It is a requirement of each New South Wales Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) that its performance is reviewed every five years to provide an assessment of progress made with the RFAs, and includes:
- the extent to which milestones and obligations have been met, including the management of the National Estate
- the results of monitoring the sustainability indicators, and
- inviting public comments on the performance of the RFAs.
The New South Wales Environment Protection Authority provides further details on the RFA reviews.
Scoping Agreement
The first five-yearly review of the New South Wales RFAs formally commenced in February 2008 with the signing of the Scoping Agreement. The Scoping Agreement set out the arrangements agreed by the New South Wales and Australian governments for undertaking the review:
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| Document | Pages | File size |
|---|---|---|
First Review of Progress with Implementation of the NSW Regional Forest Agreements – Scoping Agreement PDF  | 22 | 194 KB |
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The Scoping Agreement provides that the three NSW RFAs will be reviewed simultaneously. The review covers the first period from the date the RFAs were signed for the ensuing five years, i.e. 1999-2004 for the Eden RFA, 2000-2005 for the North East RFA and 2001-2006 for the Southern RFA.
Report on Progress and public consultation period
In accordance with the Scoping Agreement, a report on progress in implementing the three New South Wales RFAs has been prepared by the New South Wales and Australian governments:
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| Document | Pages | File size |
|---|---|---|
| Draft Report on Progress with Implementation of the New South Wales Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) North East RFA, Eden RFA, Southern RFA (May 2009) PDF | 269 | 2.3 MB |
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Stakeholders and members of the community had the opportunity to comment on the Report on Progress, from Tuesday 23 June 2009 to Monday 7 September 2009. The commencement of the public submission period was marked by a joint media release by the Hon. Tony Burke MP and the Hon. Carmel Tebbutt MP, and public notices in Sydney and regional newspapers in the first week of July 2009.
Publicly available submissions
During the review process, 32 submissions were received commenting on the Draft Report on Progress with Implementation of the New South Wales Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs). Eighteen of the submitters granted permission to have their submissions made publicly available on this website.
These submissions were not prepared by the department and may not meet Australian Government accessibility guidelines. If you require an accessible version of a submission, please contact its author
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| Document | Pages | File size |
|---|---|---|
| Anonymous submission 1 PDF | 2 | 1 KB |
| Anonymous submission 2 PDF | 17 | 724 KB |
| South East Forest Rescue PDF | 52 | 724 KB |
| James L. O. Tedder PDF | 1 | 1.1 MB |
| Ourimbah Community Inc PDF | 1 | 61 KB |
| Skye Etherington PDF | 2 | 1 KB |
| Lorraine Bower PDF | 3 | 1.1 MB |
| Friends of the Five Forests PDF | 21 | 503 KB |
| Vince Phillips PDF | 4 | 1 KB |
| Terrence Digwood PDF | 34 | 428 KB |
| Canopy Native Forest Committee Total Environment Centre PDF | 3 | 1 KB |
| Peter Mitchell PDF | 2 | 70 KB |
| Colong Foundation PDF | 7 | 1 KB |
| NSW Young Lawyers’ Environmental Law Committee PDF | 19 | 1 KB |
| Environmental Defender’s Office (EDO) PDF | 9 | 1.1 MB |
| South East Region Conservation Alliance PDF | 7 | 361 KB |
| The Coastwatchers Association PDF | 5 | 1 KB |
| Matthew Sparks PDF | 7 | 1 KB |
Independent Assessor’s report
An Independent Assessor was appointed to review the Draft Report on Progress with Implementation of the New South Wales Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) as well as the 32 public submissions received as part of the review. In November 2009, the Independent Assessor provided to the governments a final report, which includes a summary of issues raised in all of the public submissions.
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On 15 March 2010, the Independent Assessor’s report was tabled in the Australian Parliament. As a consequence of the review, the Independent Assessor provided 18 recommendations for the Australian and New South Wales governments to consider in the ongoing implementation of the three RFAs.
Joint Government response to the Independent Assessor’s report
The New South Wales and Australian governments produced a Joint Government response to the Independent Assessor’s report:
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On 30 October 2014, the Joint Government response was tabled in the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament. This formally concludes the review process.