More than 100 of the people and organisations at the heart of NSW’s forest, climate and conservation movements, including North Coast campaigners and a Kempsey Shire councillor, have signed an open letter urging the Senate not to block a new pathway to end native forest logging.
Greens Councillor Arthur Bain, from Kempsey Shire in the Great Koala National Park region, is among the signatories.
“I’ve signed this letter because I believe that if the disallowance motion succeeds, we will end up with a worse outcome for both the climate and our forests,” Cr Bain said.
“For communities like ours, this is not an abstract debate. These are the forests around us, and we need every available pathway to protect them.”
The letter calls on Senators to retain the Improved Native Forest Management method, which creates a pathway for state governments to generate revenue if they end native forest logging, protect those forests for 100 years, and invest in their long-term management and restoration.
“We have had enough of watching as logging machines smash the bush, erode the soils, and push countless native animals closer and closer to extinction,” the letter states.
Delivering the letter in Canberra is Susie Russell, one of the forest movement’s longest-serving campaigners and a long-term campaigner with the North Coast Environment Council.
“People signing this letter have spent decades fighting native forest logging, in the courts, through science, in their communities and on the front line,” Ms Russell said.
“After a great deal of consideration and discussion, we have concluded that this method will reduce emissions and help protect our forests and the creatures that depend on them.
“We are coming to Canberra to ask the Greens, and the rest of the crossbench, not to vote with the Nationals to disallow this method.”
North East Forest Alliance President Dailan Pugh OAM, who has spent more than 40 years documenting, surveying and campaigning to protect the forests of north-east NSW, has also signed the letter.
“Ending native forest logging and allowing our forests to recover is one of the best things we can do to counter climate change and its impacts,” Mr Pugh said.
“Logging releases carbon, damages critical forest ecosystems and dries out forests, making them much more vulnerable to bushfires.
“Ending logging can rapidly reduce that vulnerability and allow rainforest and wetter forest communities, which have been suppressed by decades of logging, to return.”
Other signatories include leading ecologists and citizen scientists, lifelong forest campaigners, organisers of major forest and fossil fuel blockades, and environmental organisations that have spent decades campaigning to protect native forests. The letter has also been backed by the NSW Greens Local Government Standing Committee, alongside current and former Greens councillors in communities directly affected by native forest logging.
Among those signing is Scott “Sooty” Daines, one of Australia’s longest-serving forest and climate campaigners.
“I’ve spent the past 27 years fighting for forests and the climate. I’ve lived at blockades for years, including five years campaigning against Adani.
“I’ve trained people in direct action and citizen science, taken logging companies to court and been arrested more times than I can count,” Mr Daines said.
“I’ve tried just about every way there is to stop these forests being destroyed.
“I’m signing this letter because I believe this is one of the best chances we have had to finally protect them.”
The delegation is seeking meetings with Greens and crossbench Senators in Canberra today. The joint letter follows other interventions into the debate, with Greenpeace Australia Pacific also urging Senators not to disallow the method, and a national advertisement launched across major Australian newspapers echoing the letter’s message.
“We are asking Senators not to sacrifice our forests for a symbolic victory in the broader fight over carbon credits,” the letter states.
“Disallowing this method would not dismantle the carbon market or stop fossil fuel companies buying credits generated elsewhere, it would simply remove this pathway for forest protection.
“We have an opportunity here to protect forests, reduce emissions and invest in their recovery for the long term. Please do not take that pathway away from us.”
The letter and full list of signatories can be seen here: Open letter on forest protection and the Improved Native Forest Management method
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