Media Release - 24/3/05
Save the Five Forests!
Intensive Logging Threatens Catchments
Further intensive logging in the Cuttagee Lake, Murrah River, Wapengo Lake, Wallaga Lake, Corunna Lake and the Bermagui River catchments is of great concern to us all.
The huge scale of these logging operations will directly impact on all these waterways, which are rapidly filling with sediment. The catchments of these lakes, Cuttagee Lake in particular, are suffering Eucalypt dieback and damaging infestations of Bell-miners. The last sightings of Koalas on the South Coast were in these forests. These steep coastal catchments have been subject to indiscriminate logging to meet unsustainable woodchip quotas over the past three decades. This has been at irreversible cost to the environment. The continuing degradation of these forests threatens:
- Flora and fauna biodiversity and consequently our climateThe quality and quantity of water in rivers, streams and estuariesThe fishing industryOyster FarmersAboriginal Heritage ValuesTourism
- And our much loved recreational natural amenity.
Credible scientific studies point out the greatest threat to our mutual future is environmental degradation. This science confirms that the undesirable environmental changes many local residents have observed over recent years are part of a national problem, directly assisted by unsustainable forest management.
Local Council have, to their credit appointed an Estuary Management Officer. If this is not to be viewed as a cynical appointment then Council must act swiftly against this threat to the future of our precious forests and waterways.
The undersigned residents and friends of the Five Forests demand the NSW Forestry Commission implement an immediate moratorium on these operations. We call on the Bega and Eurobodalla Shires, the NSW Labour and Liberal Federal Governments to support our proposal to implement forest management that is aimed at restoring the Five Forests to their former state and stop destroying the coastal catchments on which we all depend.
Save the Five Forests!