Today the Sun Herald has reported on the new Rural Fire Service 10/50 laws which allow landholders within 350 metres of bushfire prone land to remove trees (10 metres) and remove shrubs (50 metres) without approval.
Because the law does not discriminate, a large area of Mosman is affected. It is an alarming development.
However, the new law may also apply to the proposed aged care development on Middle Head, and would possibly allow the Trust to remove a large area of endangered rainforest vegetation within the National Park. This vegetation is the Critically Endangered Littoral Rainforest, under the federal EPBC Act and also endangered under state legislation.
We have mapped the edge of the 50 metre (from the building edge of the proposed new aged care home) zone on Google Earth. According to the report in the Herald, critically endangered remnant rainforest has already been removed on the North Coast due to this new law.