Members of the North East Forest Alliance say that the North East NSW Regional Forest Agreement has failed and promises have been broken.  The protestors say current and proposed logging practices are not ecologically sustainable, NSW does not have a comprehensive reserve system, and threatened species reservation targets haven't been met.

The Alliance says threatened species habitat is being destroyed at an unprecedented rate and koala numbers are plummeting.  They're calling on the NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian to end logging in public native forests, and move to a 100% plantation-based timber industry in NSW.

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Spokesperson Susan Russell said it was International Day of the Forests and they felt it was important that Wauchope, known as Timbertown, should be visited by the spirits of the trees of the forests.

"They're being chopped down at an alarming rate.  The spirits of the forests need help.  People don't see it with their own eyes so they don't understand," she said.

"The forests around this area are being targetted for unprecedented intensive logging.  A lot of the forests will be used as biomass, wood-chipped, turned into pellets, and burned for electricity production in countries like Japan and Korea."

She said forests play a large part in protecting our catchments of water, and we are converting them into pellets, as the planet warms and droughts increase, and we will see a lot more erosion and pollution of our streams.

"Forests are beautiful places in themselves.  As the cities get bigger, people need places in the forests to reconnect with nature, and they don't want to see a clear-felled hillside and a whole lot of stumps," she added. 

General Manager of Forestry Corporation of NSW's Hardwood Forests Division, Dean Anderson, said there seems to be some confusion about how forestry is managed in NSW.

Forestry Corporation has been carefully managing timber production, environmental protection, recreation and firefighting in the State forests around Port Macquarie for more than 100 years.

"Each year, a tiny proportion of the trees in these forests are harvested and regrown to supply renewable timber for floors, decks, fences, wharves, power poles and a range of other products," Mr Anderson said.

"Timber harvesting is vastly different from land clearing because every time we harvest a tree, we ensure that many more regrow in its place so that these State forests will continue to provide us with timber for our homes for generations to come.

"There are tight regulations around timber harvesting to ensure it is sustainable, that native flora and fauna are protected and that all harvested areas rapidly regrow into thriving, diverse, natural forests. Recent changes to forest regulations have only strengthened protection for flora and fauna and have also increased long-term monitoring to ensure the rules in place are delivering the best environmental outcomes for the forest including the wildlife.

"Wood is one of the most renewable building products available, and careful management is ensuring our State forests continue to thrive and that our community has access to sustainable, responsibly sourced timber for generations to come."