On Tuesday 16 October the Sydney Morning Herald reported on what is really happening in our state forests.
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In 2016, the environment state Minister planned to expand national parks by 23,000 hectares of state forests with low commercial use, but high conservation value, such as we have on the Mid North Coast.
Protection was to be extended by 75,000 hectares to a larger area of state forests. This plan was modified to exclude transfers from forests in seats held by Nationals MPs who objected to any potential loss of access to timber, even if that timber was virgin forest on the north coast.
A plan to transfer land from 15 unproductive state forests into national parks was dropped after the Orange by-election, where the National Party lost power, and Gladys Berejiklian became NSW Premier.
The North East Forest Alliance said the government has not given the real protection the forests need and it is quite likely only temporary.
Cate Faehrmann from the Greens says: “Even when handed a modest proposal to reserve a fraction of what is needed to complete our national parks system, they gave in to the dinosaurs in the National Party.”
Penny Sharpe, from the Labor Party says the government had undermined national parks by stripping out $100 million in funding, costing the jobs of hundreds of skilled rangers. Ms Sharpe blames Gladys Berejiklian for allowing the National Party to run an anti-parks agenda.
Ms Upton, the Environment Minister says 75,667 hectares have been added to the state’s conservation lands since 2011. The NSW government has committed $20,000,000 to permanently reserving land containing priority koala habitat.
We hope our local forests continue to be protected despite party politics, and are not opened up to timber getters, thereby destroying our wildlife biodiversity and our beloved koala habitat. We need a Great Koala National Park in the Mid North Coast to ensure forest protection.
Colleen Carmody, Port Macquarie
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