A coalition of environment groups, scientists and frontline forest campaigners has welcomed an agreement between the federal Greens and Labor that will retain the Improved Native Forest Management method, removing the final hold up to legislating the Great Koala National Park, and securing major new protections for forests and the climate.
The agreement comes days after more than 100 forest and climate campaigners, scientists, elected representatives and conservation organisations signed an open letter urging Senators to retain the method as a pathway to end native forest logging.
The outcome provides governments with a pathway to stop native forest logging, protect forests for 100 years and invest the millions of dollars needed to restore and manage forests damaged by decades of industrial logging.
The changes agreed to will:
create the first federal legal mechanism allowing states to ban coal and gas companies from using ACCUs generated through INFM projects, including preventing credits being channelled through third parties;
increase the minimum reduction in native forest logging required across Regional Forest Agreement areas before projects can generate carbon credits, rising from 20 per cent to 25 per cent for projects registered from 2028 and 30 per cent from 2030; and
close a loophole that could have allowed regrown native forests to be reclassified as plantations and excluded from the method's protections.
Clancy Barnard, Forests Campaigner for Nature Conservation Council NSW, said:
"In NSW, the agreement will give legal force to the state government's commitment to stop coal and gas companies accessing ACCUs generated via the INFM method.
"This is the first time we have seen a commitment that an entire class of ACCUs will not be sold to coal and gas companies.
"We hope these steps mark a shift in the carbon market toward higher integrity methods, and broader restrictions on offsets being used by fossil fuel projects.
"Of equal importance, every dollar of revenue generated through future INFM projects in NSW will be reinvested into forest management and restoration.
"If applied across NSW's remaining public native forests, this would increase investment in ecological management and restoration by around 30 per cent.
"We applaud Labor and the Greens for working together to deliver these safeguards.
"We backed this method, after fighting to get key changes to it, because we believe it gives us one of the best opportunities to finally end native forest logging and invest in the restoration our forests desperately need.
"Securing a commitment that every dollar generated from future forest projects will go back into restoring and managing those forests is a major win for nature.
"Our forests desperately need that investment after decades of logging, degradation, invasive species and increasingly severe climate impacts.
"This means ending logging will not only stop the damage. It will help pay for the enormous job of bringing these forests back to health."
"Now it is time to not only end logging in NSW but invest in restoration and regeneration on a massive scale.
"Ending logging allows rainforest and wetter forest communities suppressed by decades of logging to return. It allows trees to grow old, hollows to form, soils and waterways to recover and habitat for koalas, greater gliders and other threatened species to be restored.
"It also allows us to invest properly in that recovery, with substantially more funding for ecological restoration, weed and pest control, threatened species recovery and long-term forest management.
"As our climate becomes hotter and bushfires become more dangerous, ending logging and allowing wetter forest communities and rainforest to recover is one of the most important things we can do to build their resilience."
North East Forest Alliance President Dailan Pugh OAM, said:
"The end goal has always been to end native forest logging. Now that the NSW Government has a funded pathway to end logging of public native forests they have no excuse not to.
"They need to begin the transition now. Our Koalas, Greater Gliders and a myriad of other suffering wildlife need their homes urgently protected if there is an intent to save them from extinction. They can't wait any longer.
"We expect the NSW Government will introduce legislation to enact the Great Koala National Park within a month, and urge them to now commit to ending logging of public native forests and move forward with other proposals to protect our high value native forests.
"Stop the logging now. Protect the forests. Then get on with the enormous job of helping them recover."
