Eurobodalla councillors for 2022-2024 (from left): David Grace, Rob Pollock, Anthony Mayne, Amber Shutz, Alison Worthington, Mayor Mathew Hatcher, Pete Diskon, Tubby Harrison and Tanya Dannock. Photo: ESC.
Eurobodalla Shire Council has passed motions supporting the end of native forest logging in its region and the just transition to plantations, although not all councillors are on board with the move.
Deputy Mayor Alison Worthington brought the issue before the council earlier this year, after the council could not present at a state parliament inquiry on the sustainability of timber products, held in its own chambers in Moruya, because it didn’t have an official position on forestry.
She said the forestry industry in the shire was already in decline because it was being out-competed by other regions.
This was particularly the case when it came to woodchips, she said, as other regions were providing eucalypts for pulp better and faster.
“I thought it was time to advocate to the State Government to say many in the community are calling for an end to native forest logging,” Cr Worthington said.
“People start to ask, why are we logging post-fires when some of our forests provide critical refuge to flora and fauna.”
She lost an amendment that attempted to use stronger wording when the matter was deferred to the council’s meeting on Tuesday (9 August), but several other motions were passed.
After the five-to-three vote on native forest logging, the council must now note logging in its state forests is incompatible with the shire and region’s investments in nature-based tourism enterprises, climate change mitigation and the protection of biodiversity.
Due to a six-to-two vote, the council will advocate to the NSW Government to urgently develop a plan for the just transition of the Forestry Corporation NSW native forest sector to ecologically sustainable plantations and farm forestry.
It wants these plans to protect existing jobs in the sector and ensure a reliable supply of native hardwood timber products into the future.
The council unanimously agreed to write to NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and other relevant state ministers as part of that advocacy.
Finally, the council has noted the growing concern in the community about the current native forest logging and practices should be revised against the latest “best practice”.
“It was a difficult debate, but I think that the point of it, which was we could be managing forests better … did get through,” Cr Worthington said.
But not all councillors agree the motions were the best for the shire.
“I think it’s totally outside the purview of local government, I think it’s a state and federal issue,” Cr Rob Pollock OAM said.
He said issues raised were already addressed by regional forest agreements and at present only 1 per cent of available logging areas was harvested each year.
“This insinuation of doom and gloom at a wholesale rate is just bulls–t,” he said.
Cr Pollock said if plantations were possible for the South Coast, then one would have to ask where they would go; would they replace native forests or agricultural land?
He also said Forestry and state agencies would have an idea about planning for the future and “to insinuate they have none is the height of ignorance”.
While Bellingen Shire Council passed a motion calling for a moratorium on logging in 2019, Cr Worthington was unsure how many other councils had made similar attempts such as hers that were unsuccessful.
But she said others had been watching how this process unfolded in her shire and had been drafting their own similar motions.
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