After the logging, some questions

Alastair Traill, Wonga Park, The Age (letter), 12/3/2002

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The waste is piled into stacks, which may include quantities of debarked logs that "could not be sold at the time". An oversupplied market?

All this is burnt during still autumn weather, when the smoke can linger for days. CSIRO studies show the smoke contains carcinogens. A health hazard?

Then the regrowth. It can be so dense as to be impenetrable and can burn more fiercely than the older growth it replaces. On private land the Country Fire Authority could intervene, but on public land the area of fire-hazardous regrowth increases with every coupe logged. An ever-increasing fire-hazard?

Finally, if the regrowth is not commercially desirable, it may be bulldozed and reseeded. The aim is a uniform stand of trees for future logging - arguably a plantation, which on Victorian public land is prohibited by the Code of Forest Practice. A legal conundrum?

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