PARKS NOT SPEEDWAYS

With the creation of the Great Koala National Park (GKNP), a commitment was made to accommodate stakeholder groups that have traditionally used state forests for their activities, including 4-wheel driving and trail bike riding.

As these activities aren’t allowed in national parks, the state government is considering gazetting some of those forests as State Parks, which would allow these activities to occur.

 Historically, there has been little regulation of these activities with trail-bikers and 4-wheel drivers creating havoc with impunity.

We need to consider, should these pastimes be allowed to proceed without proper controls? Not only is the environment at risk, but also other members of the community. Why should tourists and others, out enjoying nature and hoping to spot a Koala, have to seek shelter off the trail to allow a troupe of trail bike riders to roar past, spraying gravel and dirt in all directions?

These reserves are being created to protect Koalas, and the thousands of other plants and animals, many of which are in decline and already facing extinction. Clearly, nature conservation and motor sports are completely incompatible.

Last week there was a very troubling discovery in Bagawa State Forest, southwest of Glenreagh, where a person, or persons, have cleared endangered rainforest understory, including several threatened shrubs, in the process of reopening an old forest track and creating several new side trails for the purpose of trail bike riding.

Those new trails even cross creeks, up and down banks, creating an erosion hazard, adding more mud to our already polluted waterways.

I wonder if those responsible realise that damaging a threatened ecological community, or species, can attract a $550,000 fine or 7 years imprisonment (more for a corporation).

Naturally, this incident is being investigated.

There is clearly a need to cater for these high-impact activities, but they must be properly controlled and not allowed to pose a physical risk to other forest users, negatively impact the natural environment, or pollute waterways. Remember, the majority of the forests making up the GKNP, lie within regional drinking water catchments.

    -        John Edwards 

Published in the Voices for the Earth column in The Clarence Valley Independent   31st  July, 2026 . 

 

 

PROGRESS ON CLIMATE IN AUSTRALIA

Renewable energy adoption around the world is playing an important part in the struggle to reduce the carbon emissions which are driving increasingly frequent disasters like weather extremes and bushfires.

Progress on renewable energy in Australia has been significant. More than one in three Australian households (around four million) have rooftop solar and thousands of households have bought home batteries.  Renewables now power over 44% of the electricity grid.  As the independent Climate Council has pointed out, clean energy is outperforming coal, electric vehicles are on the rise and the economics of renewables stack up and are what most Australians want.

While more can be done to extend our use of renewables and household and industrial-scale batteries, there are other steps that must be taken.  The most difficult thing – and something that is essential – is the phasing out of fossil fuels.  As the Climate Council points out, if the phasing out of coal, oil and gas was simple, it would have already been done.

Fossil fuels, it says, are held in place by a web of influence which includes existing contracts locking in decades of fossil fuel production, laws that were not designed to consider climate change, the economic benefit gained from exporting fossil fuels and Australia’s trading partners (many of whom have long-term contracts) relying on those exports.  While these web strands are certainly very powerful, there are individuals and groups working for change.

This has been an uphill battle where those benefitting from fossil fuel extraction and its enormous profits are experts at pushing back and influencing governments.  In a recent example of this, gas proponents called for more exploration following the Iran War fuel shock.  And that convinced the gullible NSW Premier to open up exploration for gas in the far west of the state.

Important in combatting these fossil fuel proponents is providing information to the community about what needs to be done and urging for the tightening of development laws.  Increasing pressure on governments to make the necessary changes will ensure they cannot ignore the climate issues.

-        Leonie Blain

Published in the Voices for the Earth column in The Clarence Valley Independent   10th July, 2026 under the title: "Progress on Climate". 

 

 

 

PROPOSED WILDLIFE CONSERVANCY IN THE CLARENCE VALLEY

 Six months ago, I reported on a series of undescribed plant species that have been discovered in the Clarence Valley in recent years, including the discovery of two small populations of previously unknown trees of the Gmelina genus, closely related to the local White Beech. 

That tree has now been described by a team at the Royal Botanic Gardens’ Herbarium at Mt Annan, led by Dr Trevor Wilson, who will shortly publish his findings.

With less than 30 mature trees remaining since the Liberation Trail wildfire decimated its habitat in 2019, this find is comparable to the Wollemi Pine discovery three decades ago. But unlike the spectacular Pine, which was growing in a national park, the new Gmelina is growing on Clarence Valley Council’s Shannon Creek property, with no legal protection whatsoever. 

Naturally, it has been nominated for listing as an endangered population under the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act, with a decision from the Scientific Committee imminent. This move is strongly supported by Dr. Wilson, who has described the discovery as extremely significant and recommends immediate conservation action be undertaken.

As a result Clarence Valley Council has been approached with a proposal for their entire property, together with the adjoining nature reserve, to be nominated as “An Area of Outstanding Biodiversity Value, as a conceptual Shannon Creek Wildlife Conservancy.

An Area of Outstanding Biodiversity Value is a conservation category under the state’s Biodiversity Conservation Act, applied to areas deemed to contain irreplaceable biodiversity values that are important to the whole of New South Wales, Australia or globally. 

With 1000 native plant species, and 290 species of fauna having been recorded, the proposed ‘Conservancy’ has merit. Include the fact that 4 of those plant species occur nowhere else in the world, and that an incredible 63 of those flora and fauna species are on the threatened species list, makes the case for an Outstanding Biodiversity Value listing even stronger. 

Add survey results that recorded 23 microbat species, a figure unsurpassed anywhere else in NSW, and possibly Australia, and the case appears clear-cut. 

 

-        John Edwards

 Published in the Voices for the Earth column in The Clarence Valley Independent   8th  May, 2026 under the title: "Proposed Wildlife Conservancy".