Stop Verdant from Burning our Forests
Verdant Earth is at it again - seeking to burn our forests to produce electricity.
Verdant Earth is at it again - seeking to burn our forests to produce electricity.Last year, after a mammoth community effort, we were able to stop them sourcing timber from our state forests.
Now they are trying to use forests and bush from private land.
This would cause large-scale habitat loss and devastate our already at-risk ecosystems.
It would also be terrible for the climate. Burning green wood chips emits 50% more CO2 per megawatt hour of energy produced than coal, while undermining investment in genuinely clean energy.
The scale of this proposal is truly scary - 850,000 tonnes of woodchips is more than is produced by the entire native forest logging industry in NSW.
The ridiculous thing is that they are claiming this would “help decarbonise the electricity system” and “be ecologically sustainable".
But make no mistake, burning native forests, bush, grasses and regenerated paddocks for electricity is one of the worst things we can do for nature and the climate.
Sign our petition to help ensure this proposal does not go ahead.
We call on the NSW government to:
- Remove the exemption granted to ‘certain types of native vegetation’ from legislation that bans the burning of forests and other biomaterials for electricity generation in NSW.
- Amend the 2016 land and biodiversity management and conservation laws to remove provisions that
- allow landholders to self-assess the ecological value of land they wish to clear, and then approve its destruction
- allow landowners to deem native habitat “invasive native species” and then clear it without oversight.
- provide a range of allowances to clear habitat that is known to be of ecological importance, including koala habitat, hollow-bearing trees, and wildlife corridors
- Increase penalties for illegal clearing and invest more finding in compliance
Thousands of hectares of native forests and bush within a 300km radius of the Hunter, Central Coast and North Coast risk being destroyed.
Image: The feed-in area of forests, bush and grassland included in Verdant's proposal.