Fines totaling $42,000 have been handed down to two Hauraki-based dairy farm owners and a sharemilker in the latest sentencing for dairy effluent offences.

These fines are as a result of prosecutions taken by Environment Waikato following its helicopter monitoring programme in August 2009.

In the first of two similar cases before the Hamilton District Court last week, owner John Pinnell and his sharemilker Stephen Jamieson were fined $16,000 and $10,000 respectively for two offences involving the unlawful discharge of dairy effluent on to land at a Kopu property.

In a second case, owner Mark Millington was also fined $16,000 for four offences involving the unlawful discharge of dairy effluent on to land at a Paeroa property. (Read on …)

Forests NSW is being forced to review its logging practices, after the discovery of a spate of new breaches including logging old-growth rainforests and destroying the habitat of threatened native animals.

The latest damage, at Girard State Forest near Tenterfield, is the fifth time in five months that the state agency has come under investigation.

The NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water, which oversees environmental protection licences, is conducting a joint audit with the agency of logging in the region.

The review will examine the regulations under which contractors are employed by Forests NSW, and rules protecting native wildlife, young trees and trees surrounding waterways.

The department has already handed out four penalty notices to the agency this year for breaking logging rules in the nearby Yabbra State Forest. (Read on …)