MEDIA RELEASE: VicForests facing legal action again

MEDIA RELEASE

VicForests facing legal action again 

The state government owned logging company VicForests, is in the legal crosshairs of environmentalists yet again.  Lawyers acting on behalf of Environment East Gippsland have this week formally requested an explanation as to why a rich habitat site suited for rare forest-dependent wildlife was not surveyed before logging commenced last week.

“We believe this is a strong case of non-compliance with the law”, said EEG’s Jill Redwood. “This beautiful stand of wet forest contains old growth trees, rainforest and many habitat traits essential for rare and threatened wildlife. It should have been surveyed.”

“We won our Brown Mountain case in 2010 when VicForests logged without checking for the presence of rare native animals.  It seems they haven’t learnt.”

“To make things worse, rainforest in this area has not been protected from logging.  As far as we are aware, VicForests has already logged unlawfully within the protected rainforest buffer.”

The forest is part of the St Patrick's River catchment south west of Goolengook and NE of Orbost.

“EEG has had concerns for a number of years that VicForests has been making its own decisions on where to survey based more on its commercial interests rather than actual concern for protecting old growth habitat and rare native animals.”

“More areas of high quality habitat are planned for imminent logging and we believe they have also been overlooked for surveying. The less they find, the more they can cut down.

“We’ve told the Andrews Government about these issues and hope it will pull VicForests into line, but we haven’t had any indication yet that they plan to take action”

For comment:  Jill Redwood    (03) 5154  0145

MEDIA RELEASE: Protest halts vicforests illegal logging operation

MEDIA RELEASE – 15/12/2015
PROTEST HALTS VICFORESTS ILLEGAL LOGGING OPERATION
GECO

Conservationists from Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO) have halted logging operations in high conservation value forest on the St Patrick’s River in East Gippsland today due to multiple breaches of the law.

A person is positioned in a tree platform 30m off the ground. The platform is tied off to logging machinery which is preventing logging operations from continuing.

GECO believes the logging is illegal.  VicForests has failed to carry out necessary pre logging surveys for threatened wildlife, which it is legally obligated to do. Logging has also illegally impacted upon a large stand of protected rainforest.

“The Minister was alerted to these breaches last week but as logging continues we’ve taken direct action to prevent further destruction of wildlife habitat and rainforest,’ said Ed Hill.

Three threatened/protected species have been recorded close to the area; Yellow-bellied Glider, Sooty Owl and the endangered Long-footed Potoroo.  The forest is also rich in old trees with hollows – an indication that other rare and protected wildlife could be supported in this forest,” said Ed Hill.

“Many stands of forest with high quality habitat for threatened wildlife are listed by VicForests as being currently logged or about to be logged and appear to have no surveys associated with them.  These may also be illegal operations.”

“After a controversial rainforest logging operation was exposed by GECO earlier this year, Environment Minister Lisa Neville MP ordered her department to conduct ‘spot checks’ on VicForests’ logging operations in rainforest areas.  This should have ensured rainforests are protected”, said Ed Hill

“Instead we see repeated and blatant contempt of clearly worded laws which should see VicForests charged, as any of us would be for destruction of protected rainforest,” said Ed Hill.

“As the Minister responsible Lisa Neville must act to immediately halt the logging in this coupe and order a full investigation into the suitability of VicForests as a manager of public property,” said Ed Hill.

High resolution images and video available from 10am

Media contact: Ed Hill  (03) 5154 0109 or 0414199645

email: geco.media@gmail.com ,  website: www.geco.org.au

Goongerah Environment Centre threatened with trespassing prosecution after revealing Errinundra Plateau rainforest clearing

ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 19 May 2015 

Members of an environment group who revealed evidence of rainforest clearing in East Gippsland, in south-east Victoria, have been threatened with prosecution.

After being tipped off by the Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO), the Department of Environment found VicForests had needlessly destroyed rainforest canopy on the Errinundra Plateau.

The state forestry compliance officer has now threatened to prosecute members of GECO for trespassing in the disputed logging coupes.

Ed Hill from GECO said he was shocked by the threats.

"Quite frankly we're disgusted that the Government would threaten to prosecute community members for getting out there and basically doing the work that the Government is meant to be doing and holding VicForests accountable to state laws that protect unique environmental values, like rainforest," he said.

Mr Hill said he had asked for Environment Minister Lisa Neville to intervene.

