* This story was updated at 4:40pm on 10 September.
Long-time conservationist Lyn Orrego describes her favourite patch of the Nambucca State Forest as her “natural cathedral”.
“There’s a patch of mixed eucalypt and rainforest old growth that took my breath away when I found it one night,” Orrego told the Mid North Coaster.
“Towering trees dwarfed us, stands of mature palms wowed us … this is what our forests look and feel like when we just leave them alone.”
What happened: The protection of Mid North Coast forests within the Great Koala National Park (GKNP), which include Lyn’s “cathedral”, may depend on the establishment of a scheme that would allow NSW to sell carbon credits.
That relied on the approval of a carbon trading method, which was due to be debated on September 15. The Nationals had tried to block the carbon trading method.
However, after the Greens agreed on Thursday (September 10) to back the ALP, the Nationals’ “disallowance motion” was defeated by 34 votes to 27.
The background: NSW Labor pledged to create the GKNP in 2015, and again during the 2023 election - which it won.
In September 2025, the proposed boundary of the park was announced. Around 176,000 hectares of state forest would be added to the existing national park estate to create a 476,000 hectare reserve spanning from Kempsey to Woolgoolga.
Logging of native forests would be banned within it.
Carbon scheme introduced: At this point - despite not having been mentioned before - it was announced that the GKNP’s creation was dependent on it being part of a carbon trading scheme.
That scheme would utilise the Improved Native Forest Management (INFM) method, which allows states to earn carbon credits by reducing or ceasing logging in public native forests.
Companies would be able to offset their emissions by purchasing carbon credits from the park.
Rare chance: Orrego said carbon credit schemes are not without flaws, but that the INFM offered a “once-in-a-generation pathway to protecting NSW’s public native forests”.
Conservation biologist Professor David Lindenmayer said the method aims to reduce the amount of native forest logging, while providing an income stream with which to manage forests.
“The method is designed to store a lot more carbon in our forests and provide a financial incentive to do that,” he told the Mid North Coaster.
A way forward: While the method itself does not ban native forestry, Lindenmayer believes it offers a long-term path towards shutting down the industry, while providing the funds to transition workers to other careers.
Criticism of the method: The INFM has proved divisive in the conservation movement.
Ashley Love, who is credited with conceiving the idea for a GKNP, is staunchly opposed.
“Up until September 2025, there was no mention of the support for the [GKNP] proposal being dependent on carbon credits,” he said in a statement.
He believes attaching a carbon credit scheme to the GKNP means “effectively helping corporations to continue polluting the atmosphere and further damaging the forests”.
Pushing back: Forestry Australia claims the method will not deliver “genuine carbon outcomes” because it will overstate the amount of carbon being removed from the atmosphere.
Organisations such as the Australia Institute (AI), the Bob Brown Foundation and the Wilderness Society also want the method dropped.
Specific issues: The AI claims the concept has two major flaws.
First, protection of the GKNP was already planned, meaning any carbon abatement would have occurred whether or not carbon credits were tied to it.
Second, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can last for thousands of years - much longer than a tree.
Time to get it done: Lindemayer understands distrust around carbon schemes, but says pragmatism is required to get the GKNP over the line.
“In an ideal world, we would have properly protected forests, and we wouldn't have to do this. But it's not an ideal world, so we have to use all the different levers that we've got to get a better outcome.”
He describes the INFM as a “high integrity” method compared to carbon schemes of the past, noting a NSW government commitment not to sell carbon credits from the GKNP to coal and gas projects.
What’s at stake: Environment minister Penny Sharpe has repeatedly described the park as the government’s “most significant environmental commitment”.
If it isn’t gazetted, Lindenmayer said “really significant areas of very high conservation value won't be properly protected, and that's an enormous loss that might be irreversible”.