Anti-logging fighters continue work in NSW, including Brooman-Shallow Crossing State Forest
After the devastating Black Summer bushfires, grassroots groups have emerged as a driving force calling out alleged breaches by loggers in fire-ravaged areas. Meet the people making a difference.
The South Coast News
Don't miss out on the headlines from The South Coast News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The grassroots movement to end native forest logging in NSW achieved a major upset in August when a petition calling for an immediate moratorium on the centuries-old practise secured a reading in state parliament.
Its author, Takesa Frank, believes the fight is only just getting started.
For her entire life, the 20-year-old Shoalhaven activist has lived in the Brooman-Shallow Crossing State Forest area.
“I learned to swim in the Clyde River that runs through the forest,” she said.
“In the summer, I would run around the woods with my three siblings.”
When the Black Summer bushfires ripped through the region, incinerating as much as 85 per cent of Brooman State Forest, Ms Frank and her family joined most of South Brooman’s 21 permanent residents in staying behind and fighting the fierce firestorms.
Held up in a nearby blueberry farm, Ms Frank said her family fought back the blazes, with only a few bushes being burnt.
In the aftermath, though, relief turned to anger when to the shock of locals, logging trucks returned to the area.
“Directly after the bushfires, we should have been recovering as a community,” Ms Frank said.
“Instead, we had to go into defence-protection mode because the Forestry Corporation of NSW (FCNSW) came in less than three months after the fires and started logging in these forests which we tried so hard to protect, and that had been burned so badly.”
Ms Frank does not describe her upbringing as being influenced by politics, but the Shoalhaven Greens member said when FCNSW’s operations resumed, the typically apolitical residents of the region returned to the woods and began documenting what they saw.
Their role in the regulation of FCNSW’s activities has grown in the two years since the fires, and has gone well beyond mere activism.
NSW Nature Conservation Council (NSWNCC) forestry manager Wilson Harris said it was citizen scientists who, enraged by the devastation of the Black Summer bushfires, began not only documenting but reporting to the Environment Protection Agency alleged infringements.
“The environmental movement and the public were really galvanised post-Black Summer,” he said.
“Grassroots groups on the north and south began getting out into the forests and doing their own compliance checks.”
In the past year, FCNSW has been slapped with more than half a million dollars in fines from the EPA and the NSW Land and Environment Court for alleged breaches of site-specific operating rules in bushfire-hit areas such as Brooman and Bodalla State Forests.
While it is notionally the EPA’s role to document and prosecute breaches in NSW, Mr Harris said the state-run organisation lacked the resources needed to penetrate the thousands of square kilometres being actively logged by FCNSW.
“Following the fires, the EPA really stepped it up,” Mr Harris said.
“They realised that logging was a real threat to our environment. To their credit, they put good controls on FCNSW as to how they could operate following the fires. But, the EPA’s shortfall really is its bodies on the ground.
“The level of resources the agency needs is clearly inadequate, which is where the citizen scientists came in.”
Over time, Mr Harris said the activists learned how to package up information to send to the EPA, with groups of locals venturing into forested areas, equipped with cameras and GPS locators. Among them, was the Brooman State Forest Conservation Group Ms Frank founded.
In early 2022, the NSWNCC turned its attention to Ms Frank and the conservation group as the group prepared a statewide petition.
The petition includes calls for an immediate pause to logging and the collation of a plan to shift away from the practise while securing jobs, and was the brainchild of Mr Frank, with help from NSWNCC, the state’s peak environmental group, in its authoring and dissemination.
For months, the petition appeared as if it was not going to meet the requisite signatures to be presented to parliament.
That was, Ms Frank said, until an 11-hour push, with advocacy help from organisations including Wires and WWF Australia helping conservationists secure the 20,000 signatures necessary to have the petition presented by South Coast member Shelley Hancock.
“It took a couple days for it to sink in,” Ms Frank said.
“It was exciting to know there were so many people fighting for the same thing.”
The petition was originally going to be presented on September 15, but was pushed back one month following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
While in a “perfect world”, Ms Frank said she hopes the petition would be enough to see an end to native forest logging, she’s confident it has at least raised the profile of the issue as environmentalists seek more concrete assurances ahead of the 2023 State Election.
“NSWNSCC really want to make this an issue in marginal seats, including in regional areas where the logging is occurring,” Mr Harris said.
“By the end of the campaign, and by the election next year, there won‘t really be an option for either party to ignore the issue to win votes.
“They’ll need to have a decent policy on it.”
In the meantime, Ms Frank is continuing to pursue her own political mission.
“For young people that aren’t always involved in politics, they need to see change can happen,” she said.
“Even once we achieve a ban on native forest logging in NSW, it is Australia-wide next.
“No more native logging, anywhere.”
In a statement, a Forestry Corporation of NSW spokeswoman said native forest timber harvesting was heavily regulated to balance the community’s need for timber with protecting important environmental features on the forest landscape.
“Since the 2019-20 bushfires Forestry Corporation has adopted additional environmental safeguards above these requirements and these measures remain in place today,” the spokeswoman said.
“South Brooman State Forest has been a managed forest for more than 100 years, which means that for more than a century renewable timber has been continually harvested from parts of this forest and each time the forest has been regrown.’’
‘Can’t happen again’: Mayor’s bid to end council’s finance woes
A newly-elected south coast mayor has revealed her plan to turn the tide of her council’s dire financial situation, creating a committee in a bid to avoid major rate rises and cancelling projects.
Schoolgirl footy stars on special mission for Australia
They are small but mighty - a group of schoolgirls aiming to be at the LA and Brisbane Olympics on a rugby sevens mission. Australian schoolgirls players to watch, new squad.