Logging protest ‘just hot air’

By Melissa Meehan
PROTESTORS gathered in Marys-ville over the weekend to voice their criticism of logging in water catchment areas.
Water users were invited by anti-logging action group Central Highlands Alliance to attend the protest to challenge Premier John Brumby to stop logging which they claim reduces the quantity and quality of drinking water.
In the invite Central Highlands Alliance spokesperson Sarah Rees described the act of catchment logging as tantamount to a water crime.
“The forests in our precious drinking water supply catchments are being felled to make wood chips at a water loss of 1000 litres per second, selling for as little as $6 per tonne of pulp logs,” Ms Rees said.
“We want our forests in the ground for carbon storage and water provision – not wood chips.”
Also present at the protest was Gembrook MP Tammy Lobato, who said that logging in water catchments was a major issue for concern in Victoria.
“I visited the site to listen to the environmental groups and to learn more about logging in catchments,” Ms Lobato said.
Victorian state manager of Timber Communities Australia Scott Gentle was furious with the protest, labelling it as a radical media stunt.
“It’s bad enough that these so-called environmentalists undertake illegal protests, but to hear them tell outright lies to the media and general public in an attempt to further their misguided cause makes you sick,” Mr Gentle said.
He claimed that the protest was not about protecting water catchments, but an attempt to stop timber harvesting all together, which he described as a sustainable timber industry that supports hundreds of jobs.
“This time last year the same people who the protesters are trying to stop were fighting fires in the Great Dividing Range fires and were the very reason the catchments did not burn,” Mr Gentle said.
Mr Gentle refuted claims made by the protesters that the timber industry was contributing to the issue of climate change.
“The only threat to climate change is the hot air blowing from the protesters mouths,” Mr Gentle said.