MidCoast Council supports ban on logging in Bulga State Forest

The motion was put forward by Dheera Smith and debated at this month's ordinary meeting on Wednesday, February 8.

Cr Smith explained logging in a refugium section of the forest, close to Ellenborough Falls, by the NSW Forestry Corporation, had begun earlier this year.

Related: Logging makes forest fires worse: experts

Two sections of high value, 30-year-old timber forest now have become habitat for threatened native species including koalas, glossy black cockatoos, greater gliders, bees and other small mammals affected by burning of adjacent forest areas in the 2019 bushfires, Cr Smith said.

The two compartments were the only ones not burnt in the Bulga State Forest, she said.

"Council's policies on climate, biodiversity and protecting koala habitat requires action to protect this important resource which also provides carbon capture and water storage at the top of the Hastings and Manning river catchments.

"It is crucial that these critical resources are nurtured and preserved in perpetuity.

"The list of endangered species is long and as we have heard from the scientists, once they've gone they've gone."

Speaking before the meeting, community member Susie Russell said the health of the community relied on the health of the water catchment, and the health of the catchment relied on the forest.

Related: Arrests at logging protest in Bulga State Forest

Forests in the Taree region (Kiwarrak and Yarratt), which are owned by the citizens of NSW and should be used for the benefit of the citizens of NSW, are in a particularly dire state, Ms Russell said.

Following the 2019-20 Black Summer fires the Natural Resources Commission advised the NSW government not to log Kiwarrak and Yarratt State Forests for three years as a result of the extensive fire damage, she said.

"The Forestry Corporation began logging in Yarratt in 2021 regardless of that advice, but the government refused to release that advice and other recommendations which called for more trees to be left."

"Forests obviously store carbon, but they also help create the weather; it helps bring the rain and when the rain comes they store the rain, they act as an underground reservoir which means that over time, and particularly dry times, that water is released into the creeks.

"They provide an incredible diversity of habitat for Australia's unique species - many are nocturnal.

"Australia doesn't have much forest left and what we have has been seriously degraded."

Representing Elands' younger generation, Alfie Summers said children from the village opposed all logging in NSW.

Children have a right to have a say and adults should take their opinions into account - be our voice be our hope, Alfie said.

"The plants and animals of our forest are some of the most diverse on the planet and right in your own council area.

"They were hit hard by the severe bushfires of the summer of 2019-20 and the communities came together and fought hard to protect them - we are still fighting hard to protect them.

"Once they are gone we cannot simply put them back.

"Forests take a long time to grow. Any tree planted in the Bulga Forest today will still be a young tree at the end of our lives."

Cr Peter Howard said it was imperative to protect old growth forests because there was not a lot of it left.

"The thought of bulldozers and diggers pushing trees over and people in their units looking up and saying there are no koalas there, pushing it over and not knowing what's inside the trunk horrifies me," Cr Howard said.

"Old growth needs to be protected, and if they are going to log it should be in new growth forests or plantation forests."

Peter Epov said he was delighted with Cr Smith's notice of motion.

"It is the obligation on us at these times of climate change," he said.

"The progressive reduction of habitat and old growth forest has been quite significant, and it is beholden on council to take every opportunity that we can whenever we can to be constructive and take steps to protect our environment.

"This is an easy thing for us to do . It is a great first step so I comment the motion."

The motion addresses the opportunities for nature based tourism and recreational usage as well as ecological benefits to the protection of the habitat which is vital to threatened species, Jeremy Miller said.

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