A New South Wales conservation group has launched a court bid to stop logging in two state forests, arguing allowing it would devastate local koala populations that have already been ravaged by bushfire.
The North East Forest Alliance said if granted it would be first time a community group in the state had won an injunction to stop logging in more than 20 years.
The state-owned Forestry Corporation has agreed at a hearing to stop logging in the Myrtle and Braemar state forests, on the north coast, until the land and environment court hears an urgent application on Wednesday.
Environmentalists said scientists had estimated the black summer bushfires of 2019-20 reduced the koala population in the area by more than 70%. The alliance said its own surveys had confirmed the endangered species was still found in the forests, making it vital they were protected.
The Minns government has promised to create a Great Koala national park from Kempsey to Coffs Harbour on the mid-north coast, but the two forests sit outside the proposed reserve.
The alliance’s president, Dailan Pugh, said the government should commission new independent koala surveys in the area and protect population sites and trees used for feeding. “It is very disappointing that we have to resort to legal action to protect these areas given the new government’s pledge to protect koalas,” he said.
Data released by the NSW government on Monday showed that 27,000 hectares (66,700 acres) of woody forest – trees and large shrubs – was cleared in the state in 2021, the most recent year for which data was available. Another 53,326 hectares of grasses, small shrubs and ground vegetation was removed.
The NSW environment minister, Penny Sharpe, said the amount of land-clearing in that state increased by about 30% after the former Coalition government relaxed biodiversity laws.
She said Labor had made an election commitment to stop excess land clearing and would soon table and respond to a review of the state’s Biodiversity Conservation Act. “This data shows why reform is so important,” she said.
Sharpe’s office was asked for her response to the alliance’s legal action.
The vice-president of the North Coast Environment Council, Susie Russell, said the premier, Chris Minns, had said protecting koalas was non-negotiable, but his government had not yet done anything to protect forests. “This is a spearhead legal action to try and make the government actually walk the talk,” she said.
A Forestry Corporation spokesperson said the planned logging was “selective” and subject to strict environmental conditions and extra measures applied to areas hit by the black summer fires. “We look forward to swift resolution of the issue before the court,” they said.
In Queensland, data released on Sunday showed nearly 350,000 hectares of woody vegetation was destroyed in Queensland in 2020-21. Queensland easily leads the country in forest clearing, mostly for agriculture, but also for housing expansion in the south-east.
A national state of the environment report last year said Australia had lost more mammal species than any other continent and one of the highest rates of species decline in the developed world, and that habitat destruction and clearing was a major cause of extinction.
The World Wide Fund for Nature ranked NSW and Queensland as the worst states on a measure of how many trees they bulldozed. It found Tasmania was third worst and South Australia had the best environmental record on tree clearing.
