IT IS necessary to destroy parts of the Murray River red gum forest in order to save it, says the state's timber industry.
The argument is based on the idea that fewer trees will be better able to share the river's dwindling water supply.
"If you lock these forests up and you don't get enough water to the trees, even more trees are going to die than if they were properly managed through a forestry plan," said Ron Wilson from the Institute of Foresters of Australia. "The best way to manage those forests is to have a management system so you can harvest the trees that are going to die to protect the other trees in the forest.''
Mr Wilson said stopping logging in the forests would also leave the red gums open to destruction from bushfires.
"If these trees die through lack of water and there's no harvesting to remove them, they will sit there as a huge fuel load, which has great potential to combust from lightning strikes."
The NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally, is reviewing the creation of a 42,000-hectare national park near Deniliquin in the state's south-west, announced by her predecessor Nathan Rees just hours before he was replaced on December 3. There would still be a national park but its ''shape and form'' would be reviewed alongside concerns about the park's effect on forestry jobs, she said.
Environment groups say the idea that logging prevents damage to the forest is ludicrous, pointing to several studies that contradict the industry's view.
"The added stress of industrial logging on top of existing water stress poses significant problems for this area,'' said a Wilderness Society spokesman, Peter Cooper. ''The first step is to remove that logging to ensure this stress is removed so that biodiversity in the forest can be maintained."
Plans to increase logging in high-conservation areas of forests are being challenged in the Land and Environment Court by Red Gum Forest Action, a conservation group.
A spokesman for the group, Andrew Cox, said it was challenging the legality of logging along the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers on the basis that it has not received approval under Part 3A of the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979. The group will argue that Forests NSW is breaching the law by logging globally important wetlands. "They had been until now avoiding the Millewa area, but now they are actively talking about opening up new logging in areas of high conservation value which would totally pre-empt any national park there," Mr Cox said.
"It's effectively a backflip from what the State Government said previously, which means that environment groups will have to resort to the law again to protect these forests."
Mr Cox said the sawmills were going to go out of business with or without the national park because they were harvesting timber at unsustainable rates.
But the seven small-mill owners in the district say they work sustainably, and the $48 million ''transitional'' package announced by Mr Rees would not offset the economic damage of closing down. "It's not about the money. This is our life," said Chris Crump, who has run a nine-person mill in the Murray River town of Mathoura all his working life.
Thinning of trees recommended
A FINAL report on the red gum forests of south-western NSW, to be released today, will find there is simply not enough water flowing down the Murray to keep them alive without major change.
The Natural Resources Commission has completed its exhaustive study into the health of the forests. It is expected to endorse the establishment of a giant national park along the river near Deniliquin, which was announced by the former Premier Nathan Rees on the day he was replaced by Kristina Keneally.
It is also understood to support a continuation of logging and thinning of trees in some parts of the forest. It will outline recommendations for the timber industry in the region, and suggest that logging should continue in some areas of state forest.
The idea that thinning out trees to allow some mature trees a larger share of the remaining water supplies has scientific merit in some cases, according to some research referenced in an interim version of the report.
The commission study examined long-term water management problems, including high levels of irrigation upstream, that have contributed to the slow death of the forest. The red gum forests evolved to rely on periodic flooding from the Murray.
- Ben Cubby
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