A coalition of environment groups has urged the federal government to tear up its “failed” forestry deal with states, which they blame for unsustainable logging and pushing species such as the Leadbeater’s possum and numbat to the brink of extinction.
The groups, including Victorian-based MyEnvironment and the Environment Defenders Office legal network, said they were looking at legal options to challenge the government if the Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) are not scrapped.
The RFAs were established in 1992 in a deal between the federal government and four states: Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Tasmania. The agreements gave the states, and their logging agencies, broad control over forest management.
However, the environmental groups said their legal review of the RFAs showed that they have resulted in worse standards compared to when forests were under federal control. The RFAs are exempt from the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the key commonwealth tool for intervening in projects based on their impacts upon endangered species.
The report stated that state protections for threatened species were “grossly inadequate”, obligatory reviews of the RFAs had not taken place and public participation in environmental protection was “severely restricted”.
“The states do not take the regulatory and legal actions required to adequately protect matters of national significance,” the report said.
“This failing cannot be addressed by differently wording the RFA and strengthening states’ obligations: rather, the failure is fundamental to the concept of the RFAs and of devolving control of matters of national environmental significance from the commonwealth to the states.”
• ABC: Forestry Tasmania announces new boss
Most recently he stepped in as acting chief executive after Bob Gordon’s contract was terminated in May, by mutual agreement.
Mr Whiteley will have to lead the loss-making company through a major restructure, in which the company will be split in two.
