DEAR News Of The Area,

I’VE rarely heard a politician discuss the mass extinction of species.

Our forest region risks losing the koala and other irreplacables, a tragedy in waìting.

Our local politicians remain silent.

Discussing extinctions in their circles is taboo.

Best to talk in their language, dollars, and that means the timber industry.

Coinciding with extinctions is millable timber loss.

Log girth is way down on what was available in the 50s and 60s.

Our forests have been over cut for decades with no acknowledgement from regional politicians, inevitably, the National Party.

On their watch, no attempt was made to encourage agroforestry on private land with its many benefits.

Hence the supply decline in the industry and its wind-down coinciding with the simplification of our native forests.

There’s proof in a re-forestation vision.

New Zealand’s project is a great financial success, growing among other species, eucalypts.

The good news? Ninety-six percent of their plantation industry is on private land.

A question. Where’s Australia’s vision?

There’s a role for government. It’s to promote ideas, deal with and plan the future.

It doesn’t happen here.

It’s a regional problem ignored by regional politicians.

It sits squarely with the National Party.

Warren TINDALL,
Bellingen.