Logging at South Brooman State Forest.

South Brooman Forest Monday 1 February 2010
Carbon Sinks Threatened Species Bad Public Policy.

I got a call from South East Forest Rescue to come and have a look at what was happening in forests in my own back yard at Brooman. When I turned up, I was faced with the typically devastating scene that forestry practices produce. This compartment didn’t have the usual roadside buffers as the access routes were not used and some were blocked so the logging operation came right up to the road and reports allege that creek buffers had been ignored and logged as close as 5 meter's.

It used to be a Spotted Gum forest with rainforest gullies evident by the ferns that were destroyed under the fallen canopy.

It used to be a feeding ground for threatened and endangered bats, who would come in each evening to feed on blossom.

 Bats fly long distances to reliable feed sites and if these are removed, the bats do not have the energy to return to the roost. The colony at South Brooman is believed to be coming from Yatte Yattah on the northern side of Milton. Grey and Red headed flying foxes have been recorded at Yatte Yattah.

It has been alleged that NSW Forestry were not interested in improving a buffer zone to allow the bats their usual feeding place, and that someone within the logging crew fired shots so that the bats would not land and fee allowing logging to continue.

When I questioned the NSW Forestry spokesperson about the logs going to wood chip, I was told I was wrong and that they would all be prime saw logs. It is hard to swallow this explanation when there is much evidence to prove that mill quality logs are chipped and exported to Japan for paper and cardboard making.

Our forests need protecting- they may not conjure up the grand images like those of the Stix, Florentine or any other of the iconic Tasmanian forests, but they are the lungs of the coast- storing carbon, purifying the air, providing habitat for a diverse biota.

NSW has enough plantation pine to satisfy the need for construction timber and wood chip there is no need for the ongoing commercialisation of native forests it’s an industry that according to the auditor generals department lost $14million in 2007/2008.

Like many NSW government departments Forests NSW operates in a blanket of secrecy that requires skilled use of freedom of information to uncover detail. With contract detail hidden away under the 'commercial in confidence' code. This is all designed to stop or hinder public scrutiny into the affairs of Forestry.

NSW Forests are a public asset; we need to be able to scrutinise the management actions and the logging practices. Forests need to be managed as carbon sinks which will generate a different income stream in a carbon constrained world. The NSW and Federal governments need to put their heads together and offer a forestry retraining / buy out package, just like the dairy and fishing industries and retrain forest workers to be custodians rather than loggers. With a $14 million dollar loss, surely it makes sense to stop wood chipping our precious forest assets.