Grassroots Action Network, Tasmania, residents slam plan to log ‘priceless’ forest, Junee Cave State Reserve, Maydena

Residents of the Upper Derwent Valley have expressed outrage over plans to log a coupe adjacent to a forest reserve boasting the deepest cave in Australia, saying it is ‘priceless’.

The fight to save a ‘priceless’ slice of forest. Picture: Supplied

Residents of the Upper Derwent Valley have expressed outrage over plans to log a coupe adjacent to a forest reserve boasting the deepest cave in Australia.

The Junee Cave State Reserve is a popular caving hotspot and is located just outside Maydena. It is home to Niggly Cave, believed to be the deepest explored cave anywhere in the country.

Locals concerned about logging plans near Maydena, including adjacent to the Maydena Bike Park and Junee Cave State Reserve, gathered to express their opposition to the plans. Picture: Supplied

Ella McLennan, of Grassroots Action Network Tasmania, said the 37.5ha coupe that Sustainable Timber Tasmania (STT) had earmarked for harvesting had “many high conservation values and tourism value”.

“High conservation values include an active wedge-tailed eagle nest [and] mapped threatened species habitat of masked owl, spotted quoll, eastern quoll and Tasmanian devil,” she said.

“It is also next to the popular tourist location, Junee Caves … The area is mapped as an area of geoconservation significance, as it has incredible karst systems which are extremely sensitive to vegetation cover change. The coupe has many rainforest species as well as large eucalypts, some over 15m circumference.”

STT also intends to harvest timber from a 30ha coupe about half-a-kilometre to the west of the Maydena Bike Park.

Picture: Supplied

More than 100 people, including dozens of Maydena locals, turned out for a public walk at the Junee Cave reserve last month to voice their opposition to the logging plans.

“You can’t put a dollar figure on the loss that logging these Aboriginal forests brings,” the Wilderness Society’s Alice Hardinge said. “Maydena is a tourist town that’s transitioning away from logging. It’s a microcosm of lutruwita/Tasmania itself.”

“The town and its community want and need all the support they can get. Forest destruction at the Bike Park and Junee Cave Reserve vandalises these aspirations for little benefit to the island.”

Picture: Supplied

Suzette Weeding, STT’s general manager conservation and land management, said she was “confident that both forestry and tourism can continue to work alongside the local community for the mutual benefit of Maydena”.

“The forests surrounding the Maydena township are a mosaic of different aged, different-species forests, a true visual reflection of sustainable forest management for both private and public production and multiple-use,” she said.

“Many local community members are familiar with the management of production forests in their backyard.

“[STT] is undertaking operational planning for a forest coupe adjacent to the Junee Caves but is not conducting forest harvesting operations in the short-term future.”

Originally published as Grassroots Action Network, Tasmania, residents slam plan to log ‘priceless’ forest, Junee Cave State Reserve, Maydena