Protesters have stopped logging operations twice in the last week in the south-east forests of New South Wales. Source: ABC News
The protesters said Forestry Corporation of NSW breached regulations that were intended to protect the biodiversity of the forest environment.
On November 22, protesters built a ‘tree-sit’ platform high up in a tree in the Tantawangalo State Forest and secured it with cables to three logging machines. Any efforts to move the logging machines or cut the cables would have caused a protester to fall to the ground, so work was stopped.
Scott Daines, from South East Forest Rescue, said the group was calling for the Environment Protection Authority to investigate the alleged breaches and for Forestry Corporation of NSW to suspend operations.
A police rescue squad was despatched from Wollongong to make the 460km trip to the logging coup in Tantawangalo State Forest, near Cathcart, to safely remove the cables from the logging machines.
The tree-sitter came down the tree later that night and disappeared into the forest. But when logging contractors arrived for work after the weekend, the tree-sitter and a group of protesters were back.
Again they had secured a platform to three logging machines, so the work was again stopped, the police rescue squad again travelled down to free the machines, and the protester again slipped away.
Alleged breaches of habitat protection regulations Tantawangalo State Forest was the site of massive anti-logging protests in the 1980s that followed the establishment of a wood-chip mill in Eden and a demand for wood supply from the native forests of south-east NSW.
In the late 1990s Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) were drawn up with the intention of both providing wood supply as well as protecting the biodiversity of the forests.
The RFA for the Eden region is due to expire in 2019 and ongoing tensions between Forestry Corporation of NSW and anti-logging groups are heating up.
The battleground for protest is a fight over allegations that Forestry Corporation of NSW and its contractors frequently fail to adhere to the operational regulations imposed under the RFAs. The particular regulations that the protesters said were not being followed in the current Tantawangalo operation were designed to protect habitat provided by rocky outcrops in the native forests.
Forestry Corporation of NSW’s operations supervisor, Amber Addinsall, said the current logging coup had been extensively surveyed and 14 rocky outcrops were identified as requiring protection under the conditions of the corporation’s Threatened Species Licence.
“We’ve actually excluded about a third of the area that was initially available for us to harvest,” she said.
Mr Daines said the reason for the second protest was because a few days after the first protest the group had found further breaches in a nearby previously logged area.
Matt McKinnon, one of six crew working on the site, said he just wanted to get back to work.
“It costs a lot of money and it costs a lot of time, and we’ve got families to feed,” he said.
Nicole Innes, a director of the logging business, said the crews were paid on the amount of work they completed.
“If they miss a whole day, there’s no money for that day,” Ms Innes said.
She said delays also put pressure on the crews to catch up on delivering a required quota of logs to the mill, which in turn created safety risks.
The Environment Protection Authority (EPA), the regulator of Forestry Corporation of NSW’s logging operations, plan to inspect the logging operation this week.
A regular form of protest is for anti-logging groups to inspect logging sites for adherence to the regulations and then report alleged breaches to the EPA.
An EPA spokesperson said over the past year they had taken 16 regulatory actions against Forestry Corporation of NSW, comprising formal warnings, clean-up actions, official cautions, and penalty notices.
The EPA has commenced prosecutions in the Land and Environment Court regarding forestry operations in the Glenbog State Forest (near Nimmitabel) and Badja State Forest (near Cooma).
Forestry Corporation of NSW offer to jointly inspect site with protestors Ms Addinsall said Forestry Corporation of NSW was confident they were complying correctly with the regulations but were open to feedback and to meeting with the protesters to inspect the site.
Mr Daines said such an offer was “a first”.
“I will be taking her up on that offer,” Mr Daines said. “But I’m not sure it’s going to do any good.”
