Clarence
Valley Environment Centre
Winter 2000 Newsletter
Green Policing
On the weekend of the 13-14 May there was a Green Policing workshop at Nymboida. Green Policing is basically enforcing the law in the bush.
The main focus of the workshop was the Threatened Species License and changes to license conditioning under the Integrate Forestry Operations Approval (IFOA).
The Threatened Species License is the act under which all other acts governing forestry activities are carried out. The TSL specifies many conditions which all forestry operations on public land must comply with.
For example, ten hollow-bearing trees must be retained for every two hectares (something like one tree per 60-70 metres).
The TSL also states which trees are suitable for retention. Stream exclusion zones ten metres each side for small drainage channels to 50 metres each side for larger streams are also specified in the TSL.
Specific prescriptions also apply to certain threatened species such as:
- the Yellow-bellied Glider (50 metre exclusion zone around the tree)
- Glossy Black Cockatoo
- Hastings River Mouse
- Large Forest Owl (landscape approach).
There alre also provisions for protecting modelled koala habitat based on computer-generated map layers.
With all this new information bouncing around in our heads, we then went to the forest to put it into practice.
We did a pre-logging and a post-logging survey and learnt to identify habitat/recruitment trees. We learned to use hip-chains and measured boundaries. We also discovered several breachs of conduct where a tree was felled inside a ridge and headwater habitat exclusion zone (tsk, tsk). What's more... the tree had been felled deliberately inside the exclusion zone and dragged out again to be cut (another no-no).
The Environment Centre has a copy of the TSL, so if I haven't told you enough, come and have a look for yourself.
Anyone interested in scouting any current or proposed compartments please visit the centre for maps and details.
Clarence Environment Centre
17 Skinner Street
South Grafton NSW 2460 Australia
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Clarence Environment Centre
Ph/Fax: (02) 6643 1863
Email: cesjc@nor.com.au