Southern Forests Negotiations

Government + Logging Industry - Is The Fix In?

The 20 plus conservation groups of the South East Forest Alliance are calling on the NSW Government to dispel concerns that a secret deal has been done between the Government and the logging industry before so called stakeholder negotiations even begin on the future of the Southern Forests. These negotiations are scheduled for this week for the forests between Nowra and Narooma on the South Coast and out to Tumut.

"The only way that the NSW Government can restore any credibility to its forest negotiations is to heed the call by our groups to defer the negotiations until early February next year", said SEFA .

"A number of our member groups believe a deal has been done because the logging industry, represented by the Forest Products Association, wants to rush into negotiations within the next week despite the fact that NO significant social or economic information has been released."

"This is breathtaking hypocrisy by the industry which has so far insisted that detailed economic and social studies, biased to the native forest logging and woodchipping industry, be completed for each forest region"

"Now it wants to finalise assessment of the biggest forest region in NSW, the Southern Forests , without consulting the studies that have been underway for nearly two years"

"We do not believe that it is co-incidental that the Southern Forests region has the greatest amount of plantation timber in the State, massively dwarfing the native forest loggers and woodchippers."

"If publicly released this information would completely destroy the logging and woodchipping industry’s arguments to perpetuate and indeed extend the current logging of old growth, wilderness , rainforest, endangered species habitat, and key coastal catchments in the magnificent native forests of the South Coast and in the Tumut area."

"We are still waiting for an answer to our request to reschedule negotiations."

"The NSW Government appears to be frantic to oblige the industry. But its previous excuse has disappeared with the Commonwealth Government’s decision last week to extend export woodchip licences from 31 December 1999 until 31 March 2000. This has created time to complete the release and verification of information on the real native timber resources, the plantation resources and other economic and social data."

"Many conservationists believe the fix is in and that the Government has already destroyed the credibility of the Southern Forests assessment."

For further comment:

Noel Plumb 0412 975 575 or 9233 4660 Executive Officer National Parks Association

Peter Hudson 4456 4070 President Bendalong and Districts Environmental Association

MEDIA RELEASE 31 October 1999