C/- National Parks Association Tel 9233 4660 fax 9233 4880 Email npansw@bigpond.com
OPENING STATEMENT TO SOUTHERN FOREST REGION NEGOTIATIONS
3 November 1999
South East Forest Alliance
SEFA comprises more than 20 State and regional conservation groups representing over 100,000 people. SEFA was initially formed in 1985 to fight for the protection of the Eden Region forests, the famous South East Forests, where woodchipping and clearfelling began in Australia and are still a blight on our country today. SEFA and other conservation groups have managed to constrain the operations to some degree and to extend the national parks system in the region.
For the last three years we have also focussed on the Southern Forest Region. We have contributed to the ongoing Comprehensive Reserve Assessment process in the region as well as negotiating with State Forests to avoid logging operations within the boundaries of our Community Reserve Proposals.
Objectives
SEFA has an ongoing commitment to conservation and its current objectives for the Southern Region Forests are to:
protect
all community reserve proposals as national parks
all remaining old growth, wilderness, rainforest and other important biodiversity areas
all forests in the coastal zone and their catchments
end clear-felling and other intensive logging of native forests
make the region a woodchip free zone
maximise the transition of the native logging industry to a plantation base
It should be noted that these objectives underpin the SEFA Community Reserve Proposals which were formally released to the Minister for the Environment on 12 August 1999.
Community Reserve Proposals
In essence SEFA's Community Reserve Proposals are the base for a comprehensive, adequate and representative reserve system of national parks for the South Coast which emphasises good reserve design, protects coastal catchments and their sensitive coastal lakes and ensures connectivity of the reserve system both north-south along the Great Escarpment with east-west links between the escarpment and the coast.
The 15 new national parks proposals by SEFA are Moreton Wilderness Extensions, Parma (Jervis Bay Links), Greater Conjola, Croobyar, Flat Rock, Five Lakes, Bimberamala (Upper Clyde),Greater Murramarang, Monga-Buckenbowra, Greater Deua, Kianga, Wandella (Peak Alone), Dignams Creek, Badja and Tallaganda
The SEFA Community Reserve Proposals for the NSW South Coast forests would, combined with the just established South East Forests National Park in the Eden Region, create a continuous protected forest area along the NSW escarpment of over 300 km, stretching from the Victorian border to north of Nowra. The new parks would also protect at least seven coastal lakes and their immediate forested catchments.
The South Coast is home to 400 animal species - an amazing one fifth of the animal species in Australia but at least 60 of these species are threatened The South Coast is dominated by native forests - it is the most heavily forested area on the entire NSW coast.
The SEFA Community Reserve Proposals at this stage see 180,000 ha of State Forest transferred and protected as national park, leaving an area of over 190,000 ha remaining as State Forests in the South Coast region. In addition, an area of some 22,000 ha of Vacant Crown land is added to the national parks system.
A further 57,000 ha of the Clyde River catchment, the last unregulated river in an almost totally forested catchment on the NSW coast, is given special protection as a major catchment area in any further logging operations. This is particularly important in light of proposals by the logging industry and State Forests to intensify logging practices, including the removal or reduction of stream filter strips.
The Community Reserve Proposals seek to protect all Aboriginal relics and cultural items and significant cultural values, where known to us, from the destruction or degradation inevitable from intensive forestry operations driven by short term expediency. All the proposals were made available to Aboriginal representatives for comment and feedback in June, before they were finalised and released.
The South Coast, stretching from north of Nowra to south of Narooma, and inland almost to Canberra, covers two of the major tourist destinations in the State , the Shoalhaven Shire and the "Eurobodalla Nature Coast" (the Eurobodalla Shire) - both critically reliant on the natural environment for tourism. Present visitor numbers to the Eurobodalla coastal area alone are at least 800,000 per annum
Tourists are drawn to the South Coast because of its intrinsic beauty, clean water, magnificent forests and lakes and a chance for each generation to better understand their magnificent inheritance in this region. Continued extensive industrial logging and woodchipping will seriously threaten the massive tourism industry as well as water supplies to rural communities and industries. Tourism (reliant primarily on natural features in an area where the predominant natural feature is forests and coastal lakes) is worth over $500 million to the region.
Eurobodalla Shire - 1996/8 ( from Eurobodalla Shire Council Plan Of Management 1998 and Centre For Agricultural and Research Economics 1996)
Shoalhaven Shire - 1996/7 (from Shoalhaven Council Profile and Statement of Economic Impact 1996/7 pub. Feb 1998)
We are confident that there is sufficient wood volume outside our Community Reserve Proposals, and necessary extensions, to support a viable saw log industry on the South Coast and a period of transition to plantations for those operations which are economically or environmentally unsustainable..
However, we oppose any allocations of pulp wood or so called forest waste from the Southern Forests Region for the Eden Woodchip Mill or any other woodchip operation. We also oppose native forest timber being used for such purposes as fuel for power generation plants, as proposed by the Forest Products Association on behalf of the logging and woodchipping industry, an operation currently under trial by State Forests at Liddell Power Station.
It should be noted by everyone here that the conservation movement is totally committed to SEFA's Community Reserve Proposals as the base of a national parks reserve system for the region. We believe that the negotiations should provide an opportunity to further extend and link our reserve proposals within the region and to other reserves outside the region.
Concerns
The Conservation movement is attending these negotiations shadowed by a number of concerns which have been raised earlier but which still remain unresolved.
We were promised by senior NSW Government representatives at the first regional forum in the assessment process, conducted in Queanbeyan, that negotiations would be both robust and transparent. The existing concerns deny the realisation of that vision. Our major concerns include:
Extremely late delivery of most of the data. This has precluded the proper and agreed process for analysis, verification and rectification of defects
Data which would have assisted proper consideration but which is still missing and includes the economic and social reports, extra old growth data, invertebrate studies, aquatic studies, agreed targets for old growth and ecosystems, high quality habitat data
Wood Resources - At the last possible minute before negotiations, State Forests has declared a large part of the region as unloggable ( a so called Forestry Management Zone 2 or FMZ 2) and has not calculated for any wood resources within that zone, effectively attempting to preclude reserve extensions and to define the national parks system through its own perspective.
We have prepared, and now lodge with the Chair of this forum, a series of questions on some of the specific concerns
Conclusion
The conservation movement, through SEFA in particular has worked hard with local communities to compile 15 reserve proposals protecting community icons and vital conservation values. These Community Reserve Proposals reflect a great deal of previous information and research gathered for the South Coast forests including the preliminary regional forest assessment of 1996 together with the personal experience and knowledge of conservationists, naturalists, bushwalkers, landholders and many other community sources over many decades.
SEFA is not surprised that most of the layers of data on environmental and heritage values, now belatedly available, correlate highly to our proposed reserve boundaries. These include data layers on old growth, wilderness, rainforests, many key fauna models and national estate values. Major input from conservation and community groups is based on observed as well as modelled data; in short the values contained in our reserve boundaries are real.
We challenge the claim by State Forests made at the recent regional forum at Bateman’s Bay that there is an 80-90% overlap between their "unloggable zone" and SEFA’s boundaries; Our calculation is that there is only 43% overlap. Therefore there is significant discrepancy between SEFA’s goals and those being expressed by State Forests. on behalf of the logging industry.
We look forward to being considered an active, positive and equal partner in negotiations and seek an outcome that proves that robust and transparent procedures have indeed taken place by resulting in a reserve system which is truly comprehensive, adequate and representative and protects all the conservation values sought by the community
OPENING STATEMENT TO SOUTHERN FOREST REGION NEGOTIATIONS
3 November 1999
Specific Concerns For Response By Government to Conservation Negotiators