The state government has accidentally allowed illegal logging in old growth forests for years, a study commissioned by the environment department has found.
The study suggests up to 8500 hectares of forests, many of which contained vulnerable native animal and plant species, may have been approved for logging in the past few years when they should have been preserved.
”The implementation of old-growth is highly variable and problematic and has apparently resulted in some areas of old-growth being potentially available for harvest,” the report by Aerial Acquisitions says.
The mistakes seem to have been made in the surveying process. Bushland areas on private land that should have been protected have not been properly identified by the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water.
Some of the worst-affected areas appear to be around the Macleay and Hastings rivers in northern NSW, and around Dorrigo.
The report recommends that the department do more field work, start a peer-review process so that surveys can be checked, and use better digital monitoring equipment.
The department conceded the findings in the report were correct, and it said it would follow its recommendations.
The director of landscapes and ecosystems conservation, Tom Grosskopf, said: “We are instituting an immediate strengthening of the application of the protocols for assessing old growth forests, and the department intends to increase resources for field work needed to confirm the presence of old growth forests. There are 48 properties we will want to have a look at as a priority, but we have had no indications that any logging there has been illegal at this stage. We will be looking at it, and we should have a better idea by the end of February.”
A total of 1768 breaches of logging licences were reported to the environment department between 2006 and mid-way through last year, resulting in 41 warning letters and 11 fines. Some of the fines and letters deal with multiple offences.
Conservation groups said the consultant’s report confirmed some of the concerns that they had been reporting to the department for years, but the report still underestimated the scale of the problem.
A spokeswoman for the North-East Forest Alliance, Susie Russell, said: ”We’re concerned that all the changes they are talking about making will not in fact sort out the problem, which is a culture of allowing logging wherever possible.
”It’s taken us more than two years to get to the stage where the department has acknowledged the problem, and we’re hoping that it doesn’t get any harder once we are out of an election environment.”
