A stoush in Tasmania’s north-east over plans to harvest native forest near mountain bike trails has intensified, with the local council threatening legal action against a community lobby group. Source: ABC News
A Facebook group calling itself Blue Derby Wild is opposed to the clear felling of native forest in the Mutual Valley near Derby, in an area branded for tourism as Blue Derby.
Members are worried the harvesting will occur too close to the popular Blue Derby mountain bike trails opened last year.
The logging is expected to begin soon, and the Dorsett Council has demanded Blue Derby Wild stop using its Blue Derby trademark and drop its anti-logging campaign.
Group spokeswoman Christine Booth operates a number of cottages in the region.
“There’s a fantastic tourism asset and I fear that the logging will put that asset at risk,” she said.
“I don’t think the return to the community for the actual logging of those trees really warrants taking that risk.
“We’re hearing comments like ‘Blue Derby is different’ … so why is it different? ‘Oh I’m in a remote area’.
“I think this region is really poised to become a nature-based tourism destination. I don’t think that clear felling a couple of small coupes of forest is really compatible with that image.”
The Dorset Council built the trails, and has demanded the group to take down its online campaign, arguing it was damaging the Blue Derby brand.
Mayor Greg Howard accused the group of scaremongering, and would not tolerate them using its trademark Blue Derby title.
“Blue Derby is a registered trademark that is owned by the Dorset Council,” he said.
“We’ve asked the group to close both the Facebook page and the website and we gave them 14 days to do so.
“We knew well before we built the trails that that area was part of the [forestry] zone. Mr Howard said there was a minimum 30 metres between the clear felling area and the trail.
“One of the big fallacies that has been trotted out by the tourism operators and the people that are pushing their own political agendas is that mountain bike riding is a wilderness experience and it’s not – mountain bike riding is a thrill-seeking experience,” he said.
“You’re riding on a piece of track that’s a metre wide at a considerable rate of knots – if you’re there sightseeing and not looking at the trail you’re going to be ass-up in the scrub.”
Mr Howard said he was confident the mountain bike trails would not be affected by Forestry Tasmania’s plans. Ms Booth said the group would keep using the brand name.
Forestry Tasmania spokesman James Shevlin said the 64-hectare coupe near Derby had been on its schedule for three years.
“Part of it runs along about a 200-metre section of the trail,” he said. “We are looking at having a significant buffer between the trail and the coupe – so that’s probably going to be about 35 metres.”