"She had a scathing assessment of the rainforest logging and on VicForests and their conduct in that operation, so we're really surprised that the Government wants to take further steps to prosecute community members for the work they're meant to be doing," he said.

The Environment Minister has referred the ABC's enquiry to another Government department.

Forest sites saved from logging

AAP
The Age, November 21, 2012

An out-of-court settlement between VicForests and environmental groups has ensured protection of nine nationally significant rainforest sites in East Gippsland.

VicForests said the settlement had saved taxpayers' money being spent on a costly Supreme Court trial.

VicForests' director of corporate affairs Nathan Trushell said the outcome was a practical solution to a complex legal argument over an administrative matter.

He said the issue related to the management of forest adjacent to rainforest stands and that no rainforest was at risk of being harvested.

Jill Redwood, coordinator of Environment East Gippsland, said the settlement meant VicForests agreed to no logging at three forest areas and to modify their logging boundaries in another six rainforests sites of national significance.

She said the state government, through the Department of Sustainability and Environment, should have protected all significant rainforest sites but had failed to do so.

"We believe that the law requires them to do so and that none of the sites should be on the logging schedule," Ms Redwood said.

AAP

DSE - prosecuting while being prosecuted

Environment East Gippsland
MEDIA RELEASE, Thursday 2 August 2012

Today, in a curious paradox, the Department of Sustainability and Environment is being taken to court for not adhering to its own rainforest protection laws, while next week DSE will be in court prosecuting VicForests for criminally logging rainforests.

The environment group which successfully sued VicForests in 2010 for planning to unlawfully destroy endangered wildlife habitat, has today served court documents on DSE*.

Environment East Gippsland hopes to prove that DSE neglected to follow its own law and protect identified areas of nationally significant rainforest.

“While DSE takes VicForests to court for illegally logging rainforests, we believe it has itself broken laws on rainforest protection, which has forced our community group to now take DSE to court”, said Jill Redwood from EEG “It reads like a silly Monty Python sketch, but this absurdity is real”.

VicForests is due to appear in the Bairnsdale Magistrates court this Monday 6th August and the Environment East Gippsland vs DSE case should be heard in the Supreme Court in November later this year. 

For comment or information:  Jill Redwood (03) 5154 0145

*Environment East Gippsland initially began proceedings to sue VicForests last December/January over 14 areas of rainforest it planned to clearfell. These 14 areas support nationally significant rainforest in East Gippsland. It has now joined DSE into the case as EEG believes DSE is the authority which should have by law mapped and protected all Sites of National Significance for Rainforest.

Forests agency sued for logging

Tom Arup
The Age, March 19, 2012

VicForests has been accused of logging protected rainforests.

STATE-OWNED timber agency VicForests has been hit with court action by the Environment Department after it allegedly logged protected rainforest.

The court battle relates to VicForests' logging operations in the Orbost Forest District in East Gippsland, where the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment says unauthorised harvesting of rainforest and buffer areas took place.

A spokeswoman for the department confirmed the prosecution, saying charges laid on VicForests included "undertaking an unauthorised timber harvesting operation in a state forest".

VicForests has also been charged with directing its contractor to log rainforest against timber harvesting licence conditions.

VicForests spokesman David Walsh said the timber agency would defend itself against the allegations. "The charges relate to harvesting operations in East Gippsland," he said. "VicForests intends to strongly defend itself in relation to this matter." If found guilty, VicForests faces a maximum penalty of $29,000. A directions hearing will be held in the Orbost Magistrates Court on March 29.

Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh said: "Like anyone, VicForests is entitled to the presumption of innocence. They are also required, like protesters, to obey Victorian law."

The prosecution of VicForests follows the timber agency's win in the Supreme Court last week against green groups trying to stop three logging coupes in part of Victoria's central highlands near Toolangi. Conservationists had argued the coupes threatened habitat of the endangered Leadbeater's Possum, Victoria's faunal emblem.

After VicForests' win last week, Mr Walsh accused green groups of costing the government hundreds of thousands of dollars this year in protest management and legal fees in logging cases.

Opposition spokesman for government scrutiny Martin Pakula said it was obscene that two government agencies were now fighting each other in court in the Orbost case.

"So, Victoria is in deficit by almost $350 million in the last six months, and yet we've got two state government agencies wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting each other in court. It's just obscene," he said.

The Wilderness Society's Luke Chamberlain said that in 10 years, less than one in 300 coupes in Victoria had been challenged by environmentalists. "It is hardly a case for government to argue that court cases are stopping logging in Victoria, triggering a need to change Victoria's environment laws in relation to logging," he said.

