By Nick Fredman
LISMORE — Thirty-five activists attended a general meeting of the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) at Rosebank, near Lismore, on February 15 to discuss recent changes to forestry legislation and agreements. The gathering assessed the movement's strategy and planned a number of actions before the NSW state elections.
The ALP federal government's 1992 National Forest Policy statement called for the collection of data and the participation in negotiations of government, business, unions and indigenous and conservation groups. It was supposed to lead to regional forest agreements (RFAs) that would put the forest industry on a sustainable footing.
Last November, NSW RFAs were set up through the state Labor government's Forestry and National Park Estate Act.
In the two north-east NSW assessments, government agencies recommended that over 1 million hectares of forests be reserved to protect conservation values and biodiversity. The act reserved only 375,000 hectares, leaving 400,000 hectares of wilderness and old-growth forest open to logging.
The act also removes the public's right to legally challenge agreements, and exempts State Forests from a number of acts, including the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act.
Since the introduction of the bill, NEFA has organised several actions and blockades. At the end of last year, it stopped the logging in a number of areas due to be declared national parks at the start of 1999.
The most recent actions occurred on February 12, when State Forests offices in Casino, Armidale, Taree, Newcastle and Sydney were picketed over the imminent signing of 20-year wood supply agreements.
An analysis of State Forests' timber supply assessments by NEFA's Dailan Pugh shows that a guaranteed 20-year supply is "sheer fantasy" and argues that such agreements will promote intensive clear-felling until supply runs out. Pugh points out: "When the timber cannot be delivered, the public will have to pay the mill owners massive compensation for timber that never existed".
The meeting discussed the new situation and the harsher fines for protesters in new State Forest regulations. The strategy of concentrating on negotiations in the RFA process over the last several years was discussed, as was whether conservation groups should now pull out of all negotiations with the NSW government.
It was widely agreed that the outcomes of the process have been appalling, that the NSW government has broken a string of promises and that negotiations hold a danger of cooption. However, it was also pointed out that forest assessments have produced invaluable data that can be used against the government and industry, and that this data would not be accessible if conservation groups were outside the process.
It was decided to suggest to groups in the southern and western regions of the state, where assessments have not been completed, that continued involvement may be useful but that public campaigning is a higher priority.
An interesting discussion also took place around a proposal to adopt "No logging in public native forests" as NEFA's central aim because the NSW Labor government has made a sustainable forest industry impossible. The proposal was argued against as too "radical" and that there may be a need to protect privately owned as well as public forests. After further discussion, it was dropped.
A proposal from members of the Democratic Socialists for a pre-election rally on the forest issue, the Timbarra gold mine and the nuclear industry was adopted. The rally, in Lismore on March 20, has the support of Everyone for a Nuclear Free Future (Lismore), the Nimbin Environment Centre and the high school group Students for Ecological Equilibrium.
NEFA will look at conducting one or more targeted blockades in conjunction with activists in the Timbarra campaign, and will also highlight the pro-logging stance of ALP member for Grafton Harry Woods.