The Federal Court of Australia dismissed Wednesday a challenge seeking to extend an intergovernmental forestry agreement. As a result, logging operations in native forests are set to continue along the New South Wales (NSW) coastline.
The North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement (North East RFA) is an agreement between the federal government and NSW state governments on the use and management of the state’s native forests. The North East RFA covers approximately 10 million hectares of coastal forest reaching from Sydney to the Queensland border.
In November 2018, the RFA was renewed by federal government for an additional 20 years, with rolling extensions that may continue indefinitely. The North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) objected to the extension of the agreement, arguing the RFA is invalid because there was not a new assessment of “environmental values” and “principles of ecologically sustainable management.”
On behalf of NEFA, the Environmental Defender’s Office (EDO) argued the government was required to assess “climate change, endangered species and old growth values and ecologically sustainable management,” but failed to do so upon renewing the agreement. The issues raised by NEFA concern the contemporaneous impacts of climate change on the region and its affect on endangered species.
However, in the Wednesday ruling Justice Melissa Perry rejected these arguments. She ruled that an assessment was only required when the agreement began, not when it was extended. She also found that an assessment had occurred and that there was no requirement for an assessment to “be sufficiently evaluative and reasonably contemporaneous.”
Summarizing her decision, Perry observed that the RFA provides an “alternative mechanism” by which biodiversity objectives can be achieved through intergovernmental agreements. The agreement allocates the responsibility of regulating matters of national environmental significance to the state of NSW—not the courts. “As such, the question of whether or not to enter into or vary an intergovernmental agreement of this nature is essentially a political one,” said Perry.
This case marks the first challenge to an RFA in NSW since RFAS were entered into in 2000.
Foresty Australia President Dr Michelle Freeman welcomed the court’s decision, stating, “Our RFAs time and time again have proven to be a successful way of sustainable managing Australia’s forests for all their values, and the Federal Court has confirmed this today.” Freeman also addressed environmentalist concerns, assuring that protections are in place for the management and conservation of biodiversity.
Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) CEO James Jooste called the decision a vindication for the sector and sustainable native forestry operations in NSW. AFPA called upon the state government to continue recognizing the importance of native forestry to job opportunities and the state economy. Joose said, “Without the sector, we face a future of more timber and wood fibre imports from countries without Australia’s high regulatory standards, fewer quality job opportunities in our regions, increased cost of living and a stalled progression on emissions reduction.”
NEFA President Dailan Pugh responded to the decision by disagreeing with the accepted reliance on an assessment based on 1997 data. “The decision to not require a new assessment put at risk the survival of a multitude of species that have rapidly declined since 1997, including many nationally threatened species that are not adequately protected under NSW’s logging rules and are being significantly impacted,” he said.
