CONSERVATIONISTS are concerned that the public is not completely aware of the type and scale of forestry operations in the proposed Great Koala National Park (GKNP).
They have shared a new drone video of logging in Sheas Nob State Forest, inland from Coffs Harbour, to highlight the damage being done.
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The process shown is a large harvester that grabs large trees and slices through them, with the fallen trunks then being dragged to a collection point, damaging the forest floor vegetation.
Darren Grover, the Head of Regenerative Country at the World Wildlife Fund Australia (WWF) said, “The video will be shocking to many people”.
“It shows the brutal efficiency of heavy logging machinery, destroying trees which will take many decades to replace, if at all.”
The WWF says that a number of reports, based on publicly-available data from Forestry Corporation NSW (FCNSW) show that logging has already occurred across 7185 hectares within the GKNP assessment area since the Minns Government was elected, and that currently-available harvest plans show logging is currently underway across a further 1924 hectares within the assessment area.
It says that a delay of six months could take the total logged area to 12,578 hectares, equivalent to more than 6700 Sydney Cricket Grounds.
Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson, has cited a report from Wilderness Australia titled, “The Plan to Keep Logging the Great Koala National Park”, which draws the same conclusion.
“Even in the National Party seat of Coffs Harbour, 70 percent of the community support the creation of the Great Koala National Park,” she said.
“This will go down as one of the biggest environmental political failures of our time.”
Gumbaynggirr Elder Uncle Micklo Jarrett said, “One of my main totems is the Dunggirr, the koala.
“My identity and my being is sustained, nourished, upheld and defined by the Dunggirr.”
“For the benefit and wellbeing of all in the Gumbaynggirr Nation we must stop logging our forests and the entire 176,000 hectare Great Koala National Park must be declared immediately, because that is what our Government promised us”.
By Andrew VIVIAN