CONSERVATIONSISTS FURIOUS AT GREEN LIGHT FOR KOALA FOREST LOGGING
Conservations are furious that the Government is proceeding with plans to log koala habitat in Mumbulla State Forest.
“Harvest Plans” which are the formal approval for the logging were signed on Tuesday and logging could start at any time.
Spokesperson for the Chipstop campaign, Ms Harriett Swift says that the logging could threaten the survival of the koala in the region.
“We know that there may be as few as 30 koalas left in these forests and in the circumstances we might expect that our Governments would extend them a helping hand to survive into the future,” she said.
”Instead of this, they are hell bent on destroying their forest.”“We will only have one go at saving these animals and the idea that they should be sacrificed for a few truckloads of woodchips will be repugnant to most Australians.”
“Nationally, Australia does not need this wood, and locally, the woodchipping industry does not need this wood.”
“The global demand for woodchips is still flat after the recent economic downturn and Forests NSW regularly makes a loss on its native forest logging.”
“The Government will have koala blood on its hands if this logging goes ahead and will have to answer to future generations if these koalas disappear from our region.”
While Forests NSW says that no koalas were found in the first 2 compartments to be logged, they must also admit that no surveys for the recent public Department of the Environment and Climate Change report were done there.
“It is not surprising that in these circumstances they did not find any,” Ms Swift said.
18th March 2010