PAULA Flack and Lyn Orrego have been fighting to protect Mistake State Forest (SF), and other forests across the Nambucca Valley, for more than three decades.

With the NSW Government committing in 2023 to a process to create a Great Koala National Park (GKNP), an area of around 176,000 hectares of forest which includes Mistake SF, one could be forgiven for thinking the veteran activists may be celebrating a long-fought win.

A quick look at Forestry Corporation of NSW’s (FCNSW) online plan portal will show you why that isn’t the case.

Despite the government beginning the planning process for the GKNP, logging continues apace across the Mid North Coast.

One such location is Mistake SF, where compartments 5-9 of the forest are currently subject to active logging operations.

“This particular operation is part of the proposed Great Koala National Park and we think it shouldn’t be logged,” said Ms Flack, who serves as the current president of the Nambucca Valley Conservation Association (NVCA).

Further compartments of Mistake SF are due to be logged within the next six months.

Ms Flack believes logging has been ramped up within the GKNP footprint to appease the timber industry before the forests are permanently protected.

“In Mistake we know that logging operations are happening because they want to get in there and take as much as they can before the public native forests are closed when the GKNP is created,” she said.

“Mistake SF isn’t just an isolated logging operation, there are multiple logging operations throughout the Great Koala Park assessment area.

“Very soon the GKNP will be created; we don’t know what that will look like but in the meantime, we are seeing logging escalate in intensity.”

Ms Flack said the continued logging of Mid North Coast state forests represents a broken election promise from the NSW Government.

“Labor, before it was elected, promised us an iconic Great Koala National Park,” she said.

“What they didn’t tell us was that they had also told the timber industry that they would be able to keep logging while they were doing the planning.

“We believe that that is an absolutely absurd approach to conserving koala habitat.”

As logging operations persist, activists continue scrutinising the work of FCNSW and contractors.

They claim that forestry rules were broken in Mistake SF in May.

Forestry operations are regulated by rules called ‘Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals’ (CIFOA), which have had several updates this year.

“Populations endemic to the area are further protected through the strict application of Coastal IFOA rules dictating the long-term protection of all forest assets including soil and water, wildlife and plant species,” a FCNSW spokesperson said.

“Harvesting under current practices and associated tight regulations guarantees the retention and enhancement of forest structure and health for future generations.”

In February, the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) added a new requirement for a nocturnal survey to better protect southern greater gliders.

The update meant each search and survey transect for greater gliders and den trees must “commence no more than one hour after sunset local time”.

On May 27 the wording of the rule changed again, with just the “first transect of each night” of the search and survey now needing to commence within 30 minutes of sunset local time.

During surveys completed in Mistake SF compartments 5-9 from May 13-15, conservation groups allege that FCNSW did not comply with the rule in place on those dates, claiming the requirement to complete survey transects no less than an hour after sunset was only met on five out of 22 occasions.

“We have written to Forestry Corporation and the Environment Protection Authority asking them to suspend logging until FC carry out surveys according to the new rules,” said Friends of Mistake spokesperson Joy van Son.

A FCNSW spokesperson told NOTA that surveys in these compartments were carried out “in accordance with the shared understanding of the EPA and Forestry Corporation”.

“The surveys are intended to identify both dens, which are more likely to be identified in the first two hours after dusk, and greater gliders, which are more likely to be identified in the later hours of the night,” they said.

A spokesperson for the NSW EPA told News Of The Area, “The February site-specific biodiversity conditions did not reflect the shared understanding of the NSW Environment Protection Authority and Forestry Corporation of NSW that only the first part of the search and survey had to commence within the first hour of sunset.

“As a result, in May, we amended the conditions to clarify search and survey requirements and strengthen protections for greater gliders.

“FCNSW has been informed of our regulatory expectations.”

With both the EPA and FCNSW quoting a “shared understanding” of the CIFOA, North Coast Environment Council representative Susie Russell is questioning the role being played by the environmental regulator.

“It seems completely at odds with the role as a regulator (the EPA), that they would come up with an understanding that defeats the purpose of the regulation in the first place,” Ms Russell said.

