Furphy: Forestry Corporation is a responsible, trustworthy manager of the native forest estate.

Fact: Forestry Corporation is a serial criminal offender.

Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) “has a pattern of environmental offending, has not provided any compelling evidence of measures taken by it to prevent its reoffending, and does not accept the true extent of harm that it has caused by its offending”, according to a 2024 Land and Environment Court judgment (EPA v FCNSW [2024] NSWLEC 78, cl. 145).

FCNSW has sustained criminal convictions for 14 environmental offences since 2004, 10 of them since 2022 (EPA v FCNSW [2024] NSWLEC 78, cl. 1 & 134). These offences include failing to abide by post-bushfire conditions that were intended to help surviving wildlife to recover, logging in prohibited areas, and felling hollow-bearing and giant trees.

FCNSW will be sentenced this year for further criminal offences committed in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest in 2020 and the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has now filed 29 charges against FCNSW for breaches in Tallaganda State Forest (McDonald & Becker 2025).

Not all breaches are prosecuted. Since 2020 the EPA has started and/or completed more than 50 formal investigations of FCNSW’s alleged non-compliance, often after receiving complaints from the local community. More than 30 of these investigations have resulted in enforcement action so far, with fines and other costs totalling over $1.7 million (Pepper & John 2024).

On top of this, FCNSW recently admitted publicly (quietly, a few days before Christmas) to illegally clearing 1.44 hectares of Bindarri National Park in 2019 and 2020, for which it entered into a Deed worth up to $1 million with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (DCCEEW Government Environment and Heritage 2024, Fitzimmons 2024, Heilpern 2025).

These breaches have continued under the current FCNSW Board and Executive and in the current term of government. There are 22 current EPA investigations into alleged breaches (NSW EPA 2024). Particularly egregious over the last two years have been failures to detect and protect numerous greater glider habitat trees in Tallaganda, Flat Rock, Styx River and other state forests (Pepper & John 2024).

Further reading

Fitzsimmons, C. (2024). ‘State loggers admit to ‘very serious offence’ in felling a hectare of national park forest’, Sydney Morning Herald, December 21. Available at: https://www.smh.com.au.

Heilpern, D. (2025). ‘Blood money behind govt’s forest destruction’, The Echo, 20 February. Available at: https://www.echo.net.au.

Pepper, M & John, J. (2024). Breaches: Profiling the recent history of logging breaches by Forestry Corporation of NSW. Redfern: Forest Advocacy Ministry. Available at: http://www.breachesbook.org.