Australia-wide grassroots conservation groups not happy about the carbon credit condition on the Great Koala National Park

The statement below was prepared and supported by grass-roots conservation groups Australia-wide to inform Australian federal Senators about their disappointment that the Great Koala National Park had been burdened with new, dodgy carbon baggage.

The letter was sent in advance of a Senate vote to disallow the bill. The vote was later postponed to 15 September 2026.

Over just one weekend, over 30 conservation groups agreed to support this letter.

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Un-represented Voices for Forest Protection

This letter was sent to Australian Greens Senators on 13/8/26.

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The INFM method has been from the beginning, a Carbon Scam.

The NSW Labor Government decision to pursue a carbon scam instead of honouring its election promise to create the Great Koala National Park, has resulted in approximately 10,000 hectares being logged in the 3.5 years since the Government was elected. That logging is ongoing at Pine Creek. Now that we are already well into the election cycle for the March 2027 election, the Minns Government is saying: “Give us the INFM method or No Koala Park.”

The INFM method was conceived as a carbon scam and has been directly responsible for the failure to deliver the GKNP. It is a black box of bureaucratic processes which is designed to be totally impenetrable to civil society. There are no safeguards, because the proposed safeguards are theoretical and impossible to implement.

The Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee (ERAC) has already publicly flagged a willingness to combine the INFM method with the logging industry method. So, the INFM method is NOT an alternative to the industry method, it is almost certainly going to be the first step in creating an industry method. Since 2011 there have been 62 methods approved and of those 35 have been varied.

The majority of NSW conservation groups have always been opposed to monetising Nature and the INFM method but have been systematically sidelined by the Labor Government and Labor sympathisers in the Environment movement.

This has been exacerbated by financial grants to ENGOs and associated Non-Disclosure Agreements by the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation (ACBF), which is not an environmental membership-based organisation. Its board is made up of a former Federal Treasury Secretary, representatives from Macquarie Asset Management, Potentia Capital, and AMB Holdings, the company overseeing the corporate and philanthropic streams of Angela Wright Bennett Climate and Environment Foundation financed by the royalty streams of Wright Prospecting. ACBF was the original developer of the INFM. It’s understood that the INFM method development was transferred by ACBF to the NSW government. The likely conflicts of interest of key ENGO supporters of the method was highlighted by Michael West media on (4 August).

We believe that the INFM method is a disaster for forests nationwide. If approved, Tasmania and Victoria, not just NSW will also be targeted for a version of this method. This will be a national disaster, not just confined to NSW because it will mean no state government will create a new forest National Park or protected area anywhere unless they can manage them as carbon reserves to generate offsets to assist the fossil fuel emitters to continue with Business as Usual.

We are aware that ACBF has already been involved in briefings to political parties in Tasmania to promote a Tasmanian version of the INFM method. All Tasmanian forests organisations are opposed to the INFM method and want it disallowed. It would effectively throw a lifeline to the dying native forest logging industry in Tasmania. Instead, we need a full-throated campaign to demand that the Minns Government honour its election promise to declare the Great Koala National Park. The sooner the INFM method is out of the picture the sooner the community can build a public campaign to force the Minns Government to honour its election promise.

Yours sincerely,