South Coast Forests

The Hon. I. COHEN [10.56 p.m.]: Last weekend I had a fantastic experience. I went to the Bendalong area, a few hours south of Sydney, and looked at some of the great southern forest that we are so lucky to have. I attended a weekend of community action. Local people held meetings both indoors and in the forests. On the Sunday they had meetings in an area that had been cleared by a number of logging contractors. In fact, the community had stopped the loggers working and had held a number of demonstrations. The hallmark was that a number of plumbers and electricians and people from the local community were on the site to protest in defence of their forest.

The Bendalong community is very strong and united and has asked the Government, through me. to take a long hard look at this wonderland in the southern forests. They asked the Government to consider what needs to be done to protect the forests. We need to manage those forests better than we did with the south-east Eden management area, north-east, upper north-east and lower north-east forests in which a great deal of concern was expressed about the Government not living up to its promises regarding wood chipping and the maintenance of old-growth forests. In fact, we have an opportunity now, before it goes too far, to remember that when the regional forest assessments are organised and the divvying up between the industry and conservation comes about, that these forests are really second to none.

I was amazed as I walked with people through the bush to see beautiful forests and creek beds. We found Aboriginal axe-sharpening furrows on the creek bed; smoothed out from eons of use. The young children in our group were excited by that educational experience. Imagine standing in a rainforest encircled by the castle-like boughs of a giant rainforest tree that could be 3,000 years old. A tree which stands surrounded by hundreds of other rainforest giants; each tree growing a ring of trunks, each trunk growing its own ring of shoots, each ring of shoots growing into yet another ring of trunks; rings continue to expand outward spreading across the forest over generations that span centuries passing through each other and back again in an
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eternal ballroom dance, a dance which has been occurring since the time of Gondwana, in a valley which is a relic of the world when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

All these things can be found in the South Coast forests that are still standing. We can watch a circus show at night where yellow-bellied glider acrobats perform dazzling shows as they glide perilously from tree to tree before our eyes, where powerful owls sing lively duets, and where wombats act the clown in the surrounding undergrowth. I have seen a powerful owl and the magnificent sooty owl which is attracted by naturalists by using a sound system of their calls. It really is something that is magnificent and should not be lost. All these things can be found in the South Coast forests between Nowra and Narooma, the forests, heathlands, rivers, beaches, and coastal lakes of the South Coast region contain over 400 species of native mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians - an amazing one-fifth of the animals of these groups in Australia.

There are also 60 endangered and vulnerable species including the koala, southern brown bandicoot, broad-headed snake, sooty owl, yellow-bellied glider, green and golden bell frog and regent honey eater. Most of the South Coast wonderland forests are unprotected, in fact they are being attacked by intensive industrial logging and woodchipping. The magnificent old-growth forests are threatened with clear felling. The amazing biodiversity and endangered species are threatened with extinction. The vast wilderness areas are threatened with an ever-increasing network of logging highways. The water catchments and coastal lakes are threatened with siltation and pollution.

This is a magnificent area and very soon the Government will make a decision on its fate. It is very simple: the income and jobs created through ecotourism in local communities are crying out for that decision. They want to protect jobs and that vastly outweighs the jobs that will be gained in the timber industry. This is old-world stock, old-guard stuff, and it is important that the Government recognises that on the coastline from Nowra to Narooma through Batemans Bay and Ulladulla is prime country at the confluence of the catchment of Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Wollongong. The huge populations in the area could use this wonderful forest resource and make an incredible amount of money with wealth and prosperity for the local people. I ask the Government to save these forests.