An international committee of scientists will meet at the Hyatt Hotel today to review agreed-upon criteria and indicators for the conservation and sustainable management of temperate and boreal forests in NSW. Members of the Tactical Advisory Committee (TAC) from 10 different countries will be attending the 32nd Montreal Process Working Group that has received representations alleging that the NSW Government is failing all 7 of the criterias of the Montreal Process. This comes after the International Association for Vegetation Scientists last month blasted the NSW Government for allowing industrial logging in the Great Koala National Park and called for immediate conservation actions.
Greens MP Sue Higginson and spokesperson for the Environment said "The current NSW Labor Government and the former NSW coalition Government, have failed to meet international obligations to conserve and manage native forests and have in fact allowed industrial logging to escalate,"
"There is no clearer indication that the NSW Government is failing than the situation in the Mid-North coast State Forests that are simultaneously being industrially logged while they are also being assessed as the future Great Koala National Park,"
"Native forests up and down the coast have been damaged and degraded with complete lack of regard for their importance as biodiverse regions that filter our air and water. This damage is being caused by the state owned Forestry Corporation that is actively avoiding accountability through political interference,"
"I have written to the Montreal Process Working Group to explain the parlous state of native forests in NSW and how successive Governments have ignored and failed to meet their international commitments to conserve and sustain temperate forests. I have seen the documents that show Forestry Corporation has repeatedly ignored advice or obstructed intervention when it comes to their aggressive and harmful logging operations in some of the highest biodiversity value areas of NSW,"
"Industrial native forest logging, like the NSW Government is allowing, is a profitless and dangerous practice that is directly driving both the Extinction and Climate Crises. That's why international agreements like the Montreal Process are so significant, we must be accountable and end native forest logging here in NSW, Australia and around the Earth,"
"The Government must act now, to end the industrial logging of native forests in NSW and meet their international, domestic and community obligations to protect forest ecosystems," Ms Higginson said.
