NORTH COAST MEETINGS ON CHANGES TO LOGGING REGULATIONS IN NSW STATE FORESTS

The latest in a series of meetings will be held in Grafton on Saturday June 30 to present the facts about what proposed changes to logging rules in North Coast state forests will mean for wildlife and biodiversity.

Conservation groups are holding these meetings following the State Government's failure to respond to public concerns beyond a bunch of 'motherhood' statements dispensed by local politicians, and the refusal by the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to visit north coast forests to see first hand the irreparable damage that has resulted from 20 years of unbridled pillage.

The Regional Forests Agreements end in a few years, and because state forests across the region have suffered from serious over-logging to meet unrealistic wood supply contracts, the State Government is trying to push through radical changes to find more timber.

They claim these changes will not result in net changes to wood supply, or to erosion of environmental values. Their explanation that this would be achievable through their buy-back of some supply contracts, cannot be believed, because the real reason those contracts were bought out was because there was no timber to fill them. Essentially NSW taxpayers forked out hundreds of millions of dollars to buy out contracts for timber that never existed.

However, to achieve their stated aim of no net change to timber supply, the government now intends to allow the logging of previously protected old-growth forest, by re-evaluating their old-growth status. So much for no erosion of environmental values.

Buffer zones on headwater streams have also been reduced from 10 metres to 5 metres, while removing most species-specific protections for threatened species, including the need to look for Koalas. This will allow more trees to be logged.

Possibly the worst plan is to increase logging intensity throughout public forests, identifying over 50 State Forests on the north coast where clear felling and/or double intensity logging will occur. Continued logging of forests affected by dieback is also planned, a problem that resulted from over logging in the first instance.

The Grafton meeting will be held upstairs in the Grafton Services Club at 5 pm on Saturday June 30.

            -John Edwards

ROSIE RICHARDS AND THE PULP MILL CAMPAIGN

While working on the history of the Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition (CVCC) for our recent ReWeavers Awards night, I was reminded of how seemingly “ordinary” people sometimes step up and achieve remarkable results.  One such person was Rosie Richards who in September 1988 became the first President of the Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition. She led the campaign against Daishowa’s proposed Clarence Valley chemical pulp mill. 

 

Rosie was an ideal person for the job in many ways.  In the conservative Clarence community she was not publicly associated with any of the recent or on-going conservation issues such as the Washpool campaign. While she was concerned about environmental impacts, both short and long-term, and made no secret of the fact, she did not look like a greenie – or the conservative view of what a greenie looked like.

Geoff and Rosie Richards at their son's wedding in 1995

Rosie was 56 years old.  She was a grandmother. Her background was not that of a stereotype greenie either. She grew up in Pymble and in the early fifties was a member of the Liberal Party Younger Set.  Her other life experiences included years as a farmer’s wife and the wife of a professional fisherman.  (Her husband Geoff had been both.)

Rosie’s personality also qualified her for this leadership role in the pulp mill campaign.  She ran both the Coalition committee and general meetings efficiently.  She was calm, sincere, friendly, articulate and very much “a lady” in old-fashioned terms.  But she was also determined and possessed a “steel backbone”.  This “steel backbone” and her courage were very necessary in the campaign to obtain information and disseminate it to the North Coast community. 

Courage was necessary to the campaigners because those promoting the benefits of Daishowa’s plans attacked the Coalition, referring to its spokespersons as scaremongers and “a benighted group who distort the facts.” Those in power locally and at the state level weren’t in any hurry to provide facts but they decried the efforts of community members who were trying to find information on pulp mill operations.  However, this did not deter the CVCC.  It sought information on pulp mills and pulping processes from around the world, asked questions of those in power and disseminated information to the community

Following Daishowa’s announcement that it would not be proceeding with its pulp mill proposal Rosie wrote to The Daily Examiner (4 April 1990) praising the efforts of the community in defeating the proposal:

“It has been an interesting nineteen months; a period that has seen the resolve of north coast people come to the fore; we have seen People Power used in a democratic way to say ‘No’  to something that we knew would harm our existing industries and our air and water.  If it had not been for the people of the Clarence Valley and their attendance at public meetings, their letters to politicians, to newspapers in Tokyo and our own Daily Examiner, and their strong support of the Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition, we may have had a huge polluting industrial complex set down in our midst, without a whimper.”

