ENVIRONMENT GROUPS TO PROTEST AT LOGGING OPERATIONS IN GLADSTONE STATE FOREST

 Local environmentalists will hold a protest against Forestry Corporation logging on Sunny Corner road in  Gladstone State Forest, starting at first light Monday morning.

Premier Berejijlian and Environment Minister Upton have ignored pleas to protect koala habitat in Gladstone State Forest from logging says the Bellingen Environment Centre.

The Forestry Corporation is a rogue organisation smashing the laws of environmental protection and the EPA are a failed regulator who appears to have given up.

Logging of koala habitat has started this week and Forestry Corporation has closed the forest so it can be done away from public scrutiny.

The community is left with no other choice to protest strongly and loudly in the forest on Monday said the Bellingen Environment Centre spokesperson.

As usual our protest will be entertaining, loud and colourful but will also be safe said the Environment Centre spokesperson.

A photograph of the operations taken today (copy attached)  show a reckless disregard for catchment protection, showing that logging operations hard up against an unstable area of  soil slumping  created  during the previous logging cycle some forty years ago.

The forest  being logged is predominantly on very  steep land, with erodible soils in an area of high summer rainfall.

“We provided Forestry Corporation with evidence of the koalas” the centre spokesperson said. “The number of scats (koala poo pellets) found in the area was more than any of us had ever seen in one location. Their response is to create a ''koala high use buffer' (2 ha). The problem is, there is no high use area being buffered and there is no provision under the logging rules for a 'koala high use buffer'. They are making it up as usual, trying to give the impression they are doing something, but in reality doing nothing.”