It is clear from the Courier-Sun’s article “Forestry Corporation responds to Casino incident” (10 January) that the Forestry Corporation are totally unrepentant for their ongoing environmental crimes. and still don't comprehend their legal obligations.
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They only admit that “some errors were made in relation to installation of track drainage”.
The Forestry Corporation were found guilty by the EPA of 1 offence relating to the retention of “hollow-bearing” (H) trees, 1 offence relating to the selection of “recruitment” (R) trees, 3 offences relating to roading and logging in rainforest, 11 offences relating to roading and logging within buffers of threatened plants (killing one and injuring others), 4 offences relating to roading and logging within an exclusion area for Squirrel Gliders, 35 offences relating to failure to properly drain tracks, and 11 offences relating to bulldozing in stream buffers.
There were many other offences that we reported that the EPA did not investigate or could not prove beyond reasonable doubt. We are still waiting for the EPA to complete their investigation into the roading and logging of endangered Lowland Rainforest and the extensive damage to H and R trees.
For the EPA to only issue an official caution to an unrepentant repeat offender, who refuses to even acknowledge their wrong-doing, is outrageous.
What I find truly reprehensible is the Forestry Corporation's claim that “there is a provision” for them to combine hollow-bearing (H) and (R) recruitment trees when meeting retention requirements.
The law is that in most of Cherry Tree SF they were required to retain an average of 8 hollow-bearing trees (because of the high density of Greater Gliders) and 5 recruitment trees per hectare.
For over 20 years the Forestry Corporation have been required to retain a number of big old hollow-bearing trees for the plethora of animal species that rely on tree hollows for shelter, dens and nests. For each H tree they have been required to retain a large healthy R tree to be available replace the H trees when they die.
The Forestry Corporation should know by now that they are not allowed to substitute R trees for H trees. The EPA found that they had illegally logged some 325 H trees.
Our estimate was over twice as many.
For the Forestry Corporation to now claim they retained 2000 more trees than the regulation requires beggars belief.
The EPA are fond of attacking me in your paper (Bellingen Shire Courier-Sun), I challenge them to now correct the Forestry Corporation's outrageous misrepresentation of their findings and the law. Their fairness and credibility is at stake.
