Bulga Forest, 60 kilometres west of Port Macquarie in New South Wales, is a diverse ecosystem at the top of the Hastings and Manning River catchments. It is dominated by dry sclerophyll forests, but includes large stands of wet sclerophyll forest and rainforest.
According to Environment NSW, there are 16 forest ecosystems, with extensive areas of old-growth forest, and the area is significant for the local Aboriginal people.
Bronwyn Vost, who is active in the Sydney Knitting Nannas and Friends, told Pip Hinman why she decided to try and stop Forestry NSW from logging the forest on Biripi Country, risking arrest and a large fine. About 2000 hectares of forest is slated to be logged, in an operation which began on October 1.
Why did you decide to take peaceful direct action on October 14 and lock on to a Forestry NSW harvesting machinery in the Bulga Forest?
Because logging is happening now and taking physical action is the only way to slow it down.
Each arrest, and there have now been 19, stops the destructive machines from working for a few hours. So, it’s worthwhile.
But they start up again as soon as the activist (usually one each night) has been cut off the machine, arrested and taken away, so it’s only a stop-gap measure.
I guess I’m hoping that NSW Labor will decide logging is too unpopular to keep going.
Going back a few months, when logging in this area was gazetted, Forestry NSW found a few greater gliders.
The local citizen scientists got to work, surveying at the right time of day (unlike Forestry NSW), and found 100 greater gliders and 14 koalas.
They proposed that the area not be logged because of the density of animals. But Forestry NSW went ahead anyway. It is mandated to save the trees with glider “dens”, plus a 50-metre radius around the base. But this still leaves a patchwork of destruction that gliders have to negotiate on the ground, rather than the treetops, and they soon get picked off by predators.
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Can you describe the significance of these forests?
It’s inestimable, really.
Forests are the source of all our clean water because they act as filters for runoff. They also produce local rain as moisture is drawn up into the atmosphere. They absorb carbon and give off oxygen, so they combat greenhouse gas and provide the air that we breathe.
They are usually areas of great biodiversity and shelter vulnerable creatures. They are good for human mental health as well. They cool the area around them, and a mature forest is a great buffer against bushfire, as logged forests burn much more readily than old-growth.
Bulga is special because it is a biodiversity hotspot. It did not get burnt down in the 2019–2020 fires, so it holds important surviving populations of animals. It is crucial to the survival of the endangered greater gliders and koalas in the region. Logging it is lunacy!
What would be best practice for how to preserve native forests and the biodiversity that live in them?
Introduce a ban on clearing or logging native forest, on private land as well as public. Include as much of it as possible in national parks, or at least be mindful of connectivity between patches of bush.
Why do you think NSW Labor is allowing Forestry NSW to continue to log in forests that withstood the black summer fires?
The price it gets for the timber in no way reflects the value of the resource. The hardwood arm of Forestry NSW is subsidised by about $30 million a year. I expect they had some contracts for timber from before the fires that they felt they had to fulfill, rather than buy out, but the latter would have been a much better solution.
Then they could concentrate on the softwood (pine plantations) division, where most of the jobs are and most of the timber comes from. There is virtually no hardwood in modern housing.
Are there any other comments you’d like to make?
The penalties for this type of activism are steep. The government introduced a special offence, a few years ago, to deal with those other “dangerous terrorists” — the animal liberationists — and now they are charging us under the same laws.
[A national rally for native forests, organised by the Bob Brown Foundation, is on November 3. Check here for details. Click here to help Save Bulga Forest.]