Hope for agreement on Otways Forest logging
© 2001 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
December 3, 2001
Timber industry and conservation groups are hoping to reach agreement by the end of this week about which areas of the Otways Forest can be logged this summer, without sparking blockades and protests.
The members of the Otway Ranges Reference Group will then pass their recommendations on to the Environment Minister.
The group's chairman, Martin Westbrooke, says conservation groups have produced a list of 40 logging coupes which they find unacceptable, but he is confident this number will be reduced by 10.
"I am optimistic that at a special meeting next Friday, on the seventh of December, that we will reach agreement...[within] the group and we...have agreed that this will need to be a unanimous agreement that the advice we will be providing on sufficient coupes to enable harvesting to continue through this season," he said.