By Louise Matheson
Standing within the tangle of tree ferns and vines, gazing up through the rainforest understory at the ancient grey gums towering above, it is hard to believe that if some had their way, before long bulldozers will come rolling up the nearby hill, the first giant tree will fall, crashing through the delicate ecosystem which has surrounded and nurtured it for so long, and the way will be open for the whole forest to be levelled.
For at least 10 years native forest logging practises in East Gippsland in Victoria have attracted controversy, and this summer will be no exception.
Logging in the National Estate areas and other high conservation value forests has been the target of prolonged campaigning by a variety of conservation groups. Twice these campaigns have involved direct action in the forests, first in 1983 leading to the formation of the Errinundra National Park and most recently, the National Estate protests of 1989 which after 340 arrests, ended with the state-federal East Gippsland Forest Agreement.
This summer, once again, clearfelling is set to take place in National Estate forests, rainforest and biological sites of significance, threatened species habitats, pristine catchment areas and other old growth forests. And once again environmentalists are escalating their campaigns.
In 1989, to end three months of public protests on Brown Mountain, then Labor state government put a six-month moratorium on logging in National Estate forests and the state/federal East Gippsland Forest Agreement allocated $10 million to be spent on, among other things, investigating "prudent and feasible" alternatives to such logging and studying the values of the regions old growth forests.
The regional branch of the Department Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) has never been asked to account for the spending of this taxpayers' money. Some, which was allocated for building new roads outside the National Estate area, is known to have been spent on pushing new roads into these important forests to facilitate logging.
A study of the biological and cultural values of old growth forests was conducted while these areas being studied continued to be logged. The study is now nearing completion. Unsurprisingly no "prudent and feasible" alternatives were found to logging National Estate forests if timber yields were to be maintained.
After the 1989 protests a new law was created making it a criminal offence to "hinder or obstruct forestry operations" with penalties of up to $2000. At the time, conservation groups denounced the law as a "draconian attack on civil liberties and 0>. The new law has not yet been tested.
Presently, the new Liberal Minister for Natural Resources, Geoff Coleman, is being asked to approve logging in the Ellery Creek catchment at the edge of the Errinundra National Park, north of Orbost. The Ellery Creek catchment is particularly controversial because of its range of unique ecological values.
The issues of wasteful logging and timber utilisation practices, unsustainability, misspending of public money and disregard for stated policies and scientific studies all come to a head in the conflict over planned clearfelling in this pristine catchment.
Ever since the road and coupe (a coupe is a designated logging area-usually about 40 hectares) were proposed earlier this year, they have been argued against by conservation groups through the Cutting Area Review Committee. The previous Labor minister was convinced it would be wrong to log this unique area. Twice the Ellery catchment has been sacrificed in trade-offs with the timber industry by the Land Conservation Council — first, when it was excluded from the National Park and again when, despite meeting all the scientific criteria, it was not granted protection as a natural catchment under the Heritage Rivers Act.
The area is untouched old-growth forest with trees up to 250 years old and is listed as National Estate. The catchment was given an "A" rating for naturalness in a statewide survey of stream quality and is a designated site of significance for rainforest.
The forests adjoining Ellery catchment are known to contain 77 rare or significant plant species, while 17 of the animals recorded were rare or endangered. Even though the catchment is a prime habitat for the endangered long-footed potoroo no surveys have been done to check for its existence in the logging area. David Bellamy has called the forests of the Brodribb block, which includes Ellery creek "part of the most diverse area of temperate forest ecosystem I know of on earth".
Just above the catchment are is Mount Ellery where Koori tribes used to gather once a year to feast on the Bogong moths which breed there.
The scheduling of logging at the top of the Ellery catchment for this season is cynical and strategic. To log the Ellery catchment would be to ignore the findings of a number of expensive scientific studies and pander to the unjustifiable demands of an uneconomical and unsustainable industry.
The old-growth survey commissioned under the East Gippsland Forest Agreement is due to be released in December and more than likely will recommend that the Ellery catchment be preserved. However, if any road works have begun before then the place's pristine values will have been corrupted and the way will be open for extensive destruction of the catchment over the next few seasons. The positioning of coupes in the heart of contentious areas to ruin their conservation value is a tactic used before by the DCNR.