The state government recently released a new plan for the timber industry, which among other things increased VicForests' ability to sign timber contracts to 20 years.

The Baillieu government is also proposing changes to the Timber Code, allowing exemptions to be granted from state environment laws for individual logging coupes.

It comes as the state environment department decided to halt operations at an education centre in the Toolangi State Forest from July 1.

LETTER: Government should get out of logging business

Peter Campbell
Letter to the editor (not yet published), 14 December 2011

Local conservationists have yet again had to take court action and use blockades to stop VicForests, the Victorian Government's logging business, from logging protected rainforest in East Gippsland.

VicForests have form. They were found guilty of breaking the law relating the protection of endangered species in Brown Mountain's forest in the Supreme Court in August 2010.  Over a year later, despite a court order, they are yet to pay the court costs awarded against them to Environment East Gippsland.

In July this year, VicForests started logging forest near Sylvia Creek that is home to Leadbeaters Possum. They were stopped by another court order following legal action initiated by local environment group MyEnvironment.  This court case, scheduled to be heard early next year, is again about VicForests ignoring the laws concerned with protecting endangered species.

The Baillieu government's response to VicForest's illegal and unethical practices is to reward them with 20 year contracts for logging our remaining native forests, indemnify their contracts, allow them to determine the amount of forest they can log and allow them to log forests in reserves, parks and water catchments.

The Baillieu government has also flagged changing the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act so that a bureaucrat can exempt VicForests from complying with it, thereby allowing them to log forests that are and should be protected.

The native forest logging industry is in terminal decline. Regional Forests Agreements have failed. The global market for woodchips, the major "product" that comes from out native forests, has collapsed.  Despite accelerating logging, jobs continue to decline.  The industry is largely automated now.

The wholesale conversion of native forests into plantations by continued logging and burning is simply not sustainable, as scientists such as Professor David Lindenmeyer have stated.

There is enough plantation resource available in Victoria right now to supply our timber and pulp needs.  The Victorian government should get out of the logging business, get rid of VicForests, and support our sustainable plantation-based timber and wood products industries.

Our native forests should be protected for the carbon they store, their biodiversity, their function as water catchments and because they are wonderful places to visit.

MEDIA RELEASE: Supreme Court orders stop to logging East Gippsland rainforest

Environment East Gippsland presented the Court with official Victorian Government maps to show that the disputed area is a protected National Rainforest Site of Significance.  VicForests submitted that the maps were wrong, and that the government department was scrambling to move the boundaries on the official maps before Court resumes next Tuesday 20 December 2011.

"It's a huge win for the forests today", said EEG secretary Liz Ingham who attended the court. "The Court stopped the logging in the nick of time, to prevent a rainforest reserve being logged."

"VicForests blamed the government, saying the rainforest reserve maps were wrong. This is a suspiciously convenient excuse", she said.

"For a very long time, the government has presented the public with rainforest reserve maps. They didn't alter the reserve boundaries when VicForests moved in to log the reserve.  They only decided to move the reserve boundaries after our non-profit community environment group took VicForests to court. How convenient.  VicForests is a state-owned enterprise with Premier's brother in law on the Board."

"Up here on the ground, those blockading this area hung on for their lives in the forest waiting for the result. They are absolute forest heroes", said Ms Redwood.

The case returns to Court on Tuesday 20 December at 10.30am, at which time the Court will address a further halt to logging.

For comment: Jill Redwood - 5154 0145 / Liz Ingham 0409 333 595

Timber gets long-term commitment

Adam Morton and Tom Arup
The Age, December 14, 2011


THE government has moved to guarantee the long-term future of Victoria's timber industry, ending decades of protection of native forests from logging.

A new timber industry plan substantially boosts the power of VicForests, the government-owned commercial timber agency that the previous Labor government planned to abolish.

VicForests will take over sole responsibility for calculating the amount of timber that can be sustainably harvested, and will determine when and where logging takes place.

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Forestry companies will be offered native timber contracts lasting 20 years, up from the current maximum of five - a step to encourage investment in new mills and equipment.

The government will also indemnify VicForests against the cost if a contract is broken due to changes in policy, potentially leaving the state with the legal bill should a future government want to reduce native timber logging.

Other proposed changes include allowing ''ecological thinning'' of forests in reserves, parks and water catchments, and a review of timber legislation.

Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh said there were no plans for the amount of native forest harvested to increase, and that ecological thinning would be restricted to existing logging areas. He said Victoria's native forest timber was a ''magnificent and renewable resource'' with the potential to support a vibrant long-term industry.

''There is absolutely nothing sinister in this,'' he said. ''It is about, in the areas that were going to be logged, giving certainty to the industry and making sure forests are managed appropriately.''

The plan fulfils a Coalition election commitment. It comes two months after the release of proposed regulation changes that would give the head of the Department of Sustainability and Environment the power to grant loggers an exemption from endangered species laws.

Mr Walsh said yesterday that it was no secret VicForests had problems in the past, but it had undergone substantial change.

He said the Department of Sustainability and Environment would continue to watch VicForests' work.

Australian Conservation Foundation campaigner Lindsay Hesketh said there was a conflict between giving VicForests greater power and protecting the environment. ''It appears this is the same thing that happened with Forestry Tasmania and led to the disaster Tasmania has become,'' he said.

Wilderness Society campaigner Luke Chamberlain said the plan to lock in compensation payments if a future government changed policy was ''agricultural socialism from the Soviet era''.

Opposition agriculture spokesman John Lenders said the plan failed to balance the need to protect the environment and secure jobs.

MEDIA RELEASE Legal injunction to stop Victorian rainforest logging

Environment East Gippland
Wednesday 14th December 2011

VicForests is again being sued in the Supreme Court over what an environment group believes is illegal logging of a very significant protected rainforest area. Environment East Gippsland, which successfully sued VicForests last year, is lodging papers for an urgent injunction this morning in the Melbourne Supreme Court to stop the logging.

 “This is the third case of what we believe is illegal logging that VicForests will have to answer for”, said Jill Redwood, coordinator of the group. “The public thinks this type of lawless destruction of protected primary forest and rainforest only occurs overseas”.

“VicForests is still refusing to pay our legal costs of around a million dollars from last year, despite this being a clear court order. If they think this is preventing us taking further legal action, it’s not working. The public is so outraged about their criminal destruction, they have already donated enough for us to get this next legal action rolling.”

“In a proper democracy it should not be up to the public to enforce the law over an uncontrollable government entity. We should not be forced to ask the courts to ensure VicForests abides by the law. We are a developed country. We give millions to other countries to help them stop illegal logging of their rainforests. But in Victoria we are seeing the same happen with full support of the Baillieu government. Exploiting industries seem to be writing the government’s laws and policies now”.

This stand of forest was blockaded for 5 days last week and was broken up by police on Monday.
“It doesn’t take long for a determined crew of logging contractors to cut down the tall trees and smash down a forest of tree ferns”, said Jill Redwood “We hope this injunction will be successful”.

For comment  - Jill Redwood: 5154 0145,  Liz Ingham (in court for EEG): 0409 333 595

MEDIA RELEASE: Police move in to evict protest at unlawful logging coupe

Monday 12 December 2011

Police this morning moved in to evict conservationists who have been halting the unlawful logging of a Rainforest Site of Significance at Errinundra Road in East Gippsland for the last five days.

"This logging operation is in violation of state laws to protect all National Rainforest Sites of Significance. Despite this, and correspondence from lawyers requesting they withdraw from the site, Vicforests have
instead elected for police to begin dismantling the protest this morning," said spokesperson, Lauren Caulfield.

Police have now arrived on site with staff from Vicforests and the Department of Sustainability and Environment. A dozen conservationists remain in the area, with two tree platforms cabled 25 metres above
four machines. Arrests are expected.

"This unlawful logging operation, and the eviction of members of the public who are attempting to halt it, is happening under the watch of the Baillieu Government. We are calling on them to reign in logging agency Vicforests, and to force them to abide by the law," said David Caldwell, at Errinundra Road.

Local community group Environment East Gippsland is now preparing for an urgent legal injunction should logging operations proceed.

This logging coupe falls within the National Site of Significance for Rainforest along the Errinundra Road. In November 2006, the Victorian Government announced that certain areas of old growth forest in East
Gippsland would be permanently excluded from logging. This included all Sites of National Significance for Rainforest.

For further information: Lauren Caulfield 0408 748 939

Litany of unlawful rainforest breaches: VicForests’ logging operations must be halted

Media Release, Wednesday November 30, 2011

Yet more unlawful rainforest logging breaches in forest in East Gippsland have been surveyed and reported by independent conservationists.

