DEAR News Of The Area,
AFTER many recent contributions by vested interests on the subject of the “sustainability” of the logging of (and the extraction of biomass from) our native forests, it is now time to bring a factual foundation to the matter.
What is sustainable?
Put simply, being “sustainable” is the capacity to carry on forevermore.
It is measured and reported upon in three primary categories; social, economic and environmental (or ecological), all of which must be carried on forevermore for anything to be truly sustainable.
So how does the logging of our native forests measure up on each of these fronts?
Economically the logging of our public native forests is an absolute basket case.
It loses taxpayers money hand over fist, with hundreds of millions of our tax dollars lost logging native forests in recent decades.
In the most recent reporting period (up to June 30 2023) the Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) lost about $15 million logging our native forests (aka our priceless and irreplaceable life support systems).
The logging of our public native forests has no social licence, that is, these antiquated and barbaric logging practices are socially unsustainable.
All across our region communities (including very conservative and classically “redneck” ones on the Dorrigo Plateau) are standing up to the taxpayer funded extinction logging operations of FCNSW.
There is dominant support across our region, our state and the nation for stopping logging our public native forests, with many surveys indicating a substantial majority in support of protecting our native forests.
The least sustainable dimensions of logging native forests are those of an environmental and ecological nature.
Put simply industrial logging is a prime driver of both the extinction and climate crises.
Our forest dependent fauna populations are in free-fall with many rapidly headed towards extinction because of logging.
The Greater Glider was common and in places abundant in our region in recent decades.
It has declined about 80 percent and is now Endangered because of logging and the more extreme and frequent fires caused by logging.
We face a high likelihood of extinction of our Koalas and Glossy Black Cockatoos – with massive population collapses of both in our region.
The Glossy Black had nationally significant breeding strongholds in the Nymboida catchment that now support much fewer animals because of rampant recent industrial logging of these strongholds.
Industrial logging of our native forests dries them out, it makes fires much more dangerous to our lives and properties and it destroys our water security.
Because of landscape-scale logging across the regional water supply catchment on the Dorrigo Plateau the Nymboida River was recently so putrified with sediment from logging that it was unable to be used- Grafton was put on high–level water restrictions.
Ratepayers are now on the hook for well over $100 million (potentially greater than $150 million) to filter out the muck that FCNSW put in our drinking water supply (atop the approximately $180 million originally invested in the Coffs-Clarence scheme).
Our native forests are our best insurance policy against global heating; they stabilise our climate and make it rain, they deliver and maintain water security.
Across the Great Koala National Park these forests support the most astonishingly rich evolutionary expressions of nature with some of the most ancient forests on Earth.
FCNSW seeks to remove this from us and future generations.
This pillaging simply must stop, the benefits are immediate and extend to us all, our economy, our society and our ecology.
Regards,
Mark GRAHAM.