DEAR News Of The Area,

I READ that Premier Minns, Minister Sharpe and Minister Moriarty visited Bongil Bongil National Park to announce the process for the establishment of the proposed Great Koala National Park and that Minister Sharpe pulled out of a planned meeting “because a group of people, including Knitting Nannas with protest signs, and media, were waiting at the entrance to the Community Village” (NOTA 10/10/2023).

Well, I’m a nana and I knit rather badly, and I would like to voice my support for our multiple-use native forests and timber industry, based on observations over the past fifty years.

In this age of renewables, the ultimate renewable is wood from trees!

All it needs is sun, soil, water, professional management and a viable sawmilling industry. Managed forests provide timber flooring, house frames, furniture, veneers, electric light poles, wharf timbers, paper etc. whilst at the same time sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.

This carbon is stored in wooden products for their lifetime.

In a time where carbon emissions are considered so critical, doesn’t it make sense to grow trees and store as much carbon as possible in a range of timber products.

Managed forests also offer nature-based recreation, tourism and sporting opportunities including car rallies and fossicking.

They provide habitat for native fauna, including koalas, which have co-existed in multiple-use, native forests for well over a century.

DPI Principal Research Scientist, Dr Brad Law, states, “While habitat clearing, cars and roads, dogs, disease and fire are demonstrated, well-known threats to the koala, this research indicates that timber harvesting as practised under the comprehensive rulesets applying in the native forests of north-east NSW, is not.” (‘Koala Update’ Australian Rural and Regional News 14/11/2022).

There are protests if a small area of forest is logged and the emotional pull of koalas is exploited in the ‘No tree, no me!’ mantra.

Surely people realise that a logged section of forest grows back from natural regeneration and/or planting, and that koalas flourish on the young shoots from new growth.

Only one percent of ever-diminishing, managed forests in NSW is harvested each year, under very restricted conditions.

“There are 20 million hectares of forested land in NSW. Around seven million hectares is designated as National Park and two million hectares is State Forest” (Louise Faulkner, Coffs Coast Focus July 2023).

The addition of around 175,000 hectares in the Great Koala National Park will add to the already sizeable NP estate whilst removing productive timber supply areas.

Surely the balance between conservation reserves and multiple-use forests in NSW has long been reached.

The Greens are pushing the NSW Labor state government to end native forest logging, which in turn, will impact the timber industry, one that provides many direct and indirect jobs.

It’s a shame that NSW Labor needs to shore up the preferences of inner-city Greens at the expense of regional industries and communities like ours.

Managed, multiple-use native forests provide a broad range of benefits to the people of NSW and our Coffs region, especially in relation to the ongoing supply of timber products and regional based employment.

Kind regards,
Ann THOMPSON.