Submission Template

Your Address Goes here:

Scope of this Submission

This is a template to assist in identifying issues and writing submissions in relation to point 5 of the senate inquiry into the operation of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Consvervation (EPBC) Act 1999:

"the effectiveness of Regional Forest Agreements, in protecting forest species and forest habitats where the EPBC Act does not directly apply; "

Executive Summary:

Section 38 of the EPBC Act specifically exempts Regional Forestry Agreements (RFA's) however, the RFA's are still supposed to protect endangered species. This submission will demonstrate that the structure that has been put in place to replace the EPBC Act depicted in Figure 1 below is failing to deliver its environmental protection requirements at most levels and this is having a devastating effect on our rare, threatened, endangered and critically endangered species.

Victorian Government

Since the signing of the Regional Forest Agreements (RFA’s) successive Victorian governments have continued to support the transition of the high value, labour intensive, native forest logging industry to one of woodchip driven, low value, low labour, commodity market. Today approximately 80% of all timber being “harvested” from native forests is now going to export or domestic woodchip.

Government are encouraging this transition via contracts with industry such as the wood pulp agreement with Paperlinx are guaranteeing wood supply for as little as $7 per tonne whilst available plantations remain in the ground which would cost $35 per tonne. Meanwhile tax payers are subsiding the native forest woodchip industry by paying for transport, the value of water lost logging catchments, government staff and roads. Due to this loss of value in the industry Vicforests last year posted a net loss of negative $15,000 from a 99 million dollar turnover.

This transition has seen government agencies and forest management legislation progressively skew regulations and guidelines to favour the wood chipping of native forests however, the environmental protection of threatened and endangered species both in the legislation and in a practical on the ground application have been widely ignored. The faith by the Victorian government in the structure underpinning the Regional Forest Agreements has been uplifted by audits carried out by the EPA however, these audits have been found to be statistically un representative and biased towards logging operations rather than environmental objectives.

Department of Sustainability and Environment

The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) are responsible for identifying areas of native forest to be logged in order to fulfil the governments contractual agreements with industry and these are allocated to a wood utilisation plan. In order to assess areas for potential environmental sensitivities one would expect the minimum requirement to be an on the ground survey of such areas however, often these surveys are only conducted from the air. This has lead to significant areas being allocated for logging when they should not be. Read more .

The chapters that were removed by the DSE contained areas that are outlined in the aforementioned Baw Baw report and some contained critically endangered species.

Chapters in the Baw Baw report cover the Baw Baw frog , Leadbeaters possum , rainforest , and geology with national significance .

Following the removal of the chapters by the DSE the sustainable yield for logging in Victorias forests were calculated and wood pulp agreements signed.

When logging commenced in areas containing the critically endangered and IUCN red listed Baw Baw frog the central highlands alliance submitted reports to government and flew leading amphibian research scientists to talk to government. The DSE proposed 'Adaptive management' experiments to see if the last 2000 of the species would survive clear fell logging. Read more . Due to the the efforts of not for profit organisations and unpaid volunteers 5500ha of this area have now been made a protected zone.

The recovery team for the Leadbeaters possum was supposed to be managed and outcomes implemented by the Department of Sustainability and environment. This has failed to occur at any meaningful level. Friends of the leadbeaters to provide current status.

It is clear from these reports and examples that the Department of Sustainability and Environment are fundamentaly failing to implement environmental protection of significantly endangered species under the Regional Forest Agreements

Regional Forestry Agreement

In relation to endangered species recovery, environmental protection the agreement is failing to protect or enforce any guidelines. Logging and woodchip interests are being pandered to.

Forest Management Plan

The forest management plans were supposed to be revied every 5 years and to date there has not been a review.

A sustainable yeild assessment was supposed to have been conduted 2 years ago but this has not taken place.

Baw Baw logging rates were supposed to be massively reduced due to overlogging but this has not been inforced.

- Detailed assessment to be added here

Wood Utilisation Plans

Public safety zones are now making it very difficlut for any public scrutiny

Vicforests

Lack of training of staff in identifying ecologically significant areas and species such as rainforest and leadbeaters habitat.

Forest Coupe Plan

As a potential breach of the Code and therefore at the time a potential breach of the law we were instructed by the DSE to contact Vicforests ie those that had breached the law to discuss this with them!

