The Port Macquarie News 26/04/18 Opinion article “No Electricity from Forests Group to Battle Forest Destruction” spokesperson for the group, Frank Dennis, stated the Forestry Corporation with the support of the NSW government, has plans to massively increase harvesting trees too small to be saw logs from North Coast forests.
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The trees will be wood chipped, pelletised and exported to overseas countries to be burnt to generate electricity.
They also propose to burn these woodchips in new power stations at Bulahdelah, Kempsey and Grafton and power stations in other locations.
Are they mad!
From the 1970s through to around 2010, a percentage of trees considered too small to be processed as saw logs were wood chipped and exported mainly to the Japanese to make paper, wasting millions of cubic metres of timber at giveaway prices.
The Forestry Corporation need to remember the public own the forests they are contracted to managed as a timber resource not to plunder it.
Those trees woodchipped would have been today’s saw logs. The forests have been heavily logged over the last 15 years, continually changing regulations and harvesting methods to increase volume.
The last 5 years has seen the volume of quality saw logs dwindle, along with the collapse of the wood chip industry around 2010. Forestry has been running at a loss.
The Forestry Corporation needed to create a new market – what is that new market? It appears to be burning trees for electricity! Is there anything this NSW government will not sell?
If the new regulations before parliament are approved, you will soon see the Mid-North Coast native forest disappearing in larger and larger areas of clear fell, at 80-hectare blocks (200 acres) to be replaced with fast growing high fuel loaded predominantly Blackbutt plantations.
All this means there will be no pre-logging wildlife surveys.
Don't worry about saying “hello koala”. Instead it will be “good bye” koala along with all his friends possums, gliders, quolls, and owls that once called our native forests their home.
You do not need to be a greenie to be unhappy with treatment of our forests.
Will one of our so called political representatives enlighten me with their plans for harvesting forests? Will North Coast timber be burnt to produce electricity? Where? Will there be new power stations built along the North Coast, if so where?
I look forward to a real response not just propaganda.
Peter Roberts
Comboyne