This toolkit has been developed to help nature lovers and environmentalists to protect forests and monitor illegal logging activity across NSW. 

By surveying a forest before or after it has been logged, you can help identify threatened species and expose planned illegal logging or that which has already taken place. 

Identifying these breaches of approval conditions is one of the most effective ways you can stop logging across NSW. Through measures as simple as comparing forestry harvest plans with threatened species lists, or photographing felled tree trunks that exceed maximum size allowances, you can see logging stopped, fines handed out, and changes made to harvest plans. 

You don’t need any special skills or expertise, or even to leave your home in order to protect our precious native forests.

All actions in this toolkit are entirely legal and have a proven track record of protecting forests across Australia. 

DOWNLOAD THE BREACH WATCH HANDBOOK FOR SURVEYING A FOREST

What you need to know about logging in NSW.

• Forestry Corporation NSW is a state-owned enterprise responsible for all native forest logging.
• All native forest logging is subject to conditions regulated by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).
• Plantation forests already provide 90 per cent of NSW timber production and logging jobs
• Native forest logging is heavily subsidised - in the last two years it cost $29m more to cut down native forests than was made by selling the wood, and this loss was paid for by the NSW government. 
• Only 5 per cent of native forests that are logged become timber – the rest is pulped and turned into cardboard, woodchips and sent overseas.
• Public native forest logging in NSW is a major driver of deforestation pushing countless species further towards extinction. 
  
  

Why does Citizen science matter? 

Every day we hear new reports of Forestry Corporation breaking the law. They have been fined or prosecuted 10 times since 2020 for breaches such as illegally felling protected giant trees, felling trees with hollows, and felling koala feed trees.

In June this year, a NSW Audit Office report found multiple failures with how Forestry Corporation monitors compliance with the regulations that govern operations. The report also found that the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) – the government agency tasked with enforcing compliance – often lacks the resources needed to undertake basic forestry inspections.

That's where you come in. Strategic use of citizen science by concerned citizens and groups like the North East Forest Alliance, South East Forest Rescue and The Coastwatchers Association Inc has resulted in:  

• Implementation of ‘Stop Work Orders’ in forests such as Wild Cattle Creek and South Brooman Forest
• Fines and prosecutions for illegal logging, for example ignoring evidence of the critically endangered Swift Parrot
  
• A number of concessions on FCNSW harvesting plan’s and maps  which sees additional parts of forest added to exclusion or buffer zones in compartments. 
• The EPA undertaking compliance checks leading giants, ancient trees slated for destruction, to be protected

We need to protect as much of our awe-inspiring forests as possible from the jaws of destruction.