NSW FORESTRY PLAN MUST END NATIVE FOREST LOGGING AND INVEST IN A PLANTATION BASED TIMBER INDUSTRY

The Forest Alliance NSW is calling on a newly announced expert panel, set up by the Minns Labor Government to advise it on the future of forestry, to put ending native forest logging front and centre of their investigation.

Justin Field from the Forest Alliance NSW said: “The Alliance welcomes the process and will work constructively with the panel but it must fully investigate ending native forest logging to shift to a sustainable plantation based timber industry and to protect the state’s most iconic species like the Koala and Greater Glider.’

Stuart Blanch from the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia (WWF-Australia) said: “Forests need protection, timber workers need jobs, home buyers need more sustainable timber. A fair and just transition from native forest logging to plantations will deliver these.”

Andrew Wong from Wilderness Australia said: “This process is likely to result in the most significant changes to the native forest logging in NSW in more than twenty years. It means the Minns Government accepts that business as usual isn’t working. We’re supportive of the government’s desire to do better in our forests.

“A critical early recommendation for the panel must be that logging is halted immediately in areas containing high numbers of koalas, greater gliders and other endangered species. We can’t discuss how to protect something while it is being destroyed in front of our eyes,” Andrew Wong said.

Susie Russel from the North Coast Environment Council said: “We do not want to see this process delay action to protect the koala and greater glider. The NSW Government is currently logging parts of the proposed Great Koala National Park and the state owned logging company has been reported for repeated illegal logging in Glider habitat.

“The Government can and should act now to stop logging in these critical areas. We don’t need an expert panel to tell us logging shouldn’t be occurring in National Parks or be allowed to destroy the homes of threatened species,” Susie said.

Jackie Mumford from the NSW Nature Conservation Council said: ”The balance to be struck is to meet our timber needs from plantations while allowing our native forests to sequester carbon, be a refuge for our koalas, gliders and cockatoos and clean our air and water. Victoria and Western Australia have recently ended native forest logging and now it’s time for NSW to do the same."

Justin Field said, “The Alliance wrote to Premier Minns last week outlining our expectations for this process and we reiterate calls for this panel to be informed by an independent expert in forest ecology and that any data provided by Forestry Corporation about wood supply and forest yields be subject to peer review and be made public.

"For this process to be credible it needs to be open and transparent and the information the panel relies on needs to be public and subject to independent analysis,” Justin Field said.

The Alliance letter to Premier Minns’ is here.