Protest at Eden forest “drop in”

A government “drop in” session at Eden on Tuesday morning attracted a protest by forest campaigners objecting to the renewal of Regional Forest Agreements.
The “consultation” was described as a “sham” by forest campaigners who believe that the result is a foregone conclusion.
The Government has clearly already made up its mind, according to convener of the Chipstop campaign, Harriett Swift.
Ms Swift says that the first round of RFAs gave us 20 years of the most intensive native forest logging in NSW, record woodchip exports, more threatened species and a growing financial burden on NSW taxpayers.
“The Government now wants to roll them over indefinitely with weaker environmental controls.”
She said that the first RFAs dated from the era of the chainsaw. “Within a few short years, we were in the era of the mechanical harvester. Now, it’s predicted that robots will soon take on the dangerous and often remote work of logging native forests.”
“This is no time to be watering down environmental protections and weakening compliance,” she said.

14 February 2018