Aerial Evidence
of Wholesale Slaughter

A thin slice (only) of the annihilation of forests and wildlife taking place along coastal hinterland NSW, Oct 2011. YouTube links: Without sound but clear. With sound but less clear

More evidence: read (pdf)

HOW CAN WE CHANGE THIS?

Pre-existing logging practices allowed for the regrowth of trees over 15 years (it used to be 50), now this 'come-back' time for loggers can be less than 5 years in order to meet a flawed government 'wood supply' contract.

As a consequence intensive logging is NOW occurring across NSW for every 'stick of wood'.

This environmental catastrophe can only be stopped by you, the NSW people whose public forests are being devastated and sold overseas.

Your must demand of your state rep that they lobby the federal government to help NSW buy out the wood supply licence granted to the multi-national, BORAL. Then real governing could begin. Instead of clear felling the majority of our native forests, destroying vital carbon sink and home of NSW wildlife and ecosystems, long term investment and jobs could be made planting alternative building materials on degraded or unused land.

DEMAND an immediate halt to the wood supply licence destroying NSW native forests and to the conversion by stealth into mono-cultures that they will probably try to call 'plantations' for trading on the world stock market. The extinction of our wildlife is subsidising profit for multinationals.

DEMAND Commonsense. Why destroy existing native ecosystems and trees currently slowing climate change and turn them into barren carbon tax credit schemes that profit multi-nationals/some politicians ? Leave native ecosystems intact.

DEMAND life for Australian wildlife!

END GAME

EXTINCTION OF NSW WILDLIFE

We are losing what we cherish

This year NSW and other Australian wildlife faces its greatest crisis - a final onslaught on native forests by the logging machinery of multinationals, causing impacts from which wildlife will never recover. Native forests are deliberately being converted to mono-cultures, single species forests that will benefit big business only.

In NSW, the government ignores the Auditor-General’s reportTo meet wood supply commitments, native forest on the north coast is being cut faster than it is growing back. This means that the forest will not regrow but there will be a reduction in yield in the future.

Forests NSW continue to look for new sources of hardwood timber to meet existing commitments from private property and leasehold land.

Given that native forest operations ran at loss of $14.4 million in 2007-08, continuing to service wood supply licences raises concern re the financial burden of loss on Forests NSW. (editorial note: i.e. the tax payer)

For the North Coast, where more than two thirds of all sawlog volume is obtained, yield modelling assumes a high level of cut for 20 years in order to meet wood supply commitments agreed by the Government.

This means there will be less timber available in the long term.

Content summary: Sustaining native forest operations: Forests NSW [The Audit Office of New South Wales]. (Performance audit) April 2009 revealing forests stretched beyond capacity. Throughout Australia the major parties ignore the warning by Australian scientists - Australian logging is a major causal factor of the sixth greatest extinction crisis'Extinction crisis in Oceania' Professor Richard Kingsford of the University of New South Wales, lead author of the report into this study states:

"Earth is experiencing its sixth great extinction event" and "this threat is advancing on six major fronts" "Our region has the notorious distinction of having possibly the worst extinction record on earth. This is predicted to continue without serious changes to the way we conserve our environments and dependent organisms."

Threats in Oceania include:

Ø Loss and degradation of habitat is the largest single threat to land species, including 80 percent of threatened species.

Ø About 70 percent of remaining forests are ecologically degraded from logging.

Ø More than 2,500 invasive plants have colonized New Zealand and Australia - representing about 11 percent of native plant species.

Ø Invasive weeds, vertebrate pests, and fishes introduced by government, agriculturalists, horticulturalists and hunters.

Compiled by a team of 14 scientists after review of 24,000 articles this report was published in Conservation Biology. Comments from press release July 2009, Dan Gaffney, UNSW Faculty of Science of this planet. This is centred in our region.

In multiple states multinationals have contracts to wood supply that scientists say should have never been granted. Ecologically inadequate, self-monitored codes of practice The process flawed from the outset..
"It was in Pitt Street in the city with little notice. The forestry department came up with a list of places, all proposal and counter proposal. There has been no real science as a basis of the Regional Forest Agreements on which these supply licences were granted. It was a quick political decision which had to be made. The Resource Assessment Commission used only xx indicator species in this area but generally it wasn't done. So any figures about what could/would be impacted had to be pulled out of the air. In many cases there was no soil nutrient data and this is what was necessary to establish any likelihood of biodiversity etc. Even the wildlife atlas can bring only a rough 5 km likelihood or not of species." NSW scientist at the original negotiations

How the public and almost no other organisation can take legal action to prevent damage from logging given the way these wood supply licences are set up..
Because forestry has such broad codes of practice under these special regional forest agreements they get to make their own decisions about when or if they need a licence to operate from the relevant state environmental department. As well as that they do their own or no self assessment of already inadequate environmental practice.

