Rape of the Sabine? Call to save Otways for fellers

Claire Miller, Environment Reporter, The Age (article) 19/11/2000

The Sabine Falls - a spectacular, l30-metre cascade tumbling in three stages through pristine rainforest in the Otways - could fall victim this summer to clearfelling, primarily for woodchips. The clearfelling of 77 hectares across the waterfall's headwaters and surrounding ridges will also ruin proposals for a 70-kilometre trans-Otway walk, despite State Government support for such "flagship" walks to promote nature-based tourism along the Great Ocean Road. The fate of the falls threatens to create a showdown between logging and tourism groups in the Otways. On one side of the debate is the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, which manages the native forest that supports the region's $20 million-a-year timber industry.  On the other side are coastal communities, Victoria's bushwalking clubs, local councils and conservationists alarmed that logging is circumventing eco-tourism options for the region. They plan to blockade the Sabine Falls site, calling for a moratorium on clearfelling pending an independent economic assessment of relative tourism-timber values. Geelong Otway Tourism estimates Great Ocean Road visitors inject $883 million a year into the region, but say its full potential is constrained by the lack of accommodation and walks into the forest. The Otway Ranges Walking Track Association says the forest - a mix of old growth and almost mature 1939 regrowth, with its complex understorey re-establishing - would take decades to recover its scenic integrity if clearfelling goes ahead. John Piesse, who first proposed the Trans-Otway Walk along with another Association member, Phillip Larkin, in 1995, said it would be the missing link between the Surf Coast Walk, ending at Lorne, and the Great Ocean Walk starting at Apollo Bay.

The link was listed as a high priority in the 1992 Otways Forest Management Plan, which also designated Sabine Falls a star tourist attraction. But the Department of Natural Resources closed tracks into the viewing platform for the falls in 1998 because there was not enough money for maintenance. , Dr Piesse said the linked walks would rival international walking attractions such as New Zealand's Milford Track, Tasmania's south-west wilderness and United States' Appalachian Way. The clearfelling would also ruin proposals for short, scenic walks and loops around Sabine Falls. Dr Piesse said the pocket rivalled south-east Queensland's Lamington National Park for the number and beauty of waterfalls in a compact, accessible area. He accused the department of neglecting its duty as an environmental protection agency, saying it had come to be dominated by industrial foresters with no other interest than growing crops of trees. "It is just greed," Dr Piesse said. "They have been corrupted by their relationship to the woodchip industry.”

Michael Hoey, president of the Lorne Business and Tourism Association, said timber and tourism had co-existed for years, but that situation was coming to an end because there had been so much logging that the effects were becoming "more and more obvious". He was shocked that the department had scheduled clearfelling around Sabine Falls. ''So little pristine area is left, and it is like they are supporting an industry that is in decline, particularly down here, against an industry that is on the rise," he said. "We are bringing in a lot more money than logging does, and more jobs."

The Sabine Falls will feature in a public awareness campaign, involving surgeries and medical clinics throughout Melbourne, by Doctors for Native Forests, a lobby group formed earlier this year out of concern about the public health implications of logging in water catchments. "Once you have taken the trees out, that is it for a generation," said the groups Nigel Strauss. "It will be a plantation of saplings, and it will never be native forest again. It is the height of stupidity."

Environment and Conservation Minister Sherryl Garbutt said in a statement that there was extensive consultation before the 20-year Commonwealth-State Regional Forest Agreement was signed in March, when decisions were made about conservation reserves and logging.  She said the Otway Ranges Walking Track Association had been proposing the trans-Otway Walk for years, but had "failed to deliver a feasibility study”. She said short walks would be considered within the agreement's framework.

However, long-distance, international standard walks along the Great Ocean Road feature in a new government report by Tourism Minister John Pandazopoulous, which discusses the need for initiatives for forest-based tourism outlined in the agreement. About $1.4 million is available for tourism initiatives in the Otways under the agreement.

The Otway Ranges Walking Track Association estimates the trans-Otway Walk will cost $3.08 million. The steep terrain and narrow boundaries of state forest around Sabine Falls mean there are no other routes except through the area scheduled for clearfelling.

The director of resources at the Victorian Association of Forest Industries, Jon Drohan, said almost all the Otways was regrowth forest, having been logged or burnt in the past 50 years, and that the forest would come back. He said logging and tourism were not mutually exclusive. The forest was large and could accommodate different activities in different sections. He said the industry had already accepted a 38 per cent cut in timber as part of the Regional Forest Agreement, and enough was enough. "We are not willing to give up other areas on top of what we have given up already, and we will be looking to ensure the government adheres to that," he said.