A four-month operation in Bodalla State Forest just north of Narooma is due to be completed this month. Source: Narooma News
Forestry Corporation of NSW’s regional manager Daniel Tuan said the timber harvesting just north of Narooma had been carried out in line with strict environmental regulations and operations will wrap up before Christmas.
“The economic benefits of this operation will extend across the South Coast region with more than half of the timber supplied to sawmills in Narooma, Ulladulla, Termeil, Braidwood and Eden creating work in the production of high quality flooring and decking products,” he said.
“Around 70 cubic metres of the highest quality timber has been sent to Nowra and as far as Grafton to be converted into veneer, timber piles and
electricity poles.
“A quarter of the timber was a lower quality and was sent to the Eden chipmill, which creates hundreds of local jobs, and 22% was supplied as firewood to Braidwood, Bodalla and Pambula to provide affordable home heating to homes next winter.”
Tuan said the area harvested was a regrowth forest that was last harvested in 1983 and Forestry Corporation completed detailed threatened species surveys.
Approximately 190 hectares of the 335 hectare area of forest was completely excluded from harvesting to retain buffer zones around rainforests and old growth forests and to maintain the habitat of large forest owls, a sea eagle nest, the square tailed kite and an old mine which is potential habitat for threatened bats, he said.
“Over the coming months and years we will continue to closely monitor this area of forest to ensure it regenerates into a thriving forest, which will continue to provide environmental, social and economic benefits for the local area for many years to come.”
Protestors from the group South East Forest Rescue have been attempting to stop logging activities in Flat Rock State Forest between Batemans Bay and Ulladulla.
For a second time in a week the conservation group called for an end to native forest logging as a form of direct action on climate change.
The protest consisted of two structures with a person in each structure in trees 30 metres off the ground cabled to five logging machines.
