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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Australian Park Enlargement Triggers Anger, Dismay

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

04/25/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

The good news first: the government of the Australian state of New

South Wales has added 324,000 hectares to national parks, in a scheme

to connect isolated protected areas. The bad news: in order to

create a handful of jobs, logging of natural native forests in others

areas was ramped up. And any future restrictions on logging will

require compensation payments--effectively making them politically

impossible. So in exchange for a once off park enlargement, policy is

in place which means the rest assuredly will be logged--and logged

hard, in some cases to make woodchips. Preservation of operable

ecosystems and their constituent biodiversity requires more than

tossing the table scraps to the dogs, and then starving him.

It is unconscionable that woodchipping of native forests for

throwaway consumer paper products is occurring in Australia's

remaining old-growth forests. Australia's continental ecosystem is

too fragile to continue peeling away the ecosystems that provide

basic needs like rain, soil, habitat and air. As long as Australia,

the US and other developed countries mop up their last remaining

ancient forests for little economic benefit relative to the size of

their economies; their political calls for forest conservation

elsewhere--in much poorer countries--and forest conservation aid

projects, have little credibility. Come on mate, we expect better.

Just as you expect Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Malaysia to

protect their forests--we expect you to protect yours. Come clean

and conserve Australia's forests, and then the good will be on you

and your kids.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Title: Parks Enlargement Down Under Triggers Anger, Dismay

Source: Environment News Service, http://www.ens.lycos.com/

Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for permission to reprint

Date: April 20, 2000

Byline: Bob Burton

SYDNEY, Australia, April 20, 2000 (ENS) - The government of the

Australian state of New South Wales has added 324,000 hectares (1,250

square miles) of forests to national parks on the state's South Coast.

The move has dismayed some conservation groups who say it leaves out

precious areas, and it has angered timber companies who want to log

parts of the newly protected region.

Announcing the decision, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr said the

creation of 100 new national parks and additions to 80 existing ones

"create a continuous corridor of national parks and reserves,

stretching 350 kilometres (217 miles)from the Victorian border - and

links from the escarpment to the coast."

The new parks include the addition of extensive areas of old growth

eucalypt forest, a series of catchments of coastal lakes, and an

expansion of habitat for koalas and other wildlife.

The size of the coastal Murramurrang National Park has been greatly

expanded. This New South Wales coastal park is situated 280 kilometres

(174 miles) south of Sydney. It features both rainforest and sandy

beaches.

Carr announced that the trade off for the new National Parks is a set

of 20 year timber supply agreements with forestry companies. Such

agreements make future restrictions on logging operations subject to

compensation claims. This means any future limits will be politically

difficult for governments and environmentalists alike.

Carr announced that any timber worker adversely affected by the

decision on forests would be the first to be offered work in managing

the newly created national parks. "I want to assure timber workers on

the South Coast that if a mill makes changes where they are processing

logs, the $120 million Forest Industry Structural Adjustment Package

is designed to look after them," the premier said.

Most conservation groups "warmly welcomed" the additions to the

national park system but expressed concerns that many important areas

have been allocated for logging. Some wood is earmarked for export as

matchbox sized woodchips to the Japanese pulp and paper industry.

Spokesperson for The Australian Wilderness Society, Virginia Young,

welcomed the decision to "substantially protect very important areas

of forest" but was "dismayed that important areas of wilderness have

been sacrificed to woodchip giant Daishowa."

"We are also dismayed that an easy opportunity to create a woodchip

free zone has not been seized by the government, particularly when

according to Daishowa removing woodchips from the region would at most

mean four people would need to be helped to change jobs," Young said.

"The Wilderness Society will never accept that rare and precious areas

of wilderness in the Deua, Badja and Wandella can be logged and will

commence planning now to protect these priceless parts of our natural

heritage," she said.

Speaking for the NSW Forest Products Association, Col Dorber was

furious with the decision. "The NSW Minister for the Environment, Bob

Debus, aided and abetted by the ideological zealots in his office,

undermined the science and economics behind the southern regional

forests agreement," he fumed.

The government rejected lobbying by the timber industry for an

increase in the annual allowable cut from the current 42,000 cubic

metres to 60,000 in the South Coast region.

"The South Coast region is capable of delivering conservation outcomes

far beyond the wildest dreams of any NSW politician, whilst at the

same time permitting a minimal 10 percent increase in wood allocations

to saw millers," Dorber said.

"Even this is not good enough", Dorber said, "for the green zealots.

Their hearts are set on nothing less than the total destruction of the

industry on the South Coast."

The industry was more successful in gaining an increased allocation in

the inland Tumut area from 38,000 cubic metres to 48,000 cubic metres.

The government projected this increase would create an additional 15

jobs.

The director of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness, Keith Muir, was

appalled at the decision to increase the allocation in the Tumut

region. "There was plenty of timber to meet requirements in the Tumut

area, so the loss of the alpine ash forests in Goodradigbee is

particularly disturbing," he said.

The NSW government decision is the latest in a series of agreements by

state governments, which have responsibility for managing forests, and

the federal government, which passed legislation for these Regional

Forest Agreements. The federal government is offering funding for

forest agreements that meet its criteria.

While Regional Forest Agreements have been signed in the states of

Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania, political controversy over

the agreed logging operations rages.

The timber industry insists that logging of native forests should be

allowed to proceed. Conservationists urge that logging be excluded

from native forests and areas slated for logging protected as National

Parks and wilderness areas.

Only in the state of Queensland has the government turned its back on

native forests logging and brokered an agreement between the industry

and conservation groups to protect the bulk of the remaining native

forests and focus the industry on using the existing tree plantations.

It is an approach that The Wilderness Society's spokesperson, Virginia

Young, would like to see emulated elsewhere. "Long term solutions to

the forest debate in Australia will only be achieved when governments

recognise the role that increasing the processing of our massive

plantation estate can play in facilitating native forest protection,"

she said.

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