08/10/2026
KEG September article
SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES
There has been a welcome
reprieve for Kyogle’s private
native forests.
In November 2022,
Kyogle Council voted to
remove the requirement for dual
consent, effectively the need for
a Development Application, for
Private Native Forestry (PNF),
and amend the Kyogle Local
Environmental Plan so PNF could
proceed without Council consent.
Concerned community members
urged the NSW Government
to retain dual consent. The issue
was never simply another layer
of paperwork. A DA provides
an opportunity to consider
environmental consequences in
the context of the surrounding
landscape, particularly important
in an area as heavily forested and
biologically significant as Kyogle.
Responding to those concerns,
the NSW Government determined
that Kyogle Council would not be
the local plan-making authority and
the Department of Planning would
undertake the final assessment.
The proposal has been on hold
ever since.
Then, on 27 July 2026, Council
received advice from the Minister’s
office that the proposal “should not
proceed at the present time.”
That is good news. But at the
present time matters.
The decision comes while the
NSW Government develops its
Forestry Industry
Action Plan (FIAP),
intended to set
the direction
for forestry over
coming decades to
ensure a sustainable
timber industry
that aligns with the
government’s key environmental
priorities and achieve the balance
between sustainable supplies
of timber and environmental
commitments.
Private Native Forestry must be
part of that discussion, but so too
must the bigger question of what
is happening to native vegetation
across the landscape.
Environmental impacts do not
stop at property boundaries.
A forestry operation occurs
on one property. Clearing takes
place on another. Paddock trees
disappear down the road. A house
site is cleared on the next ridge.
Viewed separately, each loss can
appear insignificant. Across a local
government area, they tell a very
different story.
It is the cumulative effect on the
landscape that matters.
Forests provide habitat and
wildlife corridors, protect
waterways and soils, store carbon
and help landscapes withstand
drought, fire and flood. Every patch
cleared or fragmented can mean
another habitat link broken, refuge
lost or creek exposed.
Many small losses eventually
become one very large loss. And
that brings us to one of the biggest
threats facing native vegetation in
rural NSW: land clearing.
Native vegetation disappears for
many reasons. Agricultural land is
expanded or “cleaned up”. Paddock
trees are removed. Rural blocks are
cleared for houses, sheds, lawns and
views, sometimes well beyond what
is necessary for bushfire protection.
Modern machinery can transform a
heavily vegetated block in days and
the bush is pushed back further still.
Yet NSW laws allow landholders,
in many circumstances, to self
assess clearing rather than
requiring comprehensive ecological
assessment beforehand. Once
mature habitat trees, hollows,
threatened ecological communities
or wildlife corridors are gone,
discovering their importance
afterwards is of little use.
The scale of clearing should
concern us all.
The incoming Minns Government
promised in 2023 to address
weaknesses in NSW’s biodiversity
and land-clearing laws. Yet clearing
increased by 16% between 2023
and 2024, the first full year of that
promise. More than half a million
hectares of native vegetation has
been cleared since the former
Native Vegetation Act was repealed
in 2017, while substantial reform of
the Local Land Services Act remains
unfinished.
Here in Kyogle, the problem
is compounded by gaps in local
environmental planning.
Kyogle LGA has no comprehensive
Koala Plan of Management, while its
biodiversity overlay does not identify
vegetation by ecological community
or vegetation type in sufficient detail
to understand what is being lost.
In 2022, Council acknowledged
these limitations and pointed to
newer Plant Community Type
mapping that, combined with
wildlife records and on-ground
verification, could provide much
better information. The intention
was to work with the State
Government to develop koala habitat
and high biodiversity value mapping.
Four years later, that work is more
important than ever.
If we don’t know where our
most important habitat is, where
wildlife corridors remain and
where clearing is occurring, how
can we decide what further loss the
landscape can withstand?
That is why retaining dual
consent for Private Native Forestry
is significant. It preserves an
important level of local scrutiny
while the State determines the
future of private native forestry.
But it is only part of the answer.
The Forestry Industry Action Plan
needs to recognise that sustainable
forestry cannot be measured
simply by how much timber can
be produced. It must also consider
what remains: healthy forests,
threatened species, connected
habitat, protected waterways and
forests resilient enough to recover
from fire and climate change.
The NSW Government also
needs to deliver its promised land
clearing and biodiversity reforms,
while Kyogle needs the detailed
biodiversity and koala habitat
mapping discussed for years.
Most importantly, planning
needs to consider cumulative loss,
rather than treating every clearing
proposal, forestry operation and
property as though it exists in
isolation.
A few hectares here. A wildlife
corridor narrowed there. Mature
paddock trees removed.. Another
patch of forest logged.
Individually, each loss can be
explained away.
Collectively, they change the
landscape.
S
