Save Bulga Forest Today – This is an invitation to join our small community in resisting the logging of our precious Bulga Forest on Biripi country just down the road from our home.
We are inviting as many people as possible to Falls Camp, our base camp in the Ellenborough Falls campground from January 8th onwards to help us halt logging in the Bulga Forest. It will be safe, fun, peaceful, respectful and life-changing.
“The logging crews are here to cut the trees and we are here to try and save them. But there is no animosity. We all understand that the decisions lie with Government”
“At the Federal level, the Government has signed on to protect 30% of Australia by 2030. If that doesn’t include areas like these forests which are part of a globally recognised biodiversity hotspot, then it is an empty promise. If it doesn’t protect the habitat of endangered and critically endangered plants and animals like those in Bulga Forest, then the promise is more hot air… literally, more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere instead of stored in living trees.
“As for the State Government, it has failed to act on its own scientific advice and protect the largest trees that are left. We think that is criminal. In years to come they may well be called before an international tribunal to answer the crime of ecocide.”
said long-time forest campaigner and Bulga Plateau local, Susie Russell.
Falls Camp is in a lovely public site with some shade, near a river with exquisite swimming holes. You will need to bring a tent, sleeping gear, warm clothes, swimming gear, headtorch, a raincoat, battery pack and food but we will set up a camp kitchen and hope to share meals. There are toilets nearby.
There is also an alternative dry location to camp for differently abled campers which is a few kilometres from Falls Camp. Please reach out to bulgaforest@gmail.com if you’d like to know more.
We are preparing a variety of actions to stand in defence of our precious Bulga forest. Our resistance is peaceful and non-violent but we are prepared to be arrested to #SaveBulgaForest if we need to.
There are also many creative and non-confrontational ways to be involved that won’t risk arrest like making cuppas, creative prop making, minding camp and holding signs. We need photographers, storytellers, film-makers, social media magicians, media peeps plus worker and police liaisons. We need cooks and carers. We need scouts and labourers. We need musicians, poets, celebrities, politicians and all people of good heart!
So come if you can and stand with us. We are a small community and really need your solidarity.
If you can’t come in person, amplify our voice, share our posts, contact politicians, check out Save Bulga Forest on