A petition calling for a total ban of Forestry Corporation logging in Ourimbah State Forest collected almost 1,200 signatures in just three weeks and has now been presented to the NSW Parliament.
The petitioners are asking for the forest to be converted into a conservation, recreation and cultural heritage area.
“Why it is being logged for toilet paper and cardboard instead of generating profit through tourism and carbon capture is beyond me,” spokesperson for environmental group Camp Ourimbah, Ursula Da Silva, said.
Greens MP and spokesperson for the Environment Sue Higginson presented the petition to Parliament and said Ourimbah State Forest was part of the public native forest estate and should be protected as part of the State’s protected area network.
“I have written to the Minister for the Environment requesting a review of the logging operations in Ourimbah which do not appear to be taking into account the precious cultural heritage of the area,” she said.
“I have been notified that the Environment Protection Authority and the Biodiversity Conservation Division are now looking into the concerns raised by traditional custodians and forest defenders.”
Da Silva says there was recent logging of about 121ha of forest, and there were plans for more than 809ha of logging operations.
“Everywhere we walked it was total devastation … the area looked clear felled,” she said.
“Habitat trees were scrawny, left because they weren’t worth logging, not because of their habitat value.
“To be honest, walking through hundreds of acres of fire fuel – drying gum leaves, sticks, log piles and bark piles – was terrifying.
“They have literally left a tinderbox 300 acres in size right in the middle of the Central Coast just before Summer.
“I have emailed them asking what their intentions are with this debris, as log piles the size of people’s homes have been left in the forest since 2020.”
Higginson said in Parliament that “logging our native forests is an industry of yesterday”.
“The government must take the steps to transition the industry to 100 per cent sustainable plantation timber immediately … we already get most of our high-end-use products such as for construction and building home from plantations,” she said.
“Western Australia and Victoria have stopped logging their public forests, we must do it here in NSW, before it’s too late.”
Sue Murray
Toilet paper and cardboard from Australian eucalypt – the best timber in the world that’s durable and sturdy what proof is there to validate this statement? Why do the Greens sprout so many mistruths. Has this person ever been to a local sawmill to see what products are manufactured from this timber? Without a timber industry in Australia where will our decking, timber frames and hardwood floors come from let alone our firewood, power poles and bridge girders. These Greens are so far removed from reality. The fact is every Australian is and will always be timber reliant. Timber is a completely sustainable product that can be harvested and manufactured creating jobs and keeping small communities alive while continually being regrown for the next generation. The fact that just 1,200 people signed a petition from a population of 350,000 on the Central Coast speaks volumes about the unspoken majority. Let’s hope the government has more sense than to listen to a noisy minority of ill-informed activists and Greenies. One side of the debate deals in science the other on false ideologies.
This is deplorable