BY GEORGINA WOODS
NEWCASTLE — Behind police road-blocks, hidden from the gaze of media and the community, the forests of the Jilliby reserve are being massacred.
NSW government conservation data clearly identifies Jilliby as the foremost conservation priority on public land between Sydney and Coffs Harbour. The moist, productive forests of the Watagans contain habitats that are not represented in the existing reserve system in NSW.
For decades, the Watagans forests have been damaged, almost beyond repair, by a rapacious logging industry; approximately 10,000 hectares (23%) of the State Forest estate have been logged since 1998 alone.
For five months, Newcastle and NSW North Coast activists have been campaigning for the protection of Jilliby, a 14,000-hectare area of forest in the Watagans. However, in late May, despite the area being under consideration for reserve status, the bulldozers moved in.
Shortly afterwards, independent auditors discovered that this logging operation contravenes numerous licensing conditions. On May 28, an arrangement was made with State Forests to officially investigate the findings, but State Forests later reneged, claiming that it could not protect investigators, who were being threatened with violence by the logging contractors.
Daniel Beaver, a community auditor with the Forest Activist Network (FAN), said: "We were arrested and removed from the forest mid-investigation ... We were then informed we could only enter the public forest under the escort of State Forests personnel. Now we are told that even this isn't possible and that we will face violence from loggers and $2200 fines from forestry if we try to continue our investigation."
State Forests is tacitly endorsing the violence of logging contractors by refusing to take responsibility for the safety others wishing to access the public forests. "This is the first time we have ever been prevented from monitoring logging operations in our local forest", said Claire Dunn from FAN. "It is outrageous that this bully boy behaviour is being sanctioned in one of our highest conservation-value forests that could well be protected in a matter of weeks."
Forest rescuers entered the forest on June 3 to halt the illegal operation. A tree-sit staffed by a yellow-bellied glider was erected high in the canopy. State Forests closed all access roads, denying media coverage of the rescue.
Since the rescue operation began, three forest defenders and three independent media representatives have been arrested and one protester has been injured by a rock hurled by a log-truck driver.
The forest rescue will continue for as long as the Jilliby area is under threat. Dunn pointed out, "State Forests have shown equal contempt for conservationists and timber industry workers by deliberately hastening the beginning of work in an area that they were well aware would be contentious".
[Georgina Woods is an activist with the North East Forest Alliance, Hunter Region.]
From Green Left Weekly, June 26, 2002.
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