"The only really legal question is after the event – for example a compliance action of sorts – which is of course retrospective and after the environment has been logged and damaged." Senior solicitor, NSW Environmental Defenders Office, April 2010 leave thinly disguised clear felling across millions of hectares. The native plant and animal life remaining in small pockets is subjected to multiple impacts - no hollow trees in which to live and reproduce, total weed invasion of felled areas so no return of habitat, easy access by feral animals, populations so small that genetic problems arise - this causes mass extinction.  

The country’s carbon sink is being felled.  Wildlife is slaughtered daily along with hope for its future habitat. This fell and burn practice favouring single species forests means weed, feral animal and pathogen invasion on a scale never yet been seen, which will be impossible to control.  These are the risks Australian federal and state governments are taking with a continent on the brink, already having one of the highest extinction rates on earth, on a planet out of control.

Talk to EVERYONE you know about this and MAKE YOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT AWARE OF THIS.

GET THIS ON THE TALK BACK RADIO AGENDA AND IN NEWSPAPERS

THE FIGHT IS ON FOR YOUR COUNTRY YOUR WILDLIFE YOUR FUTURE

NATIVE FOREST LOGGING AS PRACTICED NOW

IMMEDIATE 

• Outright slaughter of native creatures crushed, left without shelter by giant machines, food sources gone
• Carbon sink goneLeft intact, our native forests 'sink' carbon to stop climate change acceleration – Reason alone to protect them.
• Climate change acceleration

LATER BUT GUARANTEED

• Feral Animal And Weed InvasionUnder the guise of promoting eucalypt regeneration clear felling and burning of entire valleys occurs – easier for big machines to take everything. Bare earth/burnt ground promotes weed invasion. The Weeds of National Significance - Blackberry in Victoria, Lantana and Camphor Laurel NSW are what is returning. They will be the new forests.. Feral animals thrive in weeds and with barely a shrub or tree left, let alone the hollows so vital to wildlife, feral animals will be easily able to pick of the wildlife not crushed or left starving.
  
  There will never be enough resources to remedy the halt the weed invasion in the wave of this mass cut down. Native eucalypts will not compete with the scale of weed invasion about to occur. The forests that once acted as a buffer against weeds for the national parks will be the new source of weeds for our national parks.
  
  AUSTRALIA'S WILDLIFE AND ECOSYSTEMS WILL NOT RECOVER.
• Bell Miner Associated DiebackThis causes eucalypt dieback in a complex relationship between phloem feeding insects called psyllids (Glycaspis) and also Bell Miner birds. BMAD occurs throughout Victoria, NSW and southern Queensland. 2.5 million hectares of eucalypt forest in NSW are at risk of eucalypt decline. The opening of the canopy to light means dense, often weedy, understoreys that form favour Bell Miner species that impact the balance of psyllids living on eucalypts. Flooded Gum, Grey Gum, Ironbark, White Gum - all sought after timbers – die off, threatening forestry itself.
• Spread Of Dieback Fungus PathogensPhytophthora is an alien soil pathogen capable of killing many native plants including many eucalypts. It is spread by soil adhering to vehicles, especially logging. It can kill off entire landscapes once it gets a hold.
• Loss Of Water QualityThe quality and quantity of water from catchments is vastly reduced by logging. With water supply a major issue facing Australia, it is bordering on insanity to log or otherwise disturb precious water catchments.
• Evidence (youTube)
• Foresters tell (youTube)

On the Road 2011

It’s now or never to save the variety of ecosystems of this world. There is a growth industry in genuine alternative building/product material supply -so do not allow industry and government to get away with this short term sell out process that guarantees the destruction of native forests.  Logging companies using big machines employ very few. Planting degraded land with the right crops employs many.  Restore the damaged native forests that are the most efficient carbon sinks and give the wildlife that WE HAVE BROUGHT TO THE BRINK, a chance to recover.

Vote for those who will end the slaughter in NSW Australian Native Forests ACT NOW!