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The Chair
West Victoria RFA Independent Panel
PO Box 502
EAST MELBOURNE VIC 3002
The draft consultation paper is a great disappointment. The reserve system proposed is about the same as the existing Otway Forest management Plan reserve system, which is not large enough.
There is a lack of real consideration given to the "non-timber" values
of the Otway Forests including water, tourism and biodiversity, as per
my comments that follow.
The proposed reduction in sawlog quotas really means that more sawlogs will be diverted to woodchip production (graded as D logs). The logging of forests will actually increase, to provide greater volumes of woodchips.
Important information on woodchip volumes is missing from the RFA. The RFA needs to define what is meant by "sawlog driven industry" and adopt a "whole log" approach.
Woodchipping results in the clearfelling and destruction of Otways forest
and provides very few jobs in the region. It is environmentally and
economically not justifiable.
The reserves are scattered, small and lineal, lack linkages and corridors and so fail to guarantee future biodiversity. It is a token reserve system that seems to indicate a Government strategy of adding dry, degraded forest areas to the reserve system, at the expense of the more profitable, tall Eucalypt, timber/woodchip production forest areas.
Page 14 paragraph 2 of the Consultation paper admits that guidelines have been breached by not fully protecting 21 Ecological Vegetation Classes that should have received protection, but won't be protected because of "requirements for timber resources....f'irewood and other forest products". In addition, even the proposed reserves could be woodchipped and logged if such uses were "considered appropriate".
The Government must seriously consider an extension of the Otway National Park and the Lorne Angehook State Park to incorporate water catchments and important wildlife corridors.
A much better, linked and representative reserve system (containing
tall Eucalypt forests) is essential to preserve the intrinsic values (such
as biodiversity and water catchment quality) of the Otways forests.
This report must be released before any significant decisions regarding
Tiger Quoll habitat in the region is made.
Logging in water catchments must cease.
An inquiry into the Tourism potential of the area is urgently required to conduct comprehensive landscape studies, and a real assessment of projects such as the Trans-Otway Walking Track and the extension of the national Parks System in the Otways,
If the reserve system is extended to incorporate water catchments and
important wildlife corridors it will preserve the tourist potential of
the area, which is currently rapidly diminishing.
I am deeply concerned that the RFA process to date has failed to consider the impacts of native forest logging activities on all other industries in the region, particularly tourism, agriculture and fishing. Overall, a more holistic approach to the RFA needs to be adopted. Non-timber industries already employ over 90% of people in the region, and it is not appropriate to ignore the negative effect native forest logging activities has on those industries. Opportunities for growth in these other regional industries must not be compromised by inappropriate logging and woodchipping regimes.
It is quite clear now that the RFA process has failed to deliver a "balanced outcome" for management of forest regions, to date they have only resulted in ongoing destruction and degradation of native forests, primarily for the production of low-value woodchips.
I strongly suggest that the whole RFA process to be reviewed with a view to including genuine community consultation and delivering better conservation outcomes, bearing in mind that over 80% of the Australian public are opposed to woodchipping.
In the meanwhile, a moratorium on logging Otways forests is required.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Campbell
CC: The Hon. Sherryl Garbutt, Minister for Conservation and Environment
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