Supreme Court case to stop Ansons Bay forest clearing

The Tasmanian Conservation Trust has commenced proceedings in the Tasmanian Supreme Court seeking to revoke a Forest Practices Plan that was issued in January 2015 authorising the clearing and conversion to pasture of 1804 hectares of native forest on private land near Ansons Bay in north east Tasmania.

“These forests are incredibly important for threatened species and threatened forest communities and approval should not have been given to the land owner to permanently clear such a large and important area of forest,” said TCT Director Peter McGlone.

“We believe the Forest Practices Authority has made a mistake in how it has interpreted the law and we hope that the court revokes the Forest Practices Plan and prevents these forests from being destroyed.”

“This case is not just about protecting an important area of forest, it also highlights a major flaw in state laws that apply to clearing of forests and private land owners rights to compensation.”

Based on a publicly available 2009 Forest Practices Tribunnal decision in relation to this clearing proposal, we know many of the values on the property and these include:
• 491 hectares of Eucalyptus ovata forest, which is perhaps the largest concentration of this state listed endangered vegetation community in Tasmania;
• habitat for the state and nationally listed threatened fauna: Tiger quoll, Tasmanian devil, New Holland Mouse, and Swift Parrot;
• 8 state listed threatened plant species (two of which are also nationally listed).

The proposed clearing operation was refused in 2009 by the Forest Practices Authority and that decision was upheld at appeal.
The TCT understands that subsequently the landowner sought compensation from the state government but, following a decision by Minister Matthew Groom in October 2014, no compensation was provided.

In January 2015 the FPA certified the Forest Practices Plan, claiming that, because compensation was not provided it was compelled by provisions of the Nature Conservation Act to not place any restrictions to protect threatened species habitat or threatened vegetation communities.

The TCT’s argument is that the landowner was not eligible for compensation and that the FPA misinterpreted the law and should not have issued the Forest Practices Plan.

The outcome that the TCT wants is for the Supreme Court to revoke the Forest Practices Plan.

Because many of the environmental values on the property are listed on the schedules of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) the TCT wrote to the Minister for the Environment Greg Hunt in February 2015 urging the Australian Government to declare the proposal a controlled action requiring assessment and approval or refusal under the EPBC Act.

If found to be a controlled action Commonwealth approval will be required.

“It is unclear whether approval of the Australian Government will be required so the court case challenging state approval may be critical in protecting these forests.”

“The land owner was intending to commence clearing in February so the TCT has already been successful in averting a potential disaster”, Mr McGlone concluded.

Yesterday the Supreme Court ordered the case be adjourned until 2 June 2015 at 2pm.

The TCT are represented in this case by the Environmental Defenders Office Tasmania.
TCT Director Peter McGlone