OPINION: Can we find a middle ground on logging issues? Opinion Property/Sports/Opinion - popup ad by News Of The Area - Modern Media - April 17, 2023 DEAR News Of The Area, I FIND myself struggling to find a middle ground between logging and ecological protection. I have good mates who work in the mill. I treasure books of the old timers with their stories full of character and ingenuity. I’ve found something we all share on both sides of the fence is a love of the bush. It’s a big-kid playground, and playgrounds bring kids together. You meet people on a hill around here and they could be a 4WD enthusiast, ecologist, moto rider, citizen scientist, prospector, kayaker, photographer, or on holiday looking for an adventure. If we are struggling to find our cultural identity, here it is. As locals lose jobs in logging and mills, tourism opportunities and employment will take their place. It is therefore in our interests to quickly assess where logging is most appropriate with the Great Koala Park, in order to protect local jobs in the future. We can plainly see Forestry Corporation and ecologists are a long way from working towards the same goal. An independent voice to bridge the gap between these two is a logical part of the process. Engaging a multidisciplinary team made up of both ecologists and forestry and logging representatives would ensure current operations do not undermine any aspects of the proposed park while protecting the efficient functioning of Forestry Corporation. It would also be a step in the right direction for communication and mediation between the groups, and would ensure the NSW government is receiving up to date information directly from the ground. Rather than calling for a moratorium on logging, and rather than allowing logging to continue freely, can we find the middle ground? There is a parcel of land so small you can barely see it on the proposed forestry logging map which spurred me to write this letter. The piece of land sits adjacent to Nunguu Mirral Aboriginal Area, across from and a koala corridor, and connects through Newry State Forest to Jaaningga Nature Reserve. It links Nambucca Heads State Forests and Jagun National Park with New England (all the way up to the top of the mountains). It is the single link and chance of the Great Koala Park reaching the Nambucca Shire and if removed will instantly cut our community off from the opportunities it presents and also thousands of acres of forests. It has passed planning for logging. Once carried out Little Newry State Forest clearing will single-handedly undermine the entire southern area of the proposed Great Koala Park. Now that the park is going ahead we must not be left behind in the transition. To be the southern entry of the park is incredibly valuable economically and we are on the brink of losing this opportunity. It is this which drives me to ask for an independent body of authority to immediately assess logging operations to ensure the people and our forests transition to the Great Koala Park with the best possible outcomes for us all. Yours sincerely, Jodie ARMYTAGE.
Laudible sentiments Jody .. however, in the last 15 or so years, there has been so much degradation of our public native forests from the more intensive style of logging than there used to be in the old days .. and with the best that’s left always being targetted by our State-owned Forestry Corporation- that a moratorium on logging is necessary or you are right – huge opportunities will be lost. Many of the old loggers you speak of also have grave concerns about unsustainable logging. One, near Wauchope was quoted in 2016 as saying, “In the last 20 years we have cut down 200 years worth of timber.” The whole divide between logging and no logging wouldn’t even be happening if the old style of true selective logging had been kept going rather than the state government promising industry so much timber that overcutting has been the result. Basically these excesses have meant the workers on the ground have been forced to cut themselves out of a future with most of the timber going to the big companies anyway. Well managed and genuine Plantations are the future for the timber industry with nearly 90% of NSW timber already coming from plantations. I felt for those old timers who didn’t want to transition to more intensive logging. And we also owe places like Norman Jolly Reserve to old foresters who wanted to keep samples of the original forest – for its beauty as much as anything else. Sincerely, Lyn Orrego Reply
