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.
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