A state-owned logging corporation, known as a ‘serial offender’ of environmental law, has been hit with dozens of new accusations as calls grow to end the loss-making logging of hardwood trees.
The NSW Environment Protection Authority is taking the state’s Forestry Corporation to court again in October for alleged breaches of forestry and biodiversity laws in the Tallaganda State Forest in southern NSW.
The 29 offences are alleged to have occurred in 2023.
Stop work orders were issued in the forest in August of that year after an endangered greater glider was found dead about 50 metres from logging operations in the forest.
Greens MP Sue Higginson said charges for the alleged failure to conduct habitat surveys, destruction of threatened species’ habitats and logging of protected giant trees are well overdue, and are not an isolated case.
‘The Forestry Corporation is a serial offender,’ she said in a statement.
She repeated calls for native forest logging to end in NSW, as it has in WA and Victoria.
A watchdog says Forestry Corporation logging in Tallaganda State Forest breached biodiversity laws (pictured)
‘Until then, the Forestry Corporation will keep breaking the law, forests will keep being destroyed, and the public will keep paying the price.’
WWF Australia conservation scientist Kita Ashman echoed the calls.
‘Forests are far more valuable standing – for wildlife, carbon storage and future generations.’
The Nature Conservation Council called Forestry a ‘rogue agency’.
‘They have repeatedly shown they do not respect the law and have no problem sending the bill to taxpayers when they get caught,’ its chief executive Jacqui Mumford said.
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey was asked about cumulative losses from native forest hardwood logging totalling $60 million in recent years at a budget estimates hearing earlier in August.
‘On most corporate metrics, it wouldn’t be described as huge but it would be described as warranting attention,’ Mr Mookhey said.
‘I prefer government’s businesses to make profits, not losses.
The Forestry Corporation as been slammed as being a ‘rogue agency’ when it comes to logging
NSW estimates its forestry sector is worth an estimated $3.3 billion and supports about 14,900 jobs, including 600 in Forestry Corporation.
A court in 2024 found the state forest manager had a pattern of environmental offending.
It did not have a low likelihood of reoffending or good prospects for rehabilitation, the NSW Land and Environment Court found in relation to a prosecution in July 2024.
Forestry was fined $360,000 after pleading guilty to cutting down 53 eucalypt trees, saying it was ‘due to human error applying a one-off condition’.
‘We deeply regret the mistake and the environmental damage it has caused,’ Forestry chief executive Anshul Chaudhary said at the time.
Mr Chaudhary is expected at another budget estimates hearing on Monday.
The latest case is due before the NSW Land and Environment Court on October 10.
