Forest defenders have once again today stopped work in a NSW native forest, halting logging operations at Styx River State Forest north east of Armidale to protect endangered Greater Gliders and their habitat from harm. Citizen scientists have identified nine Greater Gliders and a habitat den tree in the logging area as of last night, despite NSW Government owned Forestry Corporation failing to identify the Greater Gliders or the habitat den tree as part of their pre-logging surveys. Until today, the Forestry Corporation has carried out ongoing logging operations in close proximity to the sites identified by citizen scientists.
Under the very loose logging rules in NSW, the Forestry Corporation are required to identify Greater Glider den trees and apply a 50m logging exclusion area, something they have failed to do in Styx River State Forest. Greater Gliders are a wholly forest dependent species that are threatened with extinction.
Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson says: "This has got to stop. The Minns Labor Government and the Forestry Regulator, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA), need to pull the Government owned Forestry Corporation into line. What is happening in our publicly owned native forests is extinction logging, there is no other honest way to describe it and it's got to end immediately.
"We need to ask how this keeps happening. In August the EPA issued a Stop Work Order in Tallaganda State Forest in the State's South East where a dead Greater Glider was found close to logging operations and Forestry Corporation were found to have breached the Greater Glider protection rules, that Stop Work Order has been extended. Then again in November the EPA issued a Stop Work Order in Flat Rock State Forest on the same basis. Each time it was the community who brought the issue to the attention of the regulator.
"I have this morning been provided with clear evidence that the rules are being broken again, this time in the State's northeast in Styx River State Forest and once again it is the community who has taken action to stop any more harm to the endangered Greater Gliders and their habitat. Endangered Greater Gliders require the bigger older trees with hollows of a particular size in our forests to survive, without protecting these den trees they will become extinct.
"I have notified the EPA and asked that they urgently address this issue. They need to issue a Stop Work Order in Styx State Forest. The Minns Labor Government needs to make some serious decisions about the management of our precious public native forest estate because any claim that logging is ecologically sustainable is false. Logging is driving extinction and it is costing the taxpayers millions of dollars every year.
"Logging in NSW is becoming increasingly untenable. We have breaches in forests all across the state, it's only a matter of time until the Labor Government realises that the only path forward is to end the industry for good." Ms Higginson said.
