Call for coupe consideration

By Kath Gannaway
THE wife of a Kinglake logging contractor has called on anti-logging protesters to consider the impact they have on families involved in the logging industry.
Protesters from the Central Highlands Action Group (CHAG) last week stopped logging at the Toolangi coupe that Cheryl Chalmers’ husband, Jeff Chalmers, has a contract to log.
Mrs Chalmers in a letter to the Mail accused the CHAG activists, and Toolangi residents involved in the protests, of having no consideration for them as a working family with bills to pay and a legal right to log.
She said protesters are being paid for their passion, have left rubbish in the bush, lit fires and broke chains and locks to get into the coupe.
She also hit out at CHAG facebook entries which she said contained frightening comments from ‘friends’ promoting sabotage and calling for a ramping up of blockades.
CHAG is calling on the government to protect the area and have said they will continue to stop logging in the Toolangi coupes until the government intervenes and commits to providing national park status for the area.
“From my point of view there are plenty of national parks catering for what they are arguing for,” Mrs Chalmers said.
She said timber had been logged in the area for many generations.
“We have to make repayments on those machines and the bank is going to be on our doorstep if we don’t make the repayments. They sit there, tied to the machines, and don’t care. They just say they are getting paid for being there, and have no thought about what we are going through.”
Mrs Chalmers says it is soul-destroying that protesters who stop a legal operation go to court and “get nothing more than a slap on the wrist”.
“There is no way I could go onto a building site in Melbourne and do what they are doing,” she said.
“I understand they have a point of view to express, but it’s the way they go about it that is just wrong.”
CHAG spokesperson Emma-Jayne Heather, and Toolangi resident and Healesville Environment Watch Inc (HEWI) chairman Steve Meacher have defended the actions of the protesters who they say are not paid and are conscientious about the environmental impact their actions have on the bush.
Mr Meacher has a court case pending in relation to alleged offences resulting from protests at the Freddo and Gun Barrel coupes last week, and so has not been part of the current protest, but he says he believes much of the allegations are concocted.
He said rubbishing the bush was not part of the thinking of the protesters he had been involved with and said similar allegations made against the protesters at Gun Barrel coupe were investigated and found to be false.
“It is the loggers who are being paid to destroy our heritage, and not the young people giving up their time,” he said.
Ms Heather said it was likely fires were lit, but not on prohibited days.
She said she had sympathy for the contractors and their families.
“I am always regretful that there are people losing money out of what we are doing, but it has to be seen in the larger scheme of things,” she said.
“It is something I feel very sad about, that they have been given the right to do this (logging) by the State Government and unfortunately they are in the middle and are losing out.
“In the bigger picture our gripe is with the government and the fact that they (contractors) are being given coupes which should be protected.”
She said CHAG had a stated policy of not spiking trees or sabotaging equipment, but added that their Facebook page was open to comments from the public.
“We don’t want anything to do with any actions that are going to hurt anyone,” she said.