The logging of a series of up to eight adjoining compartments in the Clouds Creek
State Forest was always going to be contentious, given the orgy of destruction
indulged in by Forests NSW (FNSW) 10 years ago.
In 1998, just months before the Forest Agreements were introduced to protect old-
growth forests, FNSW ordered heavy logging across the entire forest, removing
significant areas of old growth and rain forest in the process.
The Operational Harvest Plan (OHP) for compartments 70 and 78 is particularly
vague about the logging history, stating they:
“have been subject to at least two
logging events from 1966 to 1998."
Histories for adjoining compartments, 68 & 69,
are more precise, the OHP showing that logging occurred in 1968; 1974; 1988, and
1998. Anecdotal evidence suggests Compartment 78 has likewise been harvested
every decade, with the stump pictured below, just one of many that remain in the
forest, a reminder of the size and type of trees these forests supported 40 years ago.
CLOUDS CREEK FOREST
A Classic example of a failure to achieve
Ecologically Sustainable Forest Management
Measuring close to two metres in diameter at breast height, this giant Tallowood was harvested several
decades ago. Today the largest remaining harvestable trees measure less than .75 metre in diameter.
