NSW FOREST PEACE CRACKS

Conservationists Fight Attack on
Southern Wilderness Area

The National Parks Association today urged the NSW Government to defuse the confrontation in the remote Wandella State Forest, about forty kilometres inland from Narooma on the far south coast, where conservationists are attempting to stop the logging of an area currently under assessment as wilderness.

Noel Plumb, Executive Officer of the National Parks Association said, " The peace accord has cracked. The government will have to decide whether it really wants to save the peace agreement with the environment movement or whether it is going to let State Forests and the timber industry decide the conservation priorities."

" The government has just informed us, after three years, that it will not be able to complete the forest assessment of the Southern Region , from Narooma to Nowra, by the end of 1998 as promised. Yet it seems prepared to let State Forests vandalise wilderness values in one of the core areas likely to be set aside in new national parks as a result of the assessment.

"This makes a mockery of Bob Carr’s promises to protect old growth and wilderness forests."

"State Forests is conducting a carefully orchestrated attack on a potential wilderness national park in an attempt to pre-empt its identification as wilderness by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. It is also refusing to avoid other sensitive areas and take timber from mutually agreed alternative areas." "

"This takes us back to the confrontation of the Coalition Government which backed Sate Forests in deliberate attacks on wilderness areas such as the Coolangubra Wilderness where more than a thousand people were arrested in protest."

"The Minister for Forests, Kim Yeadon, should rein in State Forests immediately if he is really committed to a forest peace process while assessments are completed for new national parks and wilderness areas."

For further comment: Noel Plumb 02 9233 4660 or 018 975 075