At loggerheads over logging

By Melissa Meehan
ENVIRONMENTAL groups have turned their backs on a Victorian Government investigation into the future of logging in Melbourne’s water catchments.
The groups, including Healesville-based The Central Highlands Alliance, The Wilderness Society, Australian Conservation Foundation and East Gippsland Environment, chose to distance themselves from the project as logging in catchment areas was no longer a criterion under this initiative.
These groups claimed that logging had an impact on water supply and that any investigation into the water catchments would have to seriously consider an end to felling.
The move follows a change in government policy on the issue pledged by the Victorian Government in its Water White Paper to investigate a phase out of logging and find alternative plantation resources for industry.
The study, by the Department of Sustainability and Environment and URS Consulting, will now investigate a range of possible alternative scenarios.
The Wilderness Society’s Victorian forest campaigner Amelia Young said she could not understand why the Brumby Government would not act when they were aware there was a problem.
“How can a responsible government allow logging in Melbourne’s forested water supply catchments when the science has shown for years the dramatic impact this will have on future water supply?” questioned Ms Young.
“We need to secure our water future and introduce a 20-year-plan to solve the water crisis. One of the first and easiest things, the government can do to achieve this is rapidly move logging out of high yielding water supply catchments.”
Sarah Rees from the Central Highlands Alliance said the groups now had conclusive evidence to reveal the State Government’s own studies showed logging reduced water supply by 50 per cent.
“This is a debt being left to our children. It is taking from their future,” Ms Rees said.
“The logging industry targets high rainfall areas for logging as this is where the preferred forests for logging are, hence the gravity of the impacts.”
The Australian Conservation Foundation’s national forest campaigner Lindsay Hesketh said, “We are dismayed that from the outset, the Victorian Government has dropped the option to phase out and protect Melbourne’s water catchments from logging and wood chipping.”
“Again this places certain logging interests ahead of Melbourne’s community interests particularly given the financial value of the water foregone is five times of that the timber extracted,” Mr Hesketh said.
Late last month Timber Communities Australia’s (TCA) Victorian Manager, also based in Healesville, Scott Gentle claimed vindication of the timber industries’ claims timber harvesting in Melbourne’s catchments were sustainable.
“The environment movement’s arguments have been blown out of the water,” Mr Gentle said.
He said the recent government inquiry into bush fires added support to harvesting in the catchments.
“When you add this to the water report there is no logical reason to stop harvesting in catchments,” Mr Gentle said.