7 May, 2013
Public lands report a shameless attack on national parks
A NSW government committee has today released a report recommending drastic actions such as opening up national parks to logging, and putting a moratorium on the creation and extension of national parks. Conservation groups have slammed the report as hopelessly biased and a waste of taxpayers’ money.
“The people of NSW will be outraged by calls to open our national parks up to logging,” said Belinda Fairbrother, NSW Campaigns Manager for the Wilderness Society. “The idea that you could swap diverse, old-growth forests in national parks for overexploited patches of state forest, as this report recommends, is completely ludicrous.
“This report wilfully ignores the evidence of the major environmental impacts of current forestry practices, preferring instead to repeat industry spin about the environmental benefits of logging,” she continued.
“Our national parks system is something to be very proud of, but it requires significant expansion before we have a reserve system that protects adequate examples of all the diverse environments in NSW,” said Keith Muir, Director of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness.
“The recommendation of a moratorium on national park declarations and extensions flies in the face of good policy, but fits very well with the current state of NSW politics. This report is the next in a shameless series of politically-motivated attacks on national parks and the environment,” said Mr Muir.
“This report highlights what a farcical waste of money these government standing committees can be,” said Kevin Evans, CEO of the National Parks Association of NSW. “The committee was chaired by Robert Brown of the Shooters and Fishers Party, which has long called for this inquiry, and this report has his fingerprints all over it.
“The Inquiry’s terms of reference were biased from the start. Now it seems the report’s author has zeroed in on the complaints of those with an anti-national parks agenda, such as elements of the forestry industry and lobby groups for high-impact recreational activities. The report’s recommendations conveniently overlook the concerns of all the NSW citizens and landholders who spoke out against the exploitation of our national parks,” Mr Evans said.
Pepe Clarke, CEO of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, said “Despite the mix of participants on the committee, many of the report’s recommendations are uncannily similar to the agenda of the Shooters and Fishers Party. The multiple-use model that is recommended fits with their agenda of introducing grazing, logging and high-impact recreation into national parks. The opening of national parks to ‘forestry harvesting’ is also one of their policies.
“Although the NSW government has said in the past that it is not their agenda to allow logging in national parks, the last two years have shown us that another force is at play in decisions like allowing hunting in national parks. We challenge the NSW government to finally stand up to the Shooters and Fishers party and dismiss the recommendations of this report as the extremist wish list that they are,” Mr Clarke concluded.
Tags
NSW Parliament
Let others know about this issue