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Business groups from Lorne and Apollo Bay and the Wye River Residents Action Group condemned Environment Minister Sherry] Garbutt for denying there was an agreement that the Ciancio block off Waitawhile Road, near Lavers Hill, would not be logged this season in return for peace in the Otways.
Ciancio is on a list of environmentally sensitive blocks drawn up during six months of negotiations between the timber union, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, conservationists and community representatives.
Ms Garbutt set up the consultation group to avoid a repeat of the violent blockades and tension widespread in the Otways in the 1999-2000 logging season. However, the department cancelled a final meeting to sign off the agreement last September and the group was never reconvened.
Lorne Business and Tourism Association president Michael Hoey, a member of the minister's group, accused Ms Garbutt of breaching the community's trust in her own process. He said people were furious and confrontation was now the only possible outcome.
Mr Hoey said the meetings revealed there was perhaps at best three years' worth of logs suitable for sawmilling left in the Otways, with the rest good only for woodchipping. "They are just taking the last remnants out," he said.
A spokeswoman for Ms Garbutt claimed the industry, department, union and minister never agreed to the list she said was tabled by the community and conservation representatives. She said the main conservation group, the Otway Ranges Environment Network, wanted an end to all logging "and their constant claims should be seen in that light" She said the department had no choice but to log Ciancio because conservationists rejected suggested alternatives. The main alternative was logging the Sabine Falls.
The stand-off between protesters and timber workers dragged into its fourth day yesterday, with no arrests. About 20 protesters are locked on to equipment. They claim the logging is illegal because it breaches measures to protect rainforest under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.
Loggers blocked the public access road with trucks for just over an hour, but called off their counterblockade to allow firefighters to remove equipment from Ciancio to control a regeneration blaze set by the department elsewhere.
Ciancio borders old-growth mountain ash forest with a rainforest understorey, all undisturbed since European settlement.
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