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Hi all,
I just received an article photocopied from the Australian Conservation
Foundation's magazine on my desk. It seems (as always) quite alarming. I am not
familiar with the situation and I haven't read anything about it on birding-aus
but some of you out there must know more about it. Some abstracts:
Proposals are currently afoot for the forests of western NSW to be
massively logged for charcoal for the production of silicon. Also threatening
are plans to provide 5% of fuel for power stations from native forests and use
the forests for charcoal production for steel making.
After community objections Bob Carr ruled out logging for charcoal in the
Goonoo and Pilliga regions.
But the govt is stil looking to log forests and woodlands in the nearby New
England Tablelands and Hunter Valley.
The alternative is low ash coal from NZ which has been rejected by the
mining company.
These forests (box-ironbark, blackbutt, stringybark and messmate) are the
ecological keystones of the area. Ironically large-scale tree plantings of
ironbarks have been conducted in western NSW by Birds Australia to regenerate
bird habitat. (It wouldn't surprise me if this was through NHT funding!)
The article (April 2000, Habitat Australia) calls for people to write to
premier Bob Carr at Parliament House Sydney 2000, objecting in the strongest
terms to these proposals. Contact the NSW Nat'l parks assoc at PO Box A97 Sydney
Sth 1235 or email:
There is also a conference on firewoods and woodlands at La Trobe Uni, 8-9
June, email
If this would be happening in my backyard I'd be up in arms straight away,
but perhaps someone could shed some light on the issue?
Cheers
Peter Waanders
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