A landmark decision in the NSW Land and Environment Court could change the way cultural owners across the country are compensated after cultural harm.
The NSW Forestry Corporation was sentenced in March for illegal logging of large old growth trees in the Wild Cattle Creek State Forest, north of Dorrigo on the state’s north coast.
Instead of receiving a fine, the logging company entered into a restorative justice process with a local Aboriginal company aimed at preventing future offending.
This is the first time that the Forestry Corporation is involved in this process.
The NSW Forestry Corporation illegally felled nine trees in the Wild Cattle Creek State Forest in 2020. (Credit: Nature Media Center)
NSW Forestry Corp will pay $450,000 to the Yurruungga Aboriginal Corporation under the judgment.
Funds will go towards projects including a healing ceremony, development of a biological remediation plan and cultural mapping of the area to prevent future harm.
“It sounds great and it’s really exciting,” Yurruungga Aboriginal Corporation CEO Dean Kelly said in a statement.
“On the other hand, it is an acknowledgment of the harm done to our country and our people. On the other hand, it cannot undo the damage that has already been done.“
A ‘significant and unusual’ decision
The judgment handed down on March 13 comes after six years of legal action in the NSW State and Environment Court.
In his written judgment, Judge Nicola Pain wrote that the breach occurred in 2020 after NSW Forestry Corp staff used an incorrect method to identify large and bare trees, which are protected by law.
NSW Environment Protection Council chief executive Tony Chappel said the regulator took legal action after discovering six large trees had been felled as a result.
Justice Pain’s judgment found that in November 2019, an EPA official had attended a NSW Forestry Corporation workshop on logging contracts with “incorrect guidance on the size of large trees”.
Mr Chappel said illegal logging in the Wild Cattle Creek State Forest “could have been prevented” if an EPA official had alerted the Forestry Corporation to the mistake.
“We all have to learn from it and continue to improve so we can do the right thing for society and the environment,” he said.
Centuries-old giant trees were illegally logged in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest. (Issued: Yurruungga Aboriginal Corporation)
Mr. Chappel said that those trees have high value for money.
Mr Chappel said: “These trees were hundreds of years old and had deep spiritual and cultural significance to the Gumbaynggirr people of this area and their ancestors.”
The director of the First Nations and Environmental Defenders Office (EDO), Jonathon Captain-Webb, said the decision to use the restorative justice process was “significant and unusual”.
“This is the first time we’ve seen restorative justice applied to the environment,” Mr Captain-Webb said.
“It acknowledges that fines are not the right way to deliver justice.
“These funds are directed to the Aboriginal community to support the healing and rehabilitation of the land, rather than the money going into government funds.”
Mr Captain-Web says this process will be accessed by First Nations groups across the country, now that the ruling has been enshrined in common law.
An example of healing
Mr Kelly said senior Gumbaynggirr elders, including his uncle Richard Kelly, had long advocated a reparations scheme to restore punitive damages in cases of cultural damage.
“In the past, these fines rarely returned to the country, and they rarely returned to the people who bore the brunt of the loss,” Mr Kelly said in a statement.
“[This judgement] it opens up the possibility of the return of sanctions in the future to organizations led by First Nations, so that when disaster strikes the land, Aboriginal people can be the center of healing and restoration. ”
Dean Kelly (left) and Gumbaynggirr elder, Alison Buchanan. (Credit: Dean Kelly)
In a statement, NSW Forestry Corporation CEO Anshul Chaudhary apologized for the illegal removal of trees.
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