Proposed TRP Amendments - Emma Campbell and Tony Schnaebelbach - Residents Chum Creek

04/09/2010 10:47 am

Senior Forester Tactical Planning

VicForests

213 Maroondah Highway

Healesville VIC 3777

Submission re: Proposed 2010 Amendments of 148 additional logging coupes to VicForests’ Timber Release Plans.

We strongly oppose the proposal to amend the Timber Release Plan and release an additional 148 logging coupes. We have recently been through the February 2009 fires as Chum Creek residents with fire affecting our property and bushland block. We have felt the effect ourselves, and have seen how it has effected our family, our community and our local environment & wildlife. We feel strongly that the release of additional coupes in mostly unburnt forests is a real setback to our personal and community recovery.

Our forests suffered dramatically during the 2009 bushfires. Large areas were severely burnt and will take years to recover to a level suitable of providing habitat for Victoria’s unique flora and fauna. These same forests that have been heavily “clear fell logged” in the decades leading up to the fire were then followed up with “salvage logging” since the fire. Salvage logging is a harsh process for already wounded forests trying desperately to recover after bushfire. As community members of Healesville / Chum Creek observing the increase in logging truck traffic since the fires has been like a wound that will never heal.

We are not against the harvesting of timber as a resource as we believe it can be a sustainable product. BUT we do not feel that VicForests are managing this resource (a resource owned by all Victorian’s) in a sustainable manner and therefore this level of intensive forest destruction through logging practices MUST STOP. MUST STOP until we can assess the state of our forests and allow them a chance to recover, in turn allowing our communities to recover. Forest monitoring needs to be done in a clear and open manner by independent assessors to allow the Victorian community to understand what exactly comprises a healthy and sustainable forest and how our forests and the logging industry are meeting these requirements.

The most damning evidence to us was observed in our Victorian Government (DSE’s) own Monitoring and Annual Harvesting Report. The report found alongside the “harvesting compliance section” clearly detailed a graph outlining that VicForests were not handing back forests to DSE control at anywhere near the level that they were cutting it down as they were not completing their regeneration commitments. How can this be meeting sustainability requirements when you are taking far more than you are regenerating? VicForests MUST complete their entire regenerating commitments backlog before they should granted access to any new logging coupes.

It is a disgrace to all Victorians that VicForests have left vast areas of logged coupes in an appalling state of disrepair unable to regenerate into a healthy ecosystem and open to all sorts of infestation by weeds and erosion etc. This can only be for greed to continue taking and not provide for the future – this is not sustainable!

Please stop the amendment proposal to release 148 new logging coupes to the current Timber Release Plan. Further habitat fragmentation through logging, particularly of many areas that have not been burnt will severely affect the recovery of local communities affected by the February 2009 bushfires. These communities are already struggling economically and emotionally. Tourism is a major contributor to their existence and rejuvenation. The additional impact of dangerous logging trucks on tourist roads and the visual destruction of their environment drawcard, “their forests”, not only hindered through bushfire, but now clear felled forests that are not being regenerated is just too much. Enough is enough!

Yours sincerely,

Emma Campbell and Tony Schnaedelbach

Residents of Chum Creek and Victorians responsible for OUR forests.

This submission has also been sent to:

The Hon. Gavin Jennings MP, Minister for Environment and Climate Change

Gavin.Jennings@parliament.vic.gov.au

Mr Michael Crutchfield MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Water & Environment

Michael.Crutchfield@arliament.vic.gov.au

Ms Tammy Lobato MP, Member for Gembrook

Tammy.Lobato@parliament.vic.gov.au

Mr Ben Hardman MP, Member for Seymour

Benedict.Hardman@parliament.vic.gov.au