Another area of particular concern — the Martins Creek rainforest site — has been given a shaky reprieve by a DCNR agreement not to log in sites of national significance for rainforest "unless the regional manager decides it is necessary to meet commitments".
The timber industry in East Gippsland, in its present form, is in terminal decline. Decades of harvesting at unsustainable levels have combined with the industry's wasteful practises and extensive failure of regeneration in clear-felled coupes to put an unbearable pressure on the region's timber resources.
In 1986 it was calculated that in order to approach a sustainable level timber yields would need to be reduced by about 60% and that if the rate of cutting was not reduced, the region's timber resource would be exhausted by the year 2000. Despite some reduction in the amount of timber harvested overcutting has continued. A review of sustainable yields is due to be released in December.
One report calculated that the region could sustain only 50,000 cubic metres of sawlogs per year. The current Forest Management Plan review process admits that if the present commitment of 179,000 cubic metres per year is to be met for the duration of the 15-year licenses logging will have to be allowed in all sites of significance, National Estate and other presently unprotected old-growth forests and in known endangered species habitats outside National Parks. In addition, regrowth forests would have to be subjected to intensive management practises which would turn them into plantations to supply pulpwood and woodchips.
In July this year a meeting was called by local sawmillers and residents of Bendoc in the high country of East Gippsland to express concern that, because larger mills from coastal areas are now drawing their timber from the mountains around Bendoc, the supply of old-growth forest timber will be exhausted within three to four years, forcing the closure of the smaller mills.
A recent DCNR report revealed that 79% of clear-felled coupes in the region are failing to regenerate. This confirms conservationists concerns over the practise of clearfelling and hot-regeneration burns, and should be of major concern to local communities.
The DCNR blames this disaster on native animals, particularly swamp wallabies eating the new seedings and is about to lay carrots poisoned with the chemical 10-80 to kill animals which managed to survive clearfelling. 10-80 has been banned in the US for 20 years. It will kill not only the accused swamp wallabies but also birds, wombats, small marsupials and anything which feeds on their carcasses. The bait will be laid near National Parks and threatened species habitats. Clearly, the East Gippsland timber industry urgently needs to make drastic reforms if it wishes to exist into the next century. However, the approach of the large mill-owning companies seems to be "cut out and get out" to make maximum short-term profits, recover their investment and move on once the resource has been thoroughly exploited.
Six companies profit from 70% of public forest harvested in the region each year. "Production improvement" by these companies — meaning increased mechanisation, faster, more wasteful processing and amalgamation of licence allocations by taking over and closing smaller mills — has led to fewer jobs per volume of timber harvested in the region and to net job losses.
Earlier this year the DCNR admitted that the timber industry in Victoria had been subsidised by taxpayers to the tune of $13.2 million over the preceding year. The Federal Planning Advisory Council estimated that the Victorian government lost $39.9 million in forestry in 1989. We are paying to have our forests destroyed!
Woodchipping is a major culprit in this scenario. Victoria is supposed to have a "sawlog driven" industry but as demand for native hardwood products declines and mill owners are finding it hard to sell their traditional timber products (due to competition from cheaper plantation softwoods and imported timbers) woodchips have become the backbone of the industry. Approximately 75% of timber harvested in East Gippsland ends up as woodchips.
Victoria's version of resource security — the 15-year licenses — force the DCNR to supply and the licensees to take, set amounts of timber irrespective of demand. Mill owners end up chipping logs just to pay the royalties.
Thus some of the highest conservation value areas on Earth are being turned into woodchips by a publicly subsidised industry with jobs being lost in the process.
Victoria's conservation groups are united in opposition to the proposed logging of the Ellery catchment and other areas like it, and have written to Coleman demanding such plans be abandoned. If, despite repeated attempts at reasoned persuasion, Coleman allows logging to go ahead, the East Gippsland Forest Network intends to instigate direct actions to publicise the imminent loss of this very special forest and the mismanagement which has led to the present situation. As a last resort a blockade of road works in the catchment is likely.
Support is urgently needed. The East Gippsland Forest Network meets on Monday nights at 7pm at Friends Of the Earth, 222 Brunswick St., Fitzroy. For more information ring Cam at FOE on 419 8700, Louise 813 1661 or Karri 482 1509.