By Karl Miller
SYDNEY — "After twenty years of conflict, division in local communities and environmental destruction, the South East Forest Protection Bill gives Australia its best chance to free the forests of the bulldozer and chainsaw and provide for sustainable jobs", stated the South East Forest Alliance leaflet distributed prior to the bill's defeat in the NSW parliament in the early hours of October 29.
The south-east forests are back on the agenda as the most important environmental issue in NSW. Less than 5% of Australia's pre-1770 forests remain in a substantially unchanged state. The south-east forests are one of the few intact large areas left. Recent scientific research found them eligible for World Heritage listing.
Fred and Elaine Nile's support for the Liberal government's opposition to the bill was crucial. At the last state elections, Nile portrayed himself as a peacemaker and environmental protector.
Since the defeat of the bill, introduced by independent MP Clover Moore, a coalition of environmental groups has announced: "We will not stand by and allow the irreplaceable old growth and wilderness forests of the south-east to be trashed by the woodchip industry ... It's back to the trenches." The campaign to save the forests will now be revitalised, promised the coalition.
Forests in the south-east of NSW are being logged and chipped at a rate of half a million trees a year. Dozens of endangered animals are found in the old growth trees,.
The Forest Protection Bill was introduced in an attempt to stop industry operations in the most important areas. It established a two-year moratorium on 80,000 hectares of forest, while maintaining current quotas in other areas. From the first, the bill included an economic package to prevent job losses in the region.
Significant compromises, such as abandoning environmental impact statements in the areas of continued logging, were accepted to win the support of the NSW Labor party.
Sid Walker, of the Nature Conservation Council, told Green Left Weekly, "The immediate focus of the campaign will be to head off finalisation of the October 1990 agreement, a loggers' charter based on a deal struck between Hawke and Greiner. The key issue is whether the federal government will now betray the south-east forests as badly as the NSW government has done, or whether the federal environment minister will find some backbone to stand up to the woodchippers."