DEAR News Of The Area,

YOUR front page article Friday 19/8/22 is some of the worst reporting I have seen in a long time.

How many building sites, construction areas, work sites and factories allow the public access to them?

Why is a work site in a forest any different?

Bagawa SF, like most eucalyptus forests, is biodiverse and productive.

This is because of past forestry management which includes harvesting and fire protection.

Individual trees in an unmanaged forest grow until they die.

This can be when they are relatively young by competition from more dominant trees.

When trees mature they develop hollows internally until they are decaying as fast as they are
growing.

After decay exceeds growth, they eventually die.

This cycle can take 400 to 600 years so individually we do not live to see the full cycle.

Animals and other plants that occur in eucalypt forests also vary with the age of the forest.

What lives in a young forest in high numbers does not necessarily live in an overmature forest in the same
numbers.

There is a succession of animal and plant species that live in a forest as it ages.

Before harvesting occurred the cycle used to be restarted by hot wildfires.

These killed the existing trees and started the growth cycle again.

A fire of this intensity only needs to occur every few hundred years.

The problem with these fires is that they usually cover a large area and kill not only trees but animals and other plants in their path.

It then takes a long time for animals to recolonise the burnt areas as they regenerate.

With logging and hazard reduction, wildfires can be and have been kept to a minimum and the forest continues to be biodiverse and productive as well as reducing the greenhouse gas levels by putting timber into storage ie houses.

Regards,
Peter PAUNOVIC,
Boambee East.