AUSTRALIA — On January 10th, the Federal Court will hand down the decision …on the validity and continuation of native forest logging in New South Wales. The March 2022 case was brought by the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) against the Commonwealth of Australia and the State of NSW in the first ever legal challenge to a Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) in NSW. NEFA challenged the 2018 decision to extend the North East RFA on the grounds that the Commonwealth and State failed to assess the impacts of industrial scale logging on climate change, endangered species and old growth forests, despite it being required to do so. Greens MP Sue Higginson said, “no matter the decision, it is clear from the evidence presented that the logging of our public native forests is happening under outdated laws that have not considered climate change and are facilitating the destruction of critical habitats for threatened species and ecosystems.”