“The latest survey results clearly show VicForests continues to violate regulations meant to protect Victoria’s rainforests”, said spokesperson for the group, Amelia Young.

“It is unlawful to log rainforest in Victoria, yet this week numerous instances of rainforest logging have again been reported to the authorities.”

A fortnight ago conservationists reported rainforest had been logged along Survey Road. The Department of Sustainability and Environment undertook to investigate the claims. Conservationists are now awaiting public release of their findings.

“While investigations into rainforest logging breaches are being carried out, VicForests’ logging operations should be halted; this data clearly shows that logging coupes are not being marked out lawfully and as a result we are losing magnificent rainforest to the woodchipper.”

This week conservationists lodged three more reports with the Department of Sustainability and Environment, detailing logging of ecological rainforest buffers north of Orbost.

Breaches reported this week include logging of Warm Temperate Rainforest along Old Bonang Hwy in the Curlip forest block. Rainforest species including Jungle Grape and Lilly Pilly and the bird Bassian Thrush were recorded at that site.

“Mount Buck Rainforest Site of State Significance along Major Creek has also been logged. Rainforest Sites of Significance are listed because they have outstanding values. Once logged, they are lost forever.”

Further west, along Cherry Tree Track, yet more logging of rainforest has been detected, clearly inside the 40 metre buffer required to protect rainforest in Victoria from logging operations.

“We need to ensure VicForests’ practice of shamelessly logging rainforest is stopped”, concluded Ms Young. “Why are VicForests still being given access to our forest estate when it’s been shown that they are repeatedly logging rainforests? This situation is unacceptable.”

For further information Amelia Young 0404 074 577    

DSE to probe rainforest logging claims

Gus Goswell
ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), November 23, 2011

Anti-logging protesters have succeeded in stopping logging in a remote part of far East Gippsland.

The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) has agreed to investigate the protesters' claim that rainforest is threatened by logging on the Errinundra Plateau, north of Orbost.

It is illegal to log rainforest in Victoria.

Protesters have been disrupting operations in the forest coupe over the past fortnight.

Police went to the remote site yesterday to dismantle a tree platform built by the campaigners.

Officers had travelled to to the same coupe last week to demolish another tree platform.

The protesters have also been cabling logging machinery together.

The State Government owned timber company VicForests says four days of logging operations have had to be abandoned over the past fortnight because of the protests.

VicForests says no logging will take place in the contested section of the forest coupe while the DSE investigates the protesters' claims.

Continued Unlawful Logging of Rainforest shows native forest logging industry still not policed, as promised

Amelia Young
Media Release, Tuesday 22 November, 2011

For the second day this week, and for the second week in a row, controversial logging operations on Survey Road in far East Gippsland have been stopped by conservationists on site.

Five logging machines have again been cabled off to a tree-sit occupied by protestors and suspended forty metres in the canopy in the logging coupe situated on the edge of the Errinundra National Park.

Last Thursday conservationists handed survey findings showing that rainforest had been logged within the coupe to the relevant authority, the Department of Sustainability and Environment, requesting that the logging be immediately stopped and that a proper investigation be undertaken.

Logging of rainforest is unlawful in Victoria, under both the Code of Forest Practice and the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.

Yesterday conservationists resumed protest activity at the site as VicForests’ contentious logging operations in the coupe have not yet been halted by either the responsible Minister, nor by the relevant authority.

“Before last year’s state election, the current Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh stated that under a Coalition government, the native forest logging industry would be properly policed”, said spokesperson for the conservationists, Amelia Young.

“That in 2011, and under his watch, rainforest is still being logged in Victoria is a disgrace.”

Logging within or adjacent to rainforest causes changes to the rainforest microclimate, making it drier. Indeed, the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act Action Statement notes that cool temperate rainforest is ‘in a demonstrable state of decline likely to result in extinction.’

“This isn’t the first time VicForests’ logging contractors have been caught logging rainforest in East Gippsland”, said Ms Young. “In 2009 rainforest was positively identified in a coupe adjacent to this one, along the same gully system. In that instance, the Department confirmed the facts, concluding that logging activities had caused major environmental impact.

“These repeated rainforest logging infractions make mockery of claims that logging in Victoria is lawful and is among world’s best practice”, concluded Ms Young.

