Threatened species protections

Our advice to the NSW Government on finalising the PNF codes of practice recommended a risk-based review of threatened species protections for key species in Appendix A of the codes. The NSW Forest Monitoring Steering Committee, independently chaired by the Commission, is now overseeing this work. The Committee has established a cross-agency technical review team of agency scientists to input to this work.

We have appointed independent experts to inform this work:

• Professor Philip Gibbons - Australian National University - Professor and Associate Director of Higher-degree Research
• Dr Doug Binns - consulting flora ecologist.

This risk assessment is applying expert advice and publicly available, scientifically robust evidence on the threatened flora and fauna species listed in the codes. The cross-agency technical review team, and independent experts, has input to the development of the risk assessment framework and will consider the outcomes of the assessment. For at risk key species, we will make recommendations on improvements to general operating conditions and species-specific prescriptions in the PNF codes.

The risk-based review of threatened species protections is expected to be completed in 2024.