Some 44 people gathered in Turlinjah on Thursday 21 November to protest about extensive native forest logging on private property in the area. Photo: Gillianne Tedder.
About 44 people have gathered at Turlinjah to protest about extensive native logging on private property that runs between Coila Creek and Old Mill roads.
Swathes of trees have been cut down under a Private Native Forest Agreement between the landowner and Local Land Services (LLS).
Local resident Kristi Wilkinson, who attended the protest on Thursday 21 November, is upset by the destruction.
She said the logging had been going on since mid-June and it was the second property in Turlinjah to be logged.
Ms Wilkinson said it was quite a large area and difficult to see from the road. However, she could see 36 burn or mulch piles which were a fire hazard. There were also big piles of timber that did not get milled that were at least four metres high and four metres wide.
Ironically, the 75-acre property where Ms Wilkinson has lived for 22 years had been logged and she is working with the LLS to plant out small areas and reduce sedimentation into oyster growing estuaries.
Ms Wilkinson has researched the Private Native Forest Agreement framework. It allows the LLS and the landholder to agree on a plan and for the landholder to engage a contractor to do the work. The NSW Environment Protection Authority’s (EPA) role is to ensure the contractor and landholder are abiding by the plan.
“From what I have read of the LLS codes, they are meant to leave large trees with hollows and crowns for habitat,” she said. “I have seen the logging trucks leave, and what they have done, and it doesn’t seem they have abided by that code.”
One of the people protesting on 21 November, resident Kirsti Wilkinson, said it was the second private property in Turlinjah to be logged. Photo: Gillianne Tedder.
Ms Wilkinson said one of the stated values of the Private Native Forestry Act was biodiversity conservation.
She said 700 swift parrots were recorded a few hundred metres from the area in 2014. That was the second-largest aggregation of the critically endangered species on record.
“That was only 10 years ago,” Ms Wilkinson said. “We see them annually, but not this year.”
One local, Susan Rhind, is an expert on phascogales. She sighted the brush-tailed phascogale within 10 kilometres of the area. These are classified vulnerable in NSW.
The landscape down Old Mill and Coila Creek roads is being transformed by the logging of native forest on private land. Photo: Gillianne Tedder.
Some of the protesters issued a statement that warned of private contractors that distribute leaflets promising “top prices paid” and “responsible logging”.
Joslyn van der Moolen, of Friends of the Forest (Mogo), noted a Cooma farmer was fined $112,500 in August 2024 for illegal forestry operations done by logging contractors on his property at Kybeyan.
“We have had residents come to us concerned about their neighbours taking up these private logging deals that sound good on paper,” Ms van der Moolen said. “Our experience is that landholders don’t factor in how their neighbours feel about removing much loved trees needed for biodiversity and carbon storage.”
Ms Wilkinson has spoken with the EPA, and it visited the site around 10 weeks ago. More logging has since occurred.
She said after some 5.5 million hectares of land were burnt during the Black Summer bushfires, the value of the remaining forest was even greater.
“We are writing letters to the LLS Minister, and they need to reply why there is so much scope for landholders,” Ms Wilkinson said.
“The Private Native Forestry Act is legalised, full-scale, outright habitat destruction,” she said. “It was a huge, amazing block of forest with huge canopy and now it isn’t. It is an open paddock.”
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