ABC News, 20 July 2017:
A koala habitat 50 per cent larger than the Royal National Park has been destroyed by logging, according to a new conservation report.
The report titled Clearing Koalas Away by conservationist Dailan Pugh, says more than 23,000 hectares of koala habitat near Coffs Harbour has been "virtually cleared".
"They're hitting them really hard. We're looking at about 40 per cent of koala habitat in state forests," he said.
Mr Pugh, an environmentalist for over 40 years, sourced the forestry data under freedom of information (FOI) legislation, in a bid to measure logging against known koala habitats.
Last year, then-environment minister Mark Speakman admitted "intensive harvesting" on the North Coast was "not consistent" with regulations, and said the Environment Protection Authority was investigating.
An EPA spokesperson declined to answer questions, but said "current rules are over 15 years old and lack clarity in important areas, including intensive harvesting".
Recent studies suggest less than 9,000 koalas survive on the North Coast, a 50 per cent decline in the past 20 years.
Habitat loss is widely acknowledged as a driver of the decline.
Mr Pugh said a sustainable logging method called "single-tree selection" is being misused by Forestry Corporation.
Single-tree selection permits the selective harvest of just 40 per cent of eucalypts trees in a logging zone — leaving 60 per cent of trees as off-limits.
But the off-limits status is temporary, and evidence shows these trees are heavily logged in later operations.
The reports highlights examples like Kerewong State Forest, with photos showing the heavy clearing of a mapped koala habitat.
Echo NetDaily, 13 March 2017:
A representative of the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) was ejected from a meeting that he called with the Environment Protection Authority at Gibberagee State Forest after it was ‘gatecrashed by the Forestry Corporation’.
NEFA auditor Dailan Pugh said he was invited to Gibberagee by the EPA on Friday (March 10) so that he could show them logging was taking place into what were meant to be exclusion zones around the nationally Endangered Narrow-leaved Melichrus, which only occurs at Gibberagee.
But he was directed to leave by the Forestry Corporation without being allowed to show the EPA anything.
‘A month ago I sent the EPA a complaint after identifying that the Forestry Corporation were refusing to identify the legally required buffers around the Endangered plant Narrow-leaf Melichrus,’ Mr Pugh told Echonetdaily.
He added they were ‘recklessly damaging hollow-bearing and recruitment trees, and logging “unmapped” streams in the immediate catchment of the regionally significant seagrass beds of The Broadwater.’
‘Bryce Gorham of the EPA invited me to come out to the forest last Friday “to accurately identify (on ground identification) of the alleged breach of intrusion into a Melichrus sp.Giberagee exclusion zone”,’ he said.
‘I expected that the EPA would only invite me if they had the authority to do so.
‘The EPA were late, so while waiting I looked around, finding two more places where logging had extended into what were meant to be 50m exclusion zones around Narrow-leaf Melichrus, in one case by 22m.
‘When the EPA belatedly arrived they had a Forestry Corporation employee, Jamie Churchill, with them.
‘He told me to leave the forest on the grounds of occupational health and safety. I insisted that I had been invited into the forest by the EPA and that, in the area where we were, logging had finished some three months ago so we were not interfering with an active operation and there were no safety issues.’
Mr Pugh said he told both the EPA and Forestry Corporation that he had just found another legal breach nearby, and asked to at least be able to show it to them.
But, he added, the Forestry Corporation refused ‘and the EPA went along with them’.
‘After driving two hours to get there I was forced to leave without being allowed to show the EPA anything.
‘The EPA should never have invited me if they don’t have the authority to stand up to Forestry Corporation bullying.
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