Protesters say they are trying to stop logging today in Orara East State Forest, near Coffs Harbour.
A media release issued this morning said workers for the Forestry Corporation NSW (FCNSW) brought logging machinery into the forest on Friday.
Protesters managed to stave off Forestry Corp’s entrance into the forest until the arrival of police.
But ‘today marks the first attempt’ for Forestry Corp to started logging, the release read.
An accompanying photo showed 70-year-old Peter Elzer, described as a long-time Mid-North Coast resident and environmentalist, locked onto a harvester.
Mr Elzer said there were 44 threatened species in the forest and that continued logging could wipe out the local koala population.
NSW Minister for the Environment, Penny Sharpe, visited the protester in late May when he was part-way through a 12-day hunger strike outside NSW Parliament.
The minister was described as having promised the Great Koala National Park annoucement ‘soon’.
The media release referred to a recent Sky News poll reportedly showing 70% of Coffs Harbour residents support the creation of a protected Koala park in the region.
Protesters were calling on others to join daily vigils ‘until every last ecologically and culturally significant public forest is permanently protected’.
Bravo our very courageous and brave forest defenders. You are living treasures!
The reckless Primer Chris Minus with his ForestCorpse and blue shirts brigade on the case again and won’t be satisfied until the last tree has been felled and the last Koala in the wild is preserved and stuffed into some museum’s glass viewing box.
If you’re proud of protesting why are the ones holding the banner wearing face covering? I always feel it defeats the purpose of protesting when your covering your face.
‘Shoot the messenger’ lines fail to divert and distract from the issue at hand.
Sometimes it’s better to post nothing at all ….
Just keep chanting The Great Koala National Park Joachim
Along with Buy Wallum Brush…..people power still exists!
And let’s hope Penny Sharpe is on our side 🧡
Labor and its long, long ago promised and ongoing nothingness GKNT, is just another example of this useless NSW Govt. A national park without trees and the koala, will not make a Greta Koala National Park.
The devastating bushfires in our forests are getting worse due to a lack of selective logging. I have lived long enough to have lived through the Black Friday, Ash Wednesday, Black Christmas, Gippsland Fires, Black Sunday, and Black Saturday bushfires.
Our bushfires are getting worse due to the lack of selective logging, which clears areas of forest allowing the overall forest to remain healthy.
We complain bitterly about our bushfires, yet we do not proactive log our forests to reduce the fire intensity and duration. To have no bushfires means no forests at all.
If we are sensible about logging our forests, we can have the best of both worlds. Our State purpose grown pine and state forests were meant to be logged.
Marianne M, you are incorrect.
World leading forest experts like ANU Professor David Lindenmayer can assist you.
Sorry you are dead wrong
Logging does not prevent bushfire it’s the undergrowth that’s the cause.
We need to stop the logging full stop. The animals and birds use these trees to bring up their young.
Will the people of NSW make the same mistake as we did at a Federal level and vote for the duopoly?
This particular person of NSW did not make a mistake, I don’t vote for the duopoly.
And just how is that working out for extremists like you????????
The extremists are those that keep voting for the Lab ( and LibNat ) sponsored ongoing decline of a broken nation.
I think that we all have a right to know what is happening behind the scenes in the State and Federal governments at present regarding several major environmental matters. Why is there so much silence and so much delay in implementing electoral promises that in some cases were made several years ago.
Look it up Maggie, it’s on the Govt website for all to see, I could supply some info, but really do I have to?
Mature and healthy forests. Hmm. I’ve been observing forests for a long time too and I’m pretty sure that there are forests all over the country that demonstrate how some fire/logging strategies work sometimes in some places and vice versa. But I’m also pretty sure that forests were far more diverse and prolific before we turned up. The thinking that forests are better-off if we get into them with fire or chainsaws, is problematic at best, tragic at worst.
Your observations are partially correct,
As an environmental scientist with more than sixty years experience in forest management, I have never seen fire and chainsaw do anything except encourage more and greater destructive fire conditions. It is pretty simple to explain, so here goes, clearing or burning in forests kills overstory vegetation , results in rapid weed and ground-cover plants, often grasses which result in increased fuel loads with much hotter fires which in turn kill more overstory and all wildlife.
This is not a desirable outcome, and is what has led to the extinction of Australia’s mega fauna and now contributes to the highest rate of extinction in the World.
I write this knowing it will be censored as it contradicts government rhetoric, but the truth must be presented.
Cheers, G”)