Two arrested over Bulga State Forest protest against logging

Despite two arrests, that of veteran forest campaigner Susie Russell, a Bulga local, and Isla Lamont, who was hauled down from a bamboo tripod standing several metres high over the worksite's main access road, the temporary shutdown was cause for celebration.

About 50 people, many of who have camped out at the site since just after Christmas, formed a blockade at the site, including NSW Greens spokeswoman for Climate Change and Environment, Sue Higginson.

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"This is a success on the part of the community and a strategic backpedalling by the NSW Forestry Corporation," Ms Higginson said. "Although today's action was about Bulga, it was also about native forestry operations across NSW."

The Forestry Corporation's 2021/22 annual report, released just before Christmas, contains figures showing that the logging of hardwood trees, which relies almost exclusively on native forests, cost NSW taxpayers $9 million last financial year, and $19 million the year before that. At the same time, softwood logging in plantation forests made a profit of $47 million in 2021/22, and $264 million the year before.

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Another report released late last year, this time from the State government regulator, the Natural Resource Commission, said NSW forests are in poor condition and an "intervention" in the way forests are managed is required because it is unsustainable and will likely turn our forests into net carbon emitters due to the changing climate.

Logging in the Bulga State Forest started in November and was reportedly due to continue until mid-May this year.

In a statement issued on Monday, a spokeswoman for the Forestry Corporation said the Bulga State Forest contains areas of native regrowth forest, which has been harvested and regrown over the past 100 years, and areas of hardwood plantations, land planted with trees for timber.

"Late last year a crew was operating in two native regrowth compartments," the statement said. "This work ceased at the end of the year. The crew is now working in a plantation within the forest. The protest today was at the native regrowth site and so harvesting has continued in the plantation."