NSW Parliament to debate native forest logging

The petition calls for an end an end to native forest logging and transition to 100 per cent plantation-based industry by 2024.

The parliamentary e-petition was drafted and promoted by a large range of groups interested in forest conservation, including South Coast organisation Brooman State Forest Conservation Group.

Group spokesperson Takesa Frank said NSW must follow the likes of Western Australian and Victoria when it comes to native forest logging.

Hers is also a personal and passionate campaign.

"I am a proud Aboriginal woman living on Yuin country on the South Coast. In my culture we have deep care and respect for our environment from our oceans and lakes to our forests. Under current NSW policies, we are destroying our country and environment, especially our native forests," she said.

"I live surrounded by the Brooman State Forest in the Shoalhaven and have so my entire life. In 2019-20 I watched the forest burn around me and since then I have heard machines destroy the same forest and watch trees fall from my balcony.

"I am passionate about ending public native logging because I am seeing firsthand the damage caused by NSW Forestry and the logging industry."

The Legislative Assembly is scheduled to debate the petition sometime in September.

The group, In the interim, all high-conservation-value state forests should be transferred to national parks and the use of native forest materials for energy generation (electricity and hydrogen) should be banned immediately.

"The time to end public native logging in NSW is now," Takesa said.