THE State Government is under pressure to relent on plans to log forest that it deems a core koala habitat, with over 2800 people signing a Queensland Parliamentary petition and dozens staging a regular Friday afternoon protest at the site of the proposed logging.
The State Government is proposing to log about 50 per cent of high value hardwood trees from Ferny Forest, a 129-hectare site at Landsborough, ahead of the forest’s transfer to National Park status.
About 200 people protested the proposal in early March, and over 20,000 people have signed a change.org petition against the logging. A ‘Friday’s at Ferny Forest’ is now underway with dozens continuing to pressure the government to back down on its harvest plans.
The parliamentary petition demands the House do “all within its power to block the imminent logging from going ahead or at least provide us with a report weighing up the economic value of the harvested logs against the area’s ecological, cultural, and recreational value (in dollar terms) that will endure for generations to come”.
The forest, which is deemed core koala habitat, has significant conservation values and includes 52 other threatened species.
The area is a significant cultural site for the Kabi Kabi people and an important link from Ewen Maddock Dam to Mooloolah River National Park with vegetation that is preventing soil erosion and therefore improving the water quality of the dam and surrounding waterways and rivers, the petition states.
Advocates for the forest saying logging of any scale will have a devastating impact on the site with fungi, invasive weeds and climate change adversely affecting native forests.
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