This is a perfect example of how the entire RFA process is failing to protect endangered species on the ground.

The Governments response is always that the EPA audits show that there is good compliance with the code and therefore nothing to worry about but as discussed in detail in the Audit review all audits are done after the clearfell logging operation is complete so in this case there would be no evidence that the dead habitat trees containg the endangered species ever existed.

Code of practice for Timber Production (Code)

There is a complicated interaction of documents and beaurocratic departments which make up the regulation and enactment of logging operations. These include:

• The Regional Forest Agreement (RFA)

• The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act),

• The Forest Management Plans (FMP) for forest Management Areas (FMA)

• The code of forest practice for timber production (CODE)

In all cases the RFA’s over ride the EPBC Act, the Forest Management Plans in some cases over ride the Code. In cases where the EPBC Act would not allow logging the RFA’s are allowing it.

Background:

In the face of an environmental catastrophe fuelled by industry self regulation that would have destroyed Australia’s “clean green image” and Australia’s reputation on the international timber market, in 1989 almost 200 years after the first tree fell the Victorian Parliament ratified the first Code of Forest Practices (Code) for timber production in Native forests.

In 1996 the code was re written but contained ambiguous wording and was open to interpretation allowing government regulators to encourage native forest practices to support logging for wood chipping.

Clauses in the 1996 Code made much of the implementation meaningless e.g. The definition of guidance on page 9 is “Forest mangers are not obliged to conduct any of the actions covered under guidance” although “Guidance” made up a large amount to the practical environmental on the ground protection.

The Code was reviewed in 2006 but rather than strengthening the original premise to protect the environment the Department of Sustainability and Environment introduced measures such as “thinning” which clearly transition the native frosts from a state of nature to one of intensive agro forestry namely for wood chipping.

The code was recently reviewed and re released in 2007. A detailed review of the proposed changes was conducted by The central highlands Alliance Inc read more .

The 1996 code stated that native forests are not to be converted to “timber production”, whilst the revised code does not make this as clear and in fact focuses more heavily on “timber” conversion activities like:

• Thinnings
• Fertilizers
• Intensive harvesting practices
• Seed selection

It was identified by many environmental not for profits including The Wilderness Society, ACF and TCHA that the new code was being massaged to encourage forest practices that would benefit wood chipping and adversely affect biodiversity. Despite previous undertakings that the code would prevent the transition of native forests to production plantations the new code has 21 references to “Thinning” which is regular heavy machinery disturbance of the forest to thin out the number of trees and type. Much of the understory and critical food source for many endangered species is being destroyed during this process.

In other words the current revised code is focusing more heavily on converting native forests to “timber production” than on protection of the environmental values.

For this very reason the 2007 revised code was opposed by environmental groups who submitted concerns to the independent consultancy GHD. Unfortunately the Department of Sustainability and Environment used these comments to further close loop holes in the code.

The Labour government of the time tried to rush the changes through and the changes to the code were illegally gazetted by the Victorian Environment minister of the time the Hon. John Thwaites (Ironically of legal background). Hence it wasn’t passed till 2007.

Unfortunately the current code does not have a structure that reflects the bureaucracy that governs it.

The code is ambiguous because it references many other documents that govern it whilst those governing documents are much less prescriptive and much less binding.

Logging Contractor

Encouraged to remove dead habitat trees for occupational health and safety reasons.

Audit Methodology

The Central Highlands Alliance (‘TCHA’) – a regionally based environmental group has spent considerable time and effort reviewing the EPA’s Environmental Audit of Timber Production on public land and the audit process. In particular, TCHA have paid close scrutiny to the sampling methodology for coup selection and have provided the previous environment minister, the EPA and more recently SKM with numerous areas for improvement. We wish to advise that based on a statistical analysis of the current coupe sampling methodology used by the EPA for the 07/08 Environmental Audit of Timber Production on public land that it is not possible to compare audit results between years . This conflicts with the premise of the audit which is to show that the logging industry is demonstrating continuous improvement. read more

Finally due to a delay in the review process there will not be an audit for the 07/08 year.

Audit Body

The audit body to date has been appointed by the EPA