Murray Logging Ban No Help to Red Gums

Last week the New South National Parks Association launched a legal challenge to the logging of state forests along the Murray River.  It claims the red gum forests attract more than 20,000 water birds and include extensive wetlands areas.

But interestingly, these forests have been logged since the 1800s and are still biologically diverse so why stop logging now?

Indeed since the 1980s, many of the red gum forests along the Murray River have been recognised as natural or near natural wetlands and listed under the international Ramsar Convention because of their special ecological values.

But they were not always well managed.  During the late 1800s, large quantities of timber were cut for building and operating river boats, gold mining and as sleepers for railways.

The extent of the logging, including along the entire river frontage to a distance of approximately three kilometers from the river bank, resulted in concern that the forest would be entirely cut out.

A Conservator of Forests was appointed in 1888 and his focus was on protecting the forest from over-cutting, controlling over-grazing, introducing silviculture treatment and protecting the forest from fire.  Export duties were imposed to reduce timber removal.

The current extent of many red gum forests along the Murray River is thought to be a result of regeneration from this time which also coincided with a decline in Aboriginal burning.

Significant quantities of red gum timber continued to be harvested during the 1900s.

There were official assessments of the timber resource in places like the Barmah forest beginning in 1929 which continued right through until the early 1980s.

They showed a general increase in trees growing -- not withstanding significant volumes being harvested, and despite river flow regulation since the construction of the Hume Dam in the 1930s.

In the past 25 years, focus has changed from timber production to preserving the forests for their biodiversity values -- but there has still been some logging and grazing in many of the red gum forests along the Murray.

There is now a push from greenies in NSW and Victoria to ban both logging and grazing.

Conservationists are missing an important point -- these forests are a product of careful management by the industry over the last 100 years.  In excluding logging, forest thinning and controlled burning, the ecological values within these forests will inevitably change.

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