Nanna Chris Degan joined the Sydney Knitting Nannas Zoom meeting on 6 October and filed the following report on logging on the Mid North Coast in the proposed Great Koala National Park (GKNP) and the local activities organised to stop it.
Forestry devastation and road works to facilitate new devastation continues at breakneck speed within the footprint of the Great Koala National Park (GKNP). Local activities include an all night, every night vigil camp in the Kalang headwaters co-ordinated by Kalang River Forest Alliance (KRFA). The vigil will soon have to confront the arrival of loggers for works in Oakes State Forest. Oakes is precipitous terrain in high cloud country of immeasurable ecological value – a place for contemplation, awe and wonder – not for harvesters and jinkers.
The Forest Embassy coordinated by Forest Ecology Alliance operates Monday to Saturday from a marquee in the main street of Bellingen. It provides great information and has large scale maps showing forestry works. It’s a great place to talk with people who really know the area.
Coffs Harbour Knitting Nannas meet outside Forestry Corp at 30 Park Avenue, Coffs Harbour every Friday 8.30 – 9.30. Nannas are there to yarn with passers by and keep the pressure on Forestry Corp. Nannas sense a shift in public sentiment about forest destruction – there is much more support and lately a bit of a backlash with a couple of drivers recently yelling ‘fvck koalas’. Must be doing something right!
Notes on Mid North Coast Forestry
The footprint of the proposed Great Koala National Park (GKNP) comprises State Forest (both native forest and plantation forest), private land much of which is forested, national parks and nature reserves, together with smaller areas of agricultural, horticultural, rural, semi-rural, light industry and residential land uses.
There is considerable misunderstanding of native and plantation forest and the values of each. Plantation is commonly dismissed as having no habitat values whereas much emphasis is placed on protecting native forest.
The reality is that past Forestry Corporation (FC) practices involved selective tree harvesting. Natural seeding and regrowth filled the gaps. This essentially restored the forest, albeit with many of the mighty old-growth trees removed. These forests provide excellent habitat and it’s these plantation forests which we fight to retain as well of course the never-touched native forests.
As time has progressed FC has used heavier harvest equipment and more damaging techniques and removed ever more forest cover. Post-harvest activity included manual seed dispersal or planting seedlings to ‘restore’ the forest. Given time this too resulted in decent habitat.
More recent FC practices comprise clear fell operations, windrowing and burning waste (about 60% of the tree), broadscale herbicide spraying and finally replanting monoculture hardwood species, usually blackbutt, tallowwood or turpentine. It’s industrial logging delivering no semblance of the original forest mix. These management methods fragment the terrain, open the whole forest to drying, threaten shade-dependent rain forest species on the margins, risk the thin strip of estuarine species that must be retained on water courses and drainage lines, and destroy the integrity of the soil profile. Three harvests on and the subsequent plantings of selective species won’t grow but lantana thrives further damaging adjacent un-logged compartments.
These practices threaten the capability of the Great Koala National Park (GKNP) to provide contiguous habitat for animals. These methods of clearfell also destroy all non-target species which can be critical food sources. Casuarina sp. is a case in point – just so much waste for FC, but the principle food of endangered glossy black cockatoo.
In native forests however selective harvesting is required. A ‘scout’ is meant to walk in front of the harvester to look out for animals. There are mandatory forest percentage retention requirements; trees over a certain size cannot be felled; marked habitat trees must be retained; 100 metre distances must be left between cultural heritage sites and logging operations; non-fell buffer zones apply to rainforest sp. and riparian zones; slopes exceeding certain degrees must be left alone and there are many more. Sounds good? The problem is that there isn’t a native forest where even a fraction of the requirements of FC’s Environmental Protection code are complied with.
Oversize tree stumps are buried under tonnes of waste; dead and injured animals have been found; water courses have been turned to mud; buffer zones are routinely breached as the rainforest species are not easily visible until the buffer has been damaged; and I have measured distances to marked cultural heritage boundaries and they are never right. My sense is that there can be no care afforded the environment when time and money are more pressing and there are few, if any, consequences for contractors.
Native vs Plantation Forests
There is a strongly held view by some, that only native forests matter, or perhaps its felt that it’s easier to argue for those high value, pristine places. And when you witness some of the devastation wrought in plantations it’s easy to empathise with this view.
However in relation to the declaration of the GKNP, critical to saving the koala before it’s projected extinction in 2050, every part of this vast forest ecosystem is important from my point of view. I do not see the destruction of forests for low value products like paling fences, tomato stakes, pallets and woodchips for export to China as being legitimate uses warranting all the detrimental impacts – climate impacts being central.
The softwood division of FC is not a loss-making enterprise. The hardwood division however is a basket case. I cannot see a justification for abandoning the fight to stop logging in hardwood plantations. From my point of view every tree is a carbon capture and storage device.
There is so much scope to repair the damage done by FC up here. I’d be very interested in hearing other Nannas points of view on this native forest / plantation forest issue.
Data
There are 12 native forests within the footprint of the GKNP where the status is either: active, temporarily paused or in planning.
There are 44 compartments in 9 plantation forests where the status is either: active, temporarily suspended (weather or legal reasons), planning within 6 months, or proposed.
Resources:
Forestry Corporation Plan Portal
Forest Ecology Alliance