Region Archives: International

AUSTRALIA — Timber industry supporters on the North Coast had reason to smile last week after a Federal Court judge dismissed a legal challenge to the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) that allows logging in north-eastern NSW native forests. The North East RFA exempts logging from federal environmental assessment under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). The 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 in NSW. NEFA lawyers argued that, when the RFA was renewed in 2018 for another 20 years, the Commonwealth did not assess climate change, endangered species or old-growth forests as it was required to. Justice Perry dismissed those arguments, finding that such an assessment was not required, and in any event had occurred.

Disturbing natural forests with activities such as logging and prescribed burning can make them more flammable, research from The Australian National University and Curtin University has found. The research is published in Biological Reviews. …”We’ve understood for a long time now that logging can make bushfires worse, but it’s only in the last few years that evidence is showing that prescribed burning could be doing the same thing,” Professor David Lindenmayer said. Co-author Philip Zylstra said, “If they’re too tall to catch fire, plants calm bushfires by slowing the wind beneath them. If disturbance kills those taller plants, replacements regrow from the ground and add to the fuel. “Fire-sensitive species thrived for millions of years because so many forests naturally create these less flammable environments.” …Prescribed burns can sometimes decrease flammability in the short term, but the way they disrupt forest ecosystems can create longer periods of additional flammability.

“Enormous” cuts to forestry will “torpedo” Scotland’s chances of meeting its climate targets, Woodland Trust Scotland and Confor have said. The conservation charity and timber industry body have condemned proposals for a “massive” 41% cut in the funding to support woodland creation and management through the Forestry Grant Scheme. Scottish Forestry is facing cuts of more than £32 million from its grant budget following the Budget announcement by Finance Secretary Shona Robison last month. Alastair Seaman, director of Woodland Trust Scotland, said: “The Scottish Government must remember that warm words won’t stop climate change or restore nature. “We need investment in new woodland – and fast – if we are to have any hope of a strong economy and a healthy landscape in the years to come.

The Korea Forest Service is ramping up its commitment to a green transition by consolidating efforts in the forest industry, now securing nearly 40 partnerships with foreign countries. The nation’s forest agency has been actively establishing bilateral agreements for forest cooperation, starting with Indonesia in 1987. A total of 39 countries are now maintaining such cooperative relationships with Korea, and the number is expected to grow. …KFS and its partnering countries are expanding their sights on increasing the diversity of damaged ecosystems and tackling wildfires and the worldwide climate crisis. …The Korea-Canada partnership also marked ten years of forest cooperation, carrying out joint research to promote timber construction techniques. When massive wildfires burned across Canada in July, Korea also dispatched an emergency firefighting team of about 140 officers to the North American nation to support the firefighting efforts.

AUSTRALIA — Controversial agreements allowing native forests to be logged can be extended for decades without a fresh assessment of threats including climate change, the Federal Court has found. Forest defenders in NSW have lost what they hoped would be a landmark challenge against one such agreement that governs logging across four million hectares of native forest from Sydney to the Queensland border. The Federal Court dismissed arguments about its validity, meaning harvesting will continue in coastal forests that are strongholds for endangered species. The timber industry welcomed the result saying it secured hundreds of jobs in regional NSW but Premier Chris Minns warned the sector change was coming. “The forestry industry in NSW has a future,” he said but flagged his government planned to explore the expansion of private plantations and forestry-related opportunities for carbon offsets. …It’s important for our domestic economy.”

Just 2% of rainforest tree species account for 50% of the trees found in tropical forests across Africa, the Amazon and south-east Asia, a new study has found. Mirroring patterns found elsewhere in the natural world, researchers have discovered that a few tree species dominate the world’s major rainforests, with thousands of rare species making up the rest. Led by University College London researchers and published in the Nature journal, the international collaboration of 356 scientists uncovered almost identical patterns of tree diversity across the world’s rainforests, which are the most biodiverse places on the planet. The researchers estimate that just 1,000 species account for half of Earth’s 800 billion trees in tropical rainforests, with 46,000 species making up the remainder. …The team of scientists demonstrated that while African tropical forests have fewer total species compared with the Amazon and south-east Asia, their diversity follows the same pattern.

Environmentalists have lost a legal challenge to a forestry agreement between the New South Wales and Commonwealth governments, meaning logging operations can continue within a vast coastal area between Sydney and the Queensland border. The North East Regional Forestry Agreement was originally signed in 2000 and renewed in 2018. The North East Forest Alliance asked the Federal Court to declare that the renewed agreement did not meet the definition of such agreements under relevant laws. On behalf of the alliance, the Environmental Defenders Office argued the Commonwealth was required to assess environmental values and principles of ecologically sustainable management when it was renewed, but failed to do so. …Justice Melissa Perry today rejected that argument and ruled the requirement to assess environmental values applied only when the intergovernmental agreement began, not when it was extended.

Additional Coverage:

• Australia Forest Products Association: Federal Court ruling a vindication of strong native forestry governance in NSW
• Australian Rural and Regional News: Common-sense prevails in Federal Court decision on Regional Forest Agreements

Rob de Fegely

A LEADING Australian forestry expert has resigned from Bendigo Bank over its policy not to support the harvesting of native forest. Rob de Fegely, who has had many senior roles in his 40-year career in forestry, has resigned from the board of his local Community Bank due to its parent Bendigo Bank’s policy of not supporting native forest harvesting. Mr de Fegely, a director of Margules Groome Consulting, chair of Sustainable Timber Tasmania and a non-executive director of Forestry Corporation of NSW, emphasised these were his personal views and not those of any of the organisations he works for. “Despite numerous exchanges with the chief executive, Marnie Baker, and the head of corporate affairs and ESG, they have not provided any justification for their policy, which is contrary to the United Nationals International Panel on Climate Change recommendations for managed forests,” he said.

JAKARTA, Indonesia — After years of declining deforestation, forest loss caused by Indonesia’s pulp sector is on the rise again, showing a fivefold increase in 2022 compared with 2017 levels, a new analysis shows. In the 1990s and 2000s, Indonesia’s pulp and paper industry was among the country’s primary drivers of deforestation. …In recent years, in light of public pressure, an increasing number of producers and buyers of wood pulp and paper have adopted zero-deforestation commitments, notably two of the country’s largest producers: Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), and Asia Pacific Resources International. The corporate commitments to stop deforestation were followed by dramatic declines in deforestation, with the average deforestation rate falling by 85%. …However, wood pulp-driven deforestation started to rise again beginning in 2017, spiking nearly fivefold between 2017 and 2022, according to the analysis by Trase. The uptick in deforestation is likely to be driven by an increase in wood consumption.

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.”