NSW Minister Mark Speakman
Conservation groups have called on NSW Environment Minister Mark Speakman to intervene and stop logging core koala habitat in state forests near Casino. Source: Echonet
Representatives of the North Coast Environment Council (NCEC), the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) and Nambucca Valley Conservation Association took Mr Speakman on a tour of forests at Royal Camp and the Richmond Range, west of Casino.
NEFA’s Dailan Pugh said the minister was shown one of the koala high use areas at Royal Camp State Forest that ’we stopped the Forestry Corporation illegally logging’ in 2012 and ‘asked him to intervene to stop the EPA removing this essential protection’.
“Given the seriousness of the problem and the EPA’s refusal to deal with it, we asked him to intervene to stop the Forestry Corporation logging affected forests and spreading lantana and dieback,” said Mr Pugh.
Lyn Orrego, of Nambucca Valley Conservation Association, said the assurance Mr Speakman gave that the proposed controversial steep land cable logging trial was not expected to be included in new logging policy was welcomed.
“We asked him to go further and stop the new extreme logging proposal by the Forestry Corporation and EPA to rezone 150,000 hectares of public forests from Grafton to Taree into an intensive logging zone where clearfells of 50-60 hectares, with only a few trees required to be protected, will be allowed with a return time of 7-10 years, turning these public native forests into pseudo-plantations and devastating the wildlife,” said Ms Orrego.
John Corkill, from NEFA, said the minister was shown case studies ‘that clearly demonstrate the EPA’s proposed new logging rules will dramatically reduce the protection of streams and water quality, and weaken or remove the protection for many threatened species’.
“We made it clear that government attempts to find the timber to fill grossly over-committed and clearly unsustainable wood supply agreements were probably futile, and would inevitably lead to increased pressure to wind back environmental protection measures,” Mr Corkill said.
