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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (8 December) . . Page.. 3959 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The areas include forests that would be well known to the many Canberrans who travel to the south coast. There is Badja, an area of extensive old-growth forest near Cooma. Monga, east of Braidwood, is one of the best known and loved forests of the region and is the closest rainforest to Canberra. Greater Deua, an area of outstanding wilderness quality inland from the south coast, contains both the most extensive wet old-growth forests in the State and the most extensive rainforests in the region.

Greater Murramarang, an area of the Kioloa State Forest, is vital to extending the small Murramarang National Park on the coastal strip north of Batemans Bay. Murramarang is the most heavily visited coastal national park in New South Wales outside of the Sydney region. North of this area is Croobyar, which contains some of the most special forests for biodiversity and old-growth protection and for tourism in the region. There is also Tallaganda, a huge area of diverse old-growth forest near Braidwood. Dignams Creek, a vital near-coastal forest adjacent to Mount Dromedary, contains the region's major koala population.

Bimberamala is part of the catchment of the upper Clyde, the only unmodified river left in New South Wales. Wandella, with its magnificent forests around Peak Alone, inland from Narooma, is vital to supplying water to the local community and contains many ecological values. Conjola is a vital link between the magnificent Conjola coastal forests and the protected escarpment forests. North of this area are unprotected forests that should become extensions of Morton National Park. Flat Rock is a vital area next to the famous tourist destination Pigeon House Mountain. Kianga is an important small patch of coastal forest near Narooma, an area with very little coastal environment remaining in a natural state.

The community reserve proposals, combined with the existing south-east forest national park, would create a continuous protected forest area along the New South Wales escarpment of over 300 kilometres, stretching from the Victorian border to north of Nowra. This would surely be a record for long distance nature protection that the New South Wales Government should be proud of.

The South East Forest Alliance also wants the south coast region to be a woodchip-free zone. Any logging of native forests in the region outside of protected areas should only be on a sustainable basis for high-value uses. We are therefore particularly concerned about the recent New South Wales Government proposal to allow native forests to be logged as fuel for electricity production. This form of biomass burning has been rejected by the New South Wales Sustainable Development Authority as a green power source, as it is not truly renewable or greenhouse neutral. The forest industry appears to be looking for new markets for its woodchipping operations, which can only lead to further destruction of our remaining native forests if not stopped now.

My motion today calls on the Chief Minister to write to the New South Wales Premier, Mr Carr, on behalf of the Assembly and the ACT community who love the south coast and use it, to express its support for the community reserve proposal that I have just described, as well as support for a move away from woodchipping of native forests to a plantation-based timber industry. I think this is the least we can do to help save the south coast forests, which are part of the national capital region. The major dispute over woodchipping in the south-east forests has been going on for too long, and it is time the

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