Cooktown Magistrates Court fines man $15,000 for felling 113 Cape York national park trees

A man who illegally cut down over 100 trees in a Far North national park, including some that were over 400 years old, has been fined. SEE PHOTOS

MORE than 100 ancient trees aged between 250 to over 400 years old were illegally chopped down from a Far North national park leaving a man with a $15,000 fine.

The fine follows a long investigation sparked by traditional land owners of the Rinyirru National Park, at Lakefield, zoned part of Cape York Peninsula Aboriginal land.

In 2020, the Kyerrwanhdha Thingalkal Land Trust entered into an agreement to log Cooktown ironwood trees on two stations that border the national park.

KTLT then directed its timber company Oga Alugul Pty Ltd to forge ahead with the operation, but the latter had in turn hired contractors to perform the work, including the man fined.

“The man was hired by the timber export company to conduct harvesting activities and he hired other people to conduct the felling,” the Department of Environment and Science said in a statement following its investigation.

“Between September 18 and October 22 2020, an unknown timber cutter employed by the man felled 113 trees in the Rinyirru National Park.

“On October 21, 2020, a member of the public notified authorities about the felled timber in the national park, and later provided GPS points of location.”

A DES spokesman said both KTLT and Oga Alugul had been cleared of any wrong doing.

The felled trees, which had not been removed were then measured by Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service rangers with a botanist estimating more than half of the 113 trees had taken up to 250 years to grow, with the largest tree taking up to 466 years to grow.

“The man was charged with one offence of taking a natural resource of a protected area without authority, in contravention of section 62(1) of the Nature Conservation Act 1992.

“He was fined $15,000 and ordered to pay $250 in legal costs. As no conviction was recorded, he cannot be named.”

In February last year, Thomas Houghton, the co-director of Oga Alugul said his efforts to supervise the logging were hamstrung from “the get go”.

He said he was deprived of the vehicle he was initially provided with to enable him to survey and mark the trees acceptable for logging.

“I was pretty much walking 10,000 hectares.”

He said he had flagged concerns with the loggers within the first fortnight of operations, in July 2020.

Originally published as Cooktown Magistrates Court fines man $15,000 for felling 113 Cape York national park trees