The North East Forest Alliance has described the NSW Government's Forestry Industry Roadmap as an “ill-conceived PR exercise”.
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“Katrina Hodgkinson claimed they were going to release their new Integrated Forestry Operations Approval in mid 2014, now they are saying they won't release it until next year,” said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
“They have obviously lost their way ... though a new map won't help them until they address the abject failures of their regulatory system and their gross over-commitment of resources from public forests.
“While the Minister for Primary Industries Niall Blair and Minister for the Environment Mark Speakman give lip service to Ecologically Sustainable Forest Management, however, they have failed to stop the clearfelling of vast swathes of forests.
“They won't even intervene to protect core koala habitat.”
Mr Pugh said he was extremely concerned that next year the Wood Supply Agreements would again be given to private loggers for public native forests, perhaps for another 20 years.
“These have been an abject failure, causing gross over-logging of public forests, distorting the market and generating low returns for public resources,” he said. “These agreements have cost taxpayers millions.
"The NSW Forestry Industry Roadmap is right to emphasise that ‘Forests deliver many important services on which society depends, including clean water, biodiversity, carbon storage, recreational values, as well as wood products’.
“Plantations already provide most of our timber needs – there is no need to continue trashing our native forests. “Rather than paying to subsidise the logging of our forests we need to rehabilitate them, so that we can restore their health, carbon storage capacity, water yields, biodiversity and aesthetic appeal. The Government needs to rethink its roadmap.”