Chainsaws were recovered alongside drugs, cash and ammunition when police raided two properties in Canberra recently, the stolen tools reportedly used in ACT parks and reserves when illegal logging surged last winter.
More than 20 mature natives - aged between 100 and 400 years - were taken illegally from Gigerline Nature Reserve alone. ACT Parks captured video footage from up to five depots reportedly showing illegal felling at a similar scale.
James Parker, ACT Parks Ranger, is part of a team that manages reserves in the southern Murrumbidgee corridor.
Standing among the sawn-off eucalypts and red gums this week, he described the impact the criminal activity has had on work undertaken to protect ACT's important woodlands.
"I haven't come across wood theft and blatant vandalism of native species to this degree before," he said.
"It makes me really angry."
Gigerline Nature Reserve extends from Angle Crossing, north up the Murrumbidgee to the Tharwa village. Its yellow box eucalypts and Blakely's red gum are part of an ecological community listed as threatened under ACT and federal laws.
Mature native trees located in the ACT's parks and reserves are also protected under the Nature Conservation Act 2014. There are penalties in place for those who illegally remove wood and fines for those who've bought it and burnt it.
Criminals who broke into the reserve in July left gates open with locks intact, indicating they'd had a key to let themselves in.
Its suspected they were nabbed during prior break-ins at Namadgi Visitor Information Centre or of Rural Fire Service vehicles.
Of the trees discovered destroyed soon after, some were split up on site and taken, while others were chopped down and left, presumably to be collected later. The cuts were reportedly quite professional, with a scarf at the front followed by a back cut.
In addition to cutting down multiple trees with a breast-height diameter of more than 100 millimetres, a measurement that marks them as mature, significant damage was also done to several juvenile trees in order to gain vehicle access to the larger wood.
A private property on the western side of the Murrumbidgee, belonging to a private leaseholder within the nature reserve, has also been broken into multiple times recently.
Hardwood that was left on site as inhabited after the construction of the Williamsdale Solar Farm has repeatedly been targeted.
The stockpile, owned by ACT Parks and Conservation Service, is destined to be spread throughout the local woodland to increase habitat connectivity to high quality areas towards the river.
Fallen trees are a vital part of the ACT parks ecosystem, providing homes to animals, returning nutrients to soil and encouraging native flora to grow.
Mature natives, particularly those with hollows within the trunk and branches, are habitat for mammals, reptiles, bats and birds, including threatened species such as the superb parrot, little eagle and brown treecreeper.
Mr Parker said ACT Parks has poured hours of work into surveillance, patrols and cleaning up after the criminals.
"When you lose trees like that in the environment, it's hard to quantify a cost or the damage of that impact," he said.
ACT Police report the investigation into stolen chainsaws and equipment recovered in Torrens and Greenway was still ongoing and charges were expected to be laid in coming days.
Members from ACT Policing Rural Patrol had identified several owners of the stolen goods this week and had begun the process of returning property.
Similar crimes have also been reported in Victoria recently, parks rangers forming joint operations with police officers as they investigate illegal logging in parks and reserves around Shepparton.
NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service is also undertaking regular patrols and using surveillance cameras in parks across NSW to detect illegal logging.
Peter Dimmock, the owner of Rural Firewood Supplies Canberra for about 18 years, said the demand for firewood was going up in the ACT as more people were putting in wood heaters.
The Fyshwick business sources its timber from western NSW and Queensland, where it's collected and purchased from private landholders.
He said while firewood sales in the ACT is heavily regulated, it hasn't stopped unauthorised sales increasing.
"There's a lot of fly-by-nighters out there that sell wood they get out of the forest," he said.
Mr Dimmock said the sustainable dry timber they source has been dead for 10 years and doesn't blow smoke, as opposed to illegally sourced green wood that covers Canberra neighbourhoods in a thick cloud in the winter months.
He said customers had paid more last year due to rising fuel costs and it was likely a load of wood would be worth even more this winter.
David Lindenmayer, Australian National University expert in forest ecology, said a lot of state forest was damaged by fire in 2019-2020.
"Logged forest always burns at greater severity than intact forests," Professor Lindenmayer said.
"Additional firewood cutting in those burnt areas is highly detrimental to the forest recovery."
Professor Lindemayer said trees of 100 to 400 years old were especially important in Australia's ecosystems since so many had been lost.
"Old forest tends to be very rare throughout not only the ACT in NSW, and Victoria as well.
"Cutting down those really big trees that are so important for so much of our wildlife is actually a real travesty," Professor Lindenmayer said.
"My hope is that there'll be prosecutions, and there's some examples made of people that are doing this kind of illegal activity."
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