Logging begins in the Corunna State Forest this week, and forestry workers are describing the area as an “excellent example of sustainable forest management.”
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Forestry Corporation’s Daniel Tuan said the forest had regenerated during the 1900s – from previously cleared farmland – and was harvested or thinned every decade since the 1960s.
Environmentalists want the forest left alone. Corunna Forest Protection Group spokesman John Ramsay has said logging would negatively impact flora and fauna – including threatened species like the swift parrot and southern brown bandicoot – degrade Corunna lake, and deter tourists from the region.
However, Forestry Corporation’s production and sales manager Lee Blessington said there would be no clear-fall at Corunna.
“The products we are looking for in this forest are predominantly high-quality saw logs, and we’ll keep our eye out for telegraph poles as well. There will be lots of trees left when we finish,” he said.
With all planning and regulatory requirements met, Forestry Corporation has published the Corunna State Forest Harvest Plan on its website.
“The harvest plan is approved but plans evolve. We’ll do amendments and variations to suit the landscape as we move through it,” Mr Blessington said.
He said loggers would use exclusion zones to protect water quality and habitat at Corunna but the forest was “predominantly one tree species and young; for threatened species, its not that rich”.
READ MORE: Rural Fire Service Get Ready Weekend
The main species is spotted gum, an important food source for the endangered swift parrot, which will make up 96 per cent of the expected harvest: foresters are required to leave 10 feed trees for every two hectares logged.
Any trees with hollows would also be kept, and nearby trees with potential to become hollow retained as replacements for when hollow trees died.
Mr Blessington said it was important to stay in contact with the owners of neighbouring properties.
“They don’t all agree with what we are doing, but they engage with us,” he said.
“That’s good. We want open dialogue; they know about features in the landscape we don’t, and we need them to tell us.”
Ultimately, though, Forestry Corporation follows its own processes. For example, Mr Blessington described the likelihood of finding endangered southern brown bandicoot in the Corunna Forest as low, although a record for one remained in the harvest plan.
“There had been no record in the area for a long, long time,” he said.
“We picked up that record during a desk (database) search. Our ecologists went through a process to verify the record, using cameras, bait stations, scat searches, habitat assessment, and talking to the person who made the record.
“We still acknowledge the record, it’s on our map, and we have put an exclusion zone around the site – just in case – but our evidence is against it.”
Mr Blessington said there would be some visual impact after work finished.
“This is primary production, when you harvest there is disturbance,” he said.
“We’ll modify harvesting in the areas along roads to maintain visual amenity: We do additional work to keep it looking good and maybe take less trees there. Same with the boundaries on neighbouring properties.”
He said the Corunna State Forest was a two-age stand, with mature trees and young trees regenerated from previous harvests: “We’ll take mature trees. Some small trees do get knocked out during harvest but we minimise that – those young trees are our future crop”.
“Pulp and firewood is only going to come from trees which are knocked down during harvest or the bits and pieces of a saw-log with too much defect.”
Mr Blessington said a well-managed forest was the best organic system in the world.
“The beautiful thing about this forest is ... it just happens. It has all the natural values; threatened species, clean and clear water, no pesticides, carbon storage, and results in a product people can use on their kitchen bench-tops. Then the young trees grow back.”