Matters are not going exactly to plan for NSW Deputy-Premier, Minister for Regional New South Wales and Nationals MP for Monaro, John 'Barracuda' Barilaro.
With only another four weeks to the end of 2020 his timetable for legislative and regulatory changes, allowing farmers and developers to commence virtually unregulated clearing of native trees and vegetation before state parliament and local government return from the two-month holiday break, is now seriously behind schedule.
Neither mainstream nor social media has let go of the idea that it is environmentally destructive to be logging already bushfire-impacted forests and clearing what remains of koala food and shelter trees in the face of a looming extinction crisis and increasing climate change.
And when it comes to the Premier, despite his best efforts Barilaro hasn't managed to weaken her enough to cause a parliamentary leadership challenge in the NSW Liberal Party.
He is not yet the kingmaker he so obviously wants to be, even though he is casting less than subtle hints across the paths of journalists that Gladys Berejiklian is off her game, tired, making mistakes and that "A break would do her good" .
These are two examples of regional and national media articles published last Friday.....
Echo NetDaily, 27 November 2020:
More than 60 per cent of North Coast forests and 80 per cent of South Coast forests were burnt in the 2019–20 black summer fires. Since that point issues around the management and logging of these and other forests have been highlighted and ‘the Guardian has revealed that the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) will likely be engaged to conduct a review to “consider the standards that should be in place for forestry operations after bushfires.”,’ said Independent NSW MLC Justin Field.
Mr Field has called on the NSW government to give an undertaking to NSW coastal communities that new approvals for logging in the state’s badly burnt public state forests will not be approved until a review by the state’s Independent NRC is completed.
‘It’s one year to the week since the devastating Currowan fire took hold on the South Coast. The community always understood business as usual wasn’t possible after the fires but the politics has been slow to move and a lot of damage has been done,’ said Mr Field.
‘This review is a political fix to try to find a circuit breaker in what has been an escalating public conflict between John Barilaro’s department and the NSW EPA. The NRC are effectively being asked to be the arbiter in this disagreement.
Logging breaches
‘In part this review is in response to numerous EPA stop-work orders and investigations into breaches by Forestry Corporation under the burnt forest logging rules.
‘I am seeking an undertaking from the Government that new approvals for logging in bushfire affected forests will not be granted until we’ve seen the outcome of the review,’ Mr Field said.
‘The review comes after a public dispute between Deputy Premier John Barilaro’s Department of Regional NSW and the NSW Environment Protection Authority over the ‘site specific operating conditions’ the EPA had put in place to minimise environmental damage of burnt forest logging,’ says Mr Field.
‘The dispute had led to the EPA warning Forestry Corporation that plans to move back to logging under pre-fire conditions would likely breach the NSW Forestry Act which requires ecologically sustainable forest management practices. ‘
Local Greens Member for Ballina Tamara Smith told Echonetdaily that, ‘The Greens oppose logging in native forests on a good day, let alone after catastrophic bushfires and the subsequent destruction of wildlife and biodiversity on an unprecedented scale in NSW last summer.
‘I and thousands of environmentalists begged the government to send in ecologists after the fires last summer not loggers, but they did any way.
‘The idea that with 1.7 degrees of global warming already locked in that logging of native forests is even on the table is the kind of environmental vandalism that future generations will study as pivotal to sealing a fate of extinction for koalas and platypus and countless other species,’ said Ms Smith…...
The Guardian, 27 November 2020:
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NSW’s EPA has issued stop-work orders to the state-owned Forestry Corporation for breaches of its licence in bushfire-hit forests on the north and south coasts. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images |
The New South Wales government is planning a review of forestry operations in bushfire-hit coastal regions as tensions mount between the environment regulator and Forestry Corporation.
The review, which is still to be formally commissioned, will probably be carried out by the state’s Natural Resources Commission (NRC), government sources have told Guardian Australia.
The state’s Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has issued the state-owned Forestry Corporation with a series of stop-work orders this year for breaches of its licence in bushfire-hit forests on the south and north coasts.
Last month, the EPA started five prosecutions against Forestry Corporation in the land and environment court for alleged breaches of its licence in a forest near Coffs Harbour.
Because of the destruction caused by the bushfires, the EPA had set stricter standards for logging operations covered by the coastal integrated forestry operations approval (IFOA).
The EPA’s application of the post-bushfire rules has frustrated the industry and the Department of Regional NSW wrote to the agency in September to say forestry believed environmental protections set out in its approval remained adequate after the fires.
But MPs and residents of coastal NSW have been dismayed at the logging of fire-affected habitat given the scale of disaster and its effect on threatened plants and animals, including koalas.
The planned review will consider the standards that should be in place for forestry operations after bushfires and try to chart a path back to the use of the coastal IFOA.
The NRC provides independent advice to government and was the agency that delivered the report on the Barwon-Darling water-sharing plan, which found the riverine system was in crisis.
The independent MP, Justin Field, who is based on the south coast, asked the forestry minister, John Barilaro, about the “now-public dispute” between the EPA and regional NSW and what the government was doing to ensure forestry operations were ecologically sustainable.
Field told Guardian Australia the NRC “will effectively be the arbiter in the disagreement between Forestry Corporation and the EPA over what logging could sustainably happen in burnt forest”.
“This is in response to numerous EPA stop-work orders and investigations into breaches under the burnt forest logging rules,” he said.
“I welcome this review. The public has recommended that business as usual after the fires is not possible.”
He said an independent assessment of the impact of logging on burnt forest and wood supply was appropriate.
“I hope this leads to a conversation about a transition away from public native forestry to plantations and private land forestry.” A spokesman for Barilaro would not confirm a formal review......
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