‘Fiasco’: State government loggers caught out exaggerating wood harvest

The state government’s logging arm exaggerated the volume of timber it extracted from state forests by nearly 30 per cent in at least three years’ worth of legally required reports, while also claiming the logs were bigger and higher quality than the reality.

Forestry Corporation of NSW, which quietly uploaded updated figures for the 2022, 2023 and 2024 financial years to its website in January, has blamed a “data extraction error” for the massive discrepancies in the biomaterial reports, and emphasised that the mistake did not alter its financial reporting.

A native forest logging site in Wild Cattle Creek state forest in December, part of the assessment area for the Great Koala National Park.Credit: Janie Barrett

The biomaterial reports, part of the sustainability reporting requirements, detail the volume and quality of timber harvested from coastal forests. This is the only legally required publicly available report on timber volumes, and questions about the quality and size of logs go to the heart of the economic value and environmental sustainability of the industry.

The revelation comes as the NSW government is poised to announce the boundaries of the promised Great Koala National Park on the Mid North Coast of NSW, after a hotly contested assessment process that considered up to 176,000 hectares of state forest.

Greens MP Sue Higginson has written to the auditor-general asking for an investigation into Forestry Corp’s “maladministration”. Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty, who has ministerial oversight of the state-owned corporation, declined to comment.

Graham Phelan, an economist at Frontier Economics, said there were “egregious inconsistencies between reports”.

“FCNSW ought to know what they have harvested, and what remaining resources are left. How else can they conduct their business?” Phelan said.

A native forest logging site in Wild Cattle Creek state forest, part of the assessment area for the Great Koala National Park, in December.Credit: Janie Barrett

“This ought to worry taxpayers. The only thing that is consistent here is a business that is not run well, that is constantly being propped up by the taxpayer.”

Frontier Economics was commissioned by WWF Australia to explore economic transition pathways to end public native forest logging in NSW. In a report published this week, the consultancy said it was a small part of the state’s forestry sector and regional economies.

North East Forest Alliance president Dailan Pugh noticed inconsistencies in Forestry Corp data in June 2024 and started asking questions. Forestry Corp redid its 2022-23 report in October and again in January and also updated its 2021-22 and 2023-24 reports in January.

Pugh’s analysis, based on figures independently verified by this masthead, shows massive discrepancies between the original and revised reports, including lower timber volumes, a substantial reallocation of high-quality logs from large to small, and a reduction of low-quality logs.

“We can’t trust any assessments for forestry for the last year because they’re all based upon what they’re now saying is fundamentally flawed data,” Pugh said.

Higginson said she was “flabbergasted by the fiasco”, adding that the biomaterial data was essential to assess the principles of ecologically sustainable forestry management in NSW public forests.

​Compared with the original of the 2022-23 report, the version in October had timber yields 52 per cent lower across the state and 45 per cent lower in the north-east region. Emails from Forestry Corp to Pugh blamed this on the accidental inclusion of two years’ worth of data.

The January version of the 2022-23 report has a further 28 per cent reduction in yields for the north-east compared with the October revision.

The 2023-24 report has a 23 per cent reduction in timber volume for the north-east in the January version compared with October, while the new version of the 2021-22 report also has timber volumes 23 per cent lower than the original.

The trends were similar for the NSW South Coast.

Forestry Corp said in a statement the errors were confined to the biomaterial reports, while its sales database “correctly and accurately [recorded] the volumes sold in every product category and revenue received”.

“Forestry Corporation has updated the biomaterial report and importantly there is no change to the revenue reported in our financial statements in our annual reports, which have been externally audited,” the statement said, adding that the organisation was highly regulated.

Forestry Corp reported a $29 million loss in its hardwood division for 2023-24.

Aerial view of selectively logged native forest in Little Newry Forest, part of the Great Koala National Park assessment area, in December.Credit: Janie Barrett

Last year, Forestry Corp’s sustainability report contained a note that previous reports had over-reported the area harvested in coastal areas by 14,000 hectares and under-reported the area harvested in western NSW by about 12,000 hectares over 10 years.

This masthead also reported in December that Forestry Corp had admitted to accidentally clear-felling 1.5 hectares of Bindarri National Park near Coffs Harbour, because of a mapping error.

Logging has continued in the Great Koala National Park assessment area while government decides the final boundaries. This masthead has previously reported that more than 4 per cent of state forests inside the proposed park was being logged, compared with less than 1 per cent in the surrounding area.

Pugh’s analysis of Forestry Corp data and satellite imagery suggests that from the March 2023 election to December 2024, Forestry Corp had logged 7185 hectares, more than 8 per cent of the proposed park’s loggable area. This is based on area rather than timber volume, and native forests are selectively harvested.

Forestry Corp said it was taking 15 per cent less timber from the state forests in the assessment area since March 2023 than it had for the 10 years prior, based on information in its database rather than the biomaterial reports.

Consultation for the Great Koala National Park wrapped up last year and the NSW government is expected to make an announcement soon. The government added 36,000 hectares to the national park estate across the state in 2024, mainly through the acquisition of the 31,500-hectare Broughton Vale Station 75 kilometres east of Broken Hill.

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