Other conservation programs are being developed for the 126,796 ha of new wilderness that will not be immediately protected, including around 62,000 ha on private land. To speed protection of these areas, corporate donations of land are being actively pursued by the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife, which has already secured the promise of a million dollar bequest, adding to the $5million of new funding over the next three years provided by the government to the Dunphy Wilderness Fund.

Several areas did not meet the NPWS minimum size criteria for wilderness protection, including the recently identified Chaelundi, Mummel Gulf, Timbarra, Cataract, Bald Rock and Mann River areas. Further lands will need to be acquired, or state forest lands transferred to NPWS, before they can be reserved as wilderness. In other areas the retention of logging roads and horse riding tracks has fragmented the proposed areas, preventing wilderness reservation – for example the Tuggolo wilderness.

In northern NSW, the government has taken steps to
allow further wilderness protection within state forests that are not needed for logging. For example, the NPWS has been offered all the leasehold land in the Tuggolo wilderness, including state forest areas protected from logging by informal reserves. Tuggolo could be protected if State Forests allowed the transfer of these informal reserves to the NPWS. Such voluntary acquisition of leasehold land under state forests can resolve the subsidiary matters, such as cattle grazing in forest areas.

Under State Forests’ zoning system all NPWS previously identified wilderness areas are classified as informal reserves in northern NSW and so are not needed for logging operations. As a result, about 15,000 ha of leasehold in state forests can be acquired using the Dunphy Wilderness Fund. In other words, those previously identified wilderness areas will remain under logging moratoria in State Forest informal reserves and will be kept safe from logging until formally protected (or the government loses office).

A further 28,500 ha of state forest (including 24,000 ha of leasehold in state forests) are within the newly identified wilderness areas. These lands are also under logging moratoria and can be protected in the future. Still other lands within the so-called State Forest informal reserves system may be protected if doing so does not affect logging guarantees.

The wilderness on private lands remains threatened, as clearing controls on private lands do not automatically protect wilderness values. For example, about 45,000 ha of leasehold and 6,500 ha of freehold land in the Macleay Gorges wilderness is not protected, putting at risk the integrity of the 90,000 ha that have been purchased over the last decade, including Kunderang station that was purchased by the Greiner Government. The residual rights of the Crown may preclude clearing on the leasehold portions but the risk to the flatter freehold land remains.

Not surprisingly, government support falls short of protecting wilderness where timber supply is further affected, although the tiny bits and pieces of production forest causing the loss of an entire wilderness may be open to further consideration. Areas of voluntarily acquired or donated wilderness land within production forest may also offer a case for further protection.

Logging guarantees have excluded 97,000 ha of wilderness in northern NSW from protection. Of this area, about 41,000 ha are proposed for actual logging, while a further 56,000 ha of wilderness fell out because these logging areas broke up the remaining area.

The environment groups propose that where possible the latter areas be immediately reserved within the NPWS estate. (In southern NSW, a further 13,000 ha of identified wilderness in state forests on the upper Deua River catchment, and at Badja and north Kosciuszko may not be protected.)

The 5,300 ha of state forest excluded from the 1998 logging guarantees to allow wilderness assessment were not identified as wilderness but remain within informal state forest reserves. Where these state forest reserves adjoin existing national parks they should be immediately added to the NPWS estate.

The current wilderness debate is centred around a proposal for immediate national parks protection of all State Forest informal reserves in wilderness areas (or that adjoin existing national parks), including areas of old growth forest areas larger than 500 ha. With your help there is a good chance to save these areas, as the government has quarantined much of the wilderness outside parks from logging.

We need the protection of all areas in the Wilderness 2000 Protection Plan. This will require a long term commitment to the acquisition of Crown leasehold, particularly areas within state forests such as at Binderi-Mann, Cathedral Rock, Chaelundi, Tuggolo, Cataract, Timbarra, Guy Fawkes and Washpool.

Now that the exhibition period for the northern and southern NSW wilderness has closed, we need to further demonstrate support for the Wilderness 2000 Protection Plan. Write a letter – see sample below - and get your friends and neighbours to write too!

The Hon Bob Carr

Parliament House

Macquarie Street

SYDNEY NSW 2000

Dear Premier,

I support the environment groups’ "Wilderness 2000 Protection Plan".

Additional points you may wish to make:

Your Government’s forest decisions have created an opportunity to establish a network of outstanding wilderness national parks along the east coast.

Your election promise not to log wilderness should continue to be applied to protect areas such as Chaelundi, Timbarra, Cataract, Deua, Badja and north Kosciuszko.