Kyogle Environment Group

27/05/2026

Our regions one and only World Environment Day Festival is coming soon! 🦋🐨 🐸 🦀 🐝🐠🦆🦑🐬
A day of celebration, music, learning and connection for everyone from the Northern Rivers and Gold Coast who loves our region’s Internationally Significant Environment.
Free entry, fabulous food, fun and for purpose.

Join us Sunday 7th June Murwillumbah Showgrounds.

26/05/2026

Without clear, consistent guidance and proactive outreach, well-meaning landholders can find themselves on the wrong side of complex regulations — and ecosystems continue to be lost in the process.

It’s easy to think of rampant land clearing as something that happened long ago – chainsaws and bulldozers carving up the landscape in another era. But the

25/05/2026

There's too much for nature to lose and here we are, back again, at the keyboard ! Get your submission in, via the easy guide from EJA by Friday 29th May.

Don’t sleep on this.

Australia’s new national environment laws need strong standards – that’s meant to be the whole point.

But arguably the most important one is out for final consultation, and right now, it’s not up to scratch.

Instead of pushing decision-makers to assess damaging projects against clear environmental outcomes, the draft standard leans on weak, vague principles.

That leaves too much room for nature to lose.

You have one week left to have your say: https://envirojustice.org.au/this-is-make-or-break-have-your-say-on-the-mnes-standard/

23/05/2026

RED ALERT 🚨URGENT:
To avoid a continuation of native forest logging for decades to come, urgent action is needed by Monday 25th May on the ALP draft National Platform, to ensure the proposed endorsement of the Timber Fibre Strategy (TFS) is removed.

Contact your Labour MPs to help ensure forest policy changes do not intensify logging. Read on to take action before Monday.

The TFS is a native forest logging industry document with no independent ecological assessment.

It should not form the basis of national forest policy

Australia's native forests must be protected based on science, not lobbying by an industry that is in decline and has no social license.

Any endorsement of the TFS, namely Clauses 62 & 64 (Chapter 3), in the ALP National Platform must be removed, as this would allow forest thinning (logging under a new name) in all tenures, including National Parks and overturn long standing ALP policy that prevents native forests being burned, instead of coal, in power stations.

The TFS is poised to be adopted as ALP policy and become the new de facto National Forest Policy.

This would be disastrous for our forests and an immense set back to the community and campaign to end native forest logging.

This is important and we must act before this Monday.

Please email:

Janelle Saffin - [email protected]

Justine Elliot - [email protected]

For more information:

The draft National Platform can be found here.

A recent analysis commissioned by the Wilderness Society reveals the TFS has no basis in ecological science. You can read it here.

22/05/2026

Today is International Day for Biological Diversity 🐨🦋🪲🌳🌿🐸

This year’s theme, “Acting locally for global impact”, recognises that protecting biodiversity starts in places like the forests of the Northern Rivers.

The proposed Richmond River Koala Park lies within one of Australia’s nationally recognised biodiversity hotspots - a globally significant region home to extraordinary wildlife, ancient ecosystems, and species found nowhere else on Earth.

These public native forests provide habitat for hundreds of species, including koalas, Greater Gliders, Barking Owls and many other threatened species. They protect water catchments, store carbon, and support the ecological systems we all depend on for clean air, water, food, medicine and climate stability.

In 2022, countries around the world committed to a global plan to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030. But with only four years left to meet key biodiversity targets, action cannot wait.

Real change happens locally - through communities standing up for the places they love and demanding lasting protection.

Protecting the Richmond River Koala Parks is local action with global impact.
Support our campaign now, visit richmondriverkoalaparks.com to learn more, sign the petition, and get involved!

20/05/2026

Thanks to all the people who showed up today to see ‘Run for Country’.

There are a few actions you can take to help protect the Pilliga from Santos CSG mining.

1. Send a letter to Chris Minns: https://www.benandjerry.com.au/values/issues-we-care-about/save-pilliga-forest
2. Sign the LTG petition at the bottom of this page: https://www.lockthegate.org.au/narrabri_coal_seam_gas_new
3. Sign The Greens petition: https://greens.org.au/nsw/campaigns/protect-pilliga-stop-narrabri-gas-project-petition
4. Go on Pat Schultz’s tag along tour - see post below this one
5. Subscribe to NWPA for updates & newsletters (scroll to the bottom) https://nwprotectionadvocacy.com/blog/

Thanks again - together we can protect the Pilliga and the Liverpool Plains 🍃

20/05/2026

Australia’s ‘green Wall Street’ is failing to launch. Threatened species deserve better than the nature repair market
Euan Ritchie and Yung En Chee
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/18/australias-green-wall-street-is-failing-to-launch-threatened-species-deserve-better-than-the-nature-repair-market
"This failure is more than just political; it is existential for this country’s remarkable, unique and increasingly imperilled wildlife and ecosystems."
[..]
"Nature markets have been touted as a solution for environmental protection and repair. But despite decades of grand advertised claims, there is precious little evidence they are effective at halting and reversing environmental degradation and biodiversity loss."
[..]
"Enthusiastic optimism about such markets, including from Ken Henry, the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation and others, is premature given that they are prone to poor governance and outcomes and risk giving governments an excuse sidestepping their obligations to conserve nature and delaying urgent action.

Australia is a wealthy and sovereign nation. The government can easily afford to greatly increase direct investment in environmental protection and restoration, today – and most Australians want this. The climate crisis and biodiversity loss will amplify each other’s impact. A minuscule and still declining environmental budget, prioritising “single-touch” assessments and fast-tracking pathways for approvals for development, is entirely the wrong approach in the face of these existential threats and will only serve to bake in Australia’s already atrocious conservation record.

The declaration that the environment was “back” under the Albanese government was met with much public optimism and goodwill. It would be a betrayal of Australia’s most important public good to settle for the mere appearance of action – we deserve the promised serious investment in our collective future."

One must ask why Labor is so comfortable continuing to ignore the wishes of the vast majority of voters

18/05/2026

Hey – come along for this screening of “Run For Country” – It’s FREE and will screen at 12.30pm on Wednesday 20th May in the the Supper Room at the KMI Hall in Kyogle – about protecting the Pilliga Forest from Santossers Coal Seam gas mining - see you there!

02/05/2026

KEG will be showing the film Run for Country, with guest speakers on Wednesday 20th May 12.30pm at KMI Supper Room, - a powerful documentary that tells the story of communities standing together to protect one of Australia's most significant inland forests - the Pilliga and the devastating impact coal seam gas has and will continue to have on Gomeroi Country if the Narrabri Gas Project were to go ahead