“We don’t see how the EPA can have a shared understanding with the Forestry Corporation which is at odds with the letter of the regulation.

“They said the transects had to be conducted within an hour of sunset.

“The reason was because that is when you see glider den trees.

“That is the purpose of the exercise.

“How can the EPA have a shared understanding that Forestry Corp transects can go on all through the night, knowing perfectly well that they won’t find greater glider dens?”

Nambucca Valley Conservation Association stalwart Lyn Orrego said it was clear the requirements officially in place at the time had not been followed.

“Anyone can read the requirement, issued by EPA in February, for all greater glider surveys to commence within an hour of sunset,” Ms Orrego said.

“This was the clear rule for more than three months and it applied at the time the surveys were done in Mistake State Forest.

“This, to us, is an abrogation of EPA’s statutory duty as well as against what the community expects them to do – enforce the rules.”

Aside from the impacts of logging to the habitat of threatened species, one main concern for forest campaigners relates to the steep nature of the local terrain.

The forest is home to steep mountain slopes dominated by ridges, ravines and deeply incised valleys.

“It is very steep, mountainous country,” Ms Flack said.

“It has soil structures which are highly erodible.

“Unfortunately the logging continues in these highly erodible areas, so we see mass movement and slumps, and pollution of waterways and impacts downstream.”

In 2000, soil scientist Michael Eddie carried out research in the state forest for the Department of Land and Water Conservation.

“Mass movement hazards increase with slope gradient, from about 20 degrees upwards, although some slopes on the Nambucca Beds have been observed to be susceptible to mass movement on gradients as low as seven degrees,” Mr Eddie indicated in his report.

Seventeen years later, Mr Eddie studied part of the state forest again, for a submission to the NSW Environmental Defenders Office.

He found the area to be susceptible to “significant soil erosion and mass movement hazards”.

“This is because of the steep dissected terrain, locally deep regolith which can be hydrostatically loaded with groundwater following rain, the presence of quartz veins which can charge slip planes, metamorphic cleavage planes dip angles parallel to the slope, and high erodibility of the regolith.

“These carry significant risks for forestry operations,” he said.

In 2017 he recommended limiting forestry operations in Mistake SF to sites with slopes less than 20 degrees gradient, however logging is currently allowed at up to 30 degrees.

In a statement to NOTA, Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) acknowledged the steep terrain within Mistake SF, claiming only “37 percent of the regrowth forest is harvested”.

“Within that harvest area thousands of trees are retained for habitat and feed sources for native animals.”

FCNSW say Mistake SF is a regrowth forest with a long history of timber harvesting and “still retains the natural timber, habitat, soil and water and aesthetic values as it has had throughout the cycles of productive land management practices of the past”.

“The forest does exhibit a range of flora and fauna species, identified through current surveys and historical data, which have evolved over time in line with previous good forest management.”

After three decades of campaigning, Ms Orrego and Ms Flack expressed frustration that logging continues in Mistake SF when permanent protection for the forest may be just around the corner.

“The logging laws have never been strong enough, and are often breached,” Ms Flack said.

“They have been weakened and weakened to the point now where we are seeing massive, massive impacts of industrial logging of highly sensitive, highly erodible threatened species’ habitat.”

Going forward the Nambucca Valley Conservation Association is calling for a suspension of logging in Mistake SF until the GKNP boundaries have been finalised.

“It’s outrageous that logging is going hell for leather in the heart of what the current Labor government promised to protect to save koalas from extinction,” said Ms Orrego.

An EPA spokesperson told News Of The Area the regulator understands there is “community concern for the conservation of threatened species and forests”.

“We remain committed to fulfilling our statutory obligation to protect the environment and independently regulate all licensed industries, including native forest operations.

“We will continue to regulate FCNSW activities to ensure the rules are complied with and will regularly review these settings to ensure that they are operating as intended.

“If anyone has concerns forestry rules are being breached, we encourage them to provide that information to our Environment Line via info@epa.nsw.gov.au.”

The office of Tara Moriarty, the NSW Minister for Agriculture, was contacted for comment, but did not respond in time for publication.

By Doug CONNOR