August 15, 2024:

I recently visited the Bulga State Forest, located 80 kilometres to the west of Port Macquarie in New South Wales. It is a native forest that is due to be logged imminently. Whilst there with locals, I had the profound pleasure of seeing an endangered greater glider emerge from its den tree just after dusk. In fact, I personally saw a few greater gliders that night, in the space of a couple of hours. Seeing these beautiful creatures—our largest glider, and definitely the cutest—was a truly special experience, but such magic moments are increasingly rare. Greater glider numbers have declined 80 per cent in the last 20 years. In 2022 greater gliders were added to the endangered species list. The reason? Native forest logging, which is killing off critical habitat, and fiercer bushfires, fuelled by climate change.

Last week Forestry Corporation of NSW, owned by the New South Wales government, closed Bulga State Forest to the public in preparation for logging of this amazing forest, where I saw these endangered species. There are likely to be fierce protests from the local community when the heavy machinery arrives and begins its destruction. Forestry Corporation of NSW will tell you that it takes steps to protect the greater gliders of the Bulga forest. It will talk about selective logging, but Forestry Corporation of NSW is not required to undertake systematic surveys of den trees to see where viable populations of greater gliders are hanging on. I am told they will look for den trees, but only from the road, and conduct just two passes looking for the gliders. Until recently, Forestry Corporation of NSW was undertaking surveys of nocturnal animals during the daytime. Funnily enough, they didn't see any. This is a travesty, and I can't understand why it is happening. Our federal environment minister has claimed that protections for greater gliders have increased because their status was upgraded from vulnerable to endangered in 2022, but this is not helping protect greater gliders on the ground in real life.

New South Wales forestry corp operations take place under a regional forestry agreement. These regional forestry agreements are exempt from assessment under our national environment laws. Typically, the federal environment minister does not have a role to play in assessing whether logging by a state owned forestry company is taking place in a way that is harming endangered animals, but this is because, to date, the federal government has refused to remove the exemption of regional forestry agreements from scrutiny under our national environment laws, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Instead, it has left it to state agencies to police this rogue corporation, Forestry Corporation of NSW—and I use that term advisedly. In the last five years forestry corp has been charged with over a dozen unlawful actions, including seven criminal convictions. Last month, in the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales, it was fined $360,000 for removing 53 trees in a forest near Eden. These were refuges for native species after the 2020 bushfires. Justice Rachel Pepper accepted that forestry corp has 'a pattern of environmental offending, has not provided any compelling evidence of measures taken by it to prevent its reoffending, and does not accept the true extent of harm that it has caused by its offending'.

Do not believe the spin from forestry corp. Look at its record. The federal environment minister should do the same. If we don't want more extinctions, we need to end native forest logging now and end the regional forestry agreement exemptions. It is inconceivable to me that the Bulga State Forest is about to be logged when there are obviously greater gliders, an endangered species, living throughout it.

We are destroying native forests and habitat for critically endangered species for what? Woodchips and tomato stakes. Yes, our Aussie bush is being shipped overseas or sold at Bunnings, often for really low value products. Worse still, we are subsidising this destruction. Native forestry operations run at a loss and rely on top-ups from state budgets— (Time expired)