People Power did do the job – but Rosie Richards and the others on the CVCC Committee played a very important part in organizing and channelling that people power.

  - Leonie Blain

Rosie and Geoff at a function in late 2002.

 

NSW GOVERNMENT'S NEW KOALA PROTECTION CLAIMS

 MEDIA  RELEASE

New analysis shows Berejiklian government’s koala reserve system offers the species virtually no new protection  

The Berejiklian government’s planned koala reserve contains only 2% of high quality koala habitat and offers no significant new protection for the species whose numbers are rapidly declining, new analysis has shown.

The North East Forest Alliance obtained and analysed maps of 24,000 hectares of mostly state forests that the government plans to use for a koala reserve system, which is a major plank in the government’s long-delayed Koala Strategy, unveiled on May 6.

KEY FINDINGS

• 82% of the “new reserves” offer no new protection to koalas. That is because 82% of the “new reserves” were already protected in forest reserves.
• Only 2% (554ha) of the new reserves are high-quality koala habitat. This assessment is based on the government’s latest koala habitat modelling.
• Hunting will be permitted in 8 of the 12 areas because they will be designated Flora Reserves.
• All the reserves are in the hinterland, away from the coastal forests where the best koala habitat exists.
• Less than 2.5% of the “new” reserves match the proposed Great Koala National Park.

(See the table below for a detailed analysis of the new reserves.)

North East Forest Alliance spokesperson Dailan Pugh:

 “It is fraudulent for the NSW Government to pretend that these are new Koala Reserves. There are many state forests known to be far more important for Koalas that the Government has ignored. 

“The selection of these areas has been a cynical political exercise with no attempt to identify and protect the most important Koala habitat on State Forests, with the only apparent criteria being to have no impacts on timber.”

National Parks Association Senior Ecologist Oisin Sweeney said:

 “It is clear the government has made a choice – it is timber over koalas.

“The government’s own mapping shows the importance of the Great Koala National Park proposal, yet the government plans to implement an intensive harvesting zone that will see koala habitat destroyed over large areas and reduced forests to monocultures of blackbutt between Grafton and Taree.”

Quotes from the Nature Conservation Council CEO Kate Smolski: 

 “Koala populations on the North Coast have collapsed by 50% in the past 20 years and the NSW Government’s strategy will do little to redress that decline.

“If the Berejiklian government was serious about saving our koalas from extinction it would ending native forest logging, strengthen land clearing laws and create the Great Koala National Park.

“The government’s koala strategy fails to do any of these things and as a result it will fail koalas.”

Summary of analysis of the government’s new koala reserves

Reserve name	Region	Area (OEH claim)	Proposed designation	% already protected (Forest Mgt Zones)	High-quality koala* (ha)	Koala records	Hunting allowed
Mt Lindesay	Northeast	6195	Flora Reserve	36	244	49	No
Belanglo SF	Sth highlands	1818	Flora Reserve	69		68	Yes
Barrington Tops	Northeast	155	Flora Reserve	96	0	0	Yes
Corrabare	Northeast	843	Flora Reserve	98	0	1	Yes
Watagan	Central Coast	3107	Flora Reserve	99	0	3	Yes
Olney	Central Coast		Flora Reserve	-	0	6	Yes
Carrai	Northeast	2103	National Park	100	0	0	No
Comleroy	Northeast	2905	Flora Reserve	100	0	0	Yes
Mount Boss	Northeast	1383	SCA	100	273	2	No
Oakes	Northeast	593	National Park	100	37	1	No
Jellore SF	Sth highlands	1415	Flora Reserve	100	NA	3	Yes
Meryla SF	Sth highlands	4084	Flora Reserve	100	NA	0	Yes
	Total	24601		82% (19,802ha)	554 (2% of total)	133	No = 4 Yes = 8