Has Forestry changed its spots?
The answer is definitely not.
Last weekend I went on a trip up to Dublin Plains, which is near Lake Rowallan and Lake Parangane.
I had been on a bushwalk out to Blue Peaks two weeks before and from a lookout near Devils Gullet overlooking the Fisher River had seen some pretty large cable logging operations.
So I went back to have a look at them.
What I found was shocking,
I am used to seeing streamside reserves that have been left after logging burnt to a crisp; that is normal.
But to see how the high intensity burns had been allowed to get away and damage the forest around these two coupes was particularly shocking.
It appears that no attempt was made in one coupe to protect a lovely stand of Celery Top pine on the coupe boundary. Some of these trees were over 300 mm diameter but were dead following the fire.
Surely the logging slash could easily have been pulled back from the fire trail around the coup so that these valuable and beautiful trees could have been protected.
Then at the top of the coupe the fire had jumped the fire trail and had run up a very steep hill damaging many more hectares of forest.
We are constantly told by the spinmeisters that science is behind what they are doing in our forests. Unfortunately the scientists don’t seem to understand the behaviour of fire or when to light the fires.
So little care was taken and so much damage done at a time when there were no markets for the woodchips.
It appears that preventing rainforest succession is far more important than actually looking after the forests and doing a good job.
Download this Picture Essay and see for yourself:
Happy Christmas,
Pete Godfrey
