaro as Forestry Minister to keep the report secret while continuing to log in the South Coast area where 80 per cent of the forests were burnt.
New South Wales’ Forestry Corporation (FCNSW) has been fined $230,000 after destroying a bat habitat in the Dampier State Forest near Bodalla on the state’s south coast.
‘When the Forestry Corporation sought to log Doubleduke State Forest a few months after the fires the EPA issued site-specific conditions, that required various additional measures to reduce impacts, including protection of all hollow-bearing trees and all mapped unburned and partially burned areas.
‘This effectively required logging to be excluded from a large area of mature and oldgrowth forest in the Lower Slopes Road valley in Doubleduke State Forest.
Mr Pugh said while this forest has not been surveyed, nearby records indicate this is a vital refuge for a comprehensive assemblage of hollow-dependent species, including the Endangered Southern Greater Glider, along with the Vulnerable Yellow-bellied Glider, Squirrel Glider, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Brush-tailed Phascogale, Masked Owl, Barking OwI, Powerful Owl, Glossy Black Cockatoo, Little Lorikeet, Brown Treecreeper and Stephens Banded Snake.
‘It is also known to contain core Koala habitat.
Some definitions
A “captured agency” refers to a regulatory agency or government body that has been unduly influenced or controlled by the very industries or entities it is supposed to regulate. In such a situation, the agency no longer acts in the best interest of the public but instead serves the interests of the industries it is supposed to oversee.
“Lemon socialism” is a term used to describe a situation in which the government or public sector takes ownership or control of failing or distressed companies or industries, typically in order to prevent their collapse or to address economic crises.
Greenwashing is a deceptive marketing or public relations practice in which a company or organization falsely presents itself as environmentally responsible or eco-friendly, often exaggerating or misrepresenting its environmental efforts or accomplishments.
Related stories
What is a Captured Agency and Regulatory Capture
What is Greenwashing and How to spot it
What is Lemon Socialism Privatise profits, socialise losses
Captured states relationship to fossil fuel industry
Controversial CEO Dr Larry Marshall Leaves CSIRO
