Foolish fellers

Simon Birrell, Otway Ranges Environment Network, Ascot Vale

The Sunday Age (Letter), 17/12/2000

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Graeme Gooding asserts that the proposals to clearfell near the Sabine Falls are similar to past selective logging practices in which logs were carted out of the Otway forests by tramlines (Letters, 10/12). Clearfell logging involves the complete removal of all trees and undergrowth from a site. Selective logging leaves most of the undergrowth and younger trees to continue to grow.

Some of the forest around the Sabine Falls was selectively logged 80 years ago. Many stands of trees that were younger back then were not logged and have now grown into old-growth ash forest. If all the trees had been logged 80 years ago for woodchips, then the forest around the Sabine Falls would not now be "pristine".

The 20-year Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) was a process thrust upon the Otway community by bureaucrats with a vested interest in woodchip-driven logging.

The terms of reference and decision-making were done behind closed doors. Most public submissions were ignored. If Graeme Gooding or the State Government think the Otway community accepts the RFA outcomes then they are all fools.

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