For further comment: Amelia Young 0404 074 577

Links

• DSE Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act Action Statement No. 238 (PDF)

Rainforest logging breach: Protestors on site at Survey Road

Amelia Young
Media Release, Monday 21 November, 2011 

This morning conservationists have again halted logging in rainforest on Survey Road in far East Gippsland. Five logging machines have been cabled off to a treesit in the forest canopy. 

"As if it wasn't enough that VicForests had sent their logging contractors into a coupe containing precious old-growth forest; conservationists have now verified that rainforest has been logged on site as well", said spokesperson Amelia Young.

Logging of rainforest in Victoria is in breach of regulations governing logging operations, including the Code of Forest Practice and the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.

"State government regulation requires that stands of rainforest be protected from some of the impacts of logging by a buffer of at least forty metres. On site in this logging coupe on Survey Road there are various locations where logging has occurred within what should be a forty metre buffer.

The conservationists  allegations have been presented to the relevant authority.

"We would like the Department of Sustainability and Environment to properly investigate these issues, immediately halt logging operations and ensure adequate rainforest buffers are implemented and adhered to."

Rainforests are an especially vulnerable ecological community and are listed as threatened under the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. 

"Increased exposure to light and wind causes major drying out of this sensitive ecological community that, due to decades of logging and land clearing, is already reduced to covering less than one per cent of the state. This isn't the first time VicForestsf logging contractors have been caught logging rainforest in East Gippsland", said Ms Young. 

"In 2009 rainforest was positively identified in a coupe adjacent to this one, along the same gully system. In that instance, the Department confirmed the facts, concluding that logging activities had caused major environmental impact. These repeated rainforest logging breaches make mockery of claims that logging in Victoria is lawful and is among world's best practice", concluded Ms Young.

For further comment: Amelia Young 0404 074 577

References

• DSE Flora and Fauna Gaurantee Act Action Statement No. 238 (PDF)

Kmart envelopes fail rainforest test

Paddy Manning
The Age, September 26, 2011

LABORATORY testing of Kmart's Indonesian-made Office One home-brand envelopes shows they contain 19 per cent mixed tropical hardwood fibre sourced from rainforest.

The analysis, commissioned from an American lab by environment group Markets for Change, comes amid an increasingly bitter debate about Indonesian forest practices, which has seen Australian retailers, including IGA and Officeworks, stop supplies from manufacturers of paper products including giants Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd and Asia Pulp and Paper.

Kmart's Office One copy paper is made in China but its home-brand envelopes are made in Indonesia, although the manufacturer is not identified on the packaging.

A Kmart spokesperson yesterday was surprised at the findings and said the company would ''take the matter extremely seriously and begin an immediate investigation''. On Friday the secretary-general of Indonesia's Forestry Ministry, Hadi Daryanto, addressed a conference in Sydney organised to counter environmental campaigns against forest industries.

PNG rainforests reveal 200 new species

Emily Beament, London
The Age, October 7, 2010

A TINY, two-centimetre frog, a mouse with a white-tipped tail and a white-flowered rhododendron are among more than 200 new species discovered in remote mountain rainforests of Papua New Guinea.

The new species of animals and plants were found during two months of surveying in the rugged and little-explored Nakanai and Muller mountain ranges last year, Conservation International announced
yesterday.

A newly discovered katydid in Papua New Guinea. Photo: Piotr Naskrecki/iLCP

The findings included two new mammals, 24 species of frog, nine new plants, nearly 100 new insects and about 100 spiders.

The mouse with the white-tipped tail, at least one ant and several crickets, or katydids, are so different from other known species they each represent an entirely new genus, the scientists said.

Two scientific teams — co-ordinated by Conservation International's rapid assessment program, in partnership with Papua New Guinea's Institute for Biological Research and the conservation organisation A Rocha International — explored different altitudes of the forest-cloaked Nakanai mountains, which host cave systems and some of the world's largest underground rivers, and the Muller range.

In the Nakanai surveys, scientists discovered a yellow-spotted frog, found only high up in the mountains in the wet rainforests, the mouse, and the tiny ceratobatrachid frog, which is just two centimetres long and calls for a mate in the late afternoon — unlike most frogs in the area which call at night.

In the Muller range, researchers found what they described as a "spectacular variety" of insects, spiders and frogs.

The scientists hope the discoveries will help secure World Heritage status for the two areas, in the face of pressure on PNG's forests from subsistence agriculture, logging and oil palm production.

Conservation International has been working with the provincial government and local communities in the Nakanai range to protect a large tract of rainforest from logging.

PA