The President of the Foresters Institute of Australia said that he feels for southern Riverina communities battling to survive in the wake of red gum forests being locked up as national parks. Source: ABC News
Rob de Fegely is co-chair of the Prime Minister’s new Federal Forestry Industry Advisory Council. He attended a New South Wales Forest Industries Taskforce meeting at Deniliquin where there is a push by sections of the community to open red gum national parks to logging.
The National Parks Association is critical of the campaign to log in the parks, but Mr De Fegely said communities are suffering. He said it is heartbreaking to hear the stress the Mathoura community is under.
Mr De Fegely said that good environmental and economic outcomes can both be achieved.
“Conservation policies should never, never drive communities to poverty,” he said.
“That’s one of the mainstays of world conservation policy.
“The idea is to improve forest management, to improve social welfare and to ensure that if those things are improving, not only do you get an improvement in economic welfare you get an improvement in environmental outcomes as well.”
Mr De Fegely said that it was important to consult Indigenous people and the community more in any management decisions affecting river red gum forests.
“There was a very strong message coming back from the community that they would like to be involved with the management of the forests in the region, but they love their forests as well and believe that all the values – of environment, social and economic – can be met, if everybody works together,” he said.
The President of the Foresters Institute said that he is also concerned at the fire hazard caused by the current management of the southern Riverina red gum forests.
Mr De Fegely said that a lot could be learned from the earlier managements of the forests by indigenous people who would have carried out cool burns to create open areas.
“As a professional I was concerned about the build-up of fire material and the potential for fire,” he said.
“And that was one of the issues that was raised at the community level – that these forests have a massive build-up of debris, coarse woody debris and even some new woody weeds which will create a fire hazard on the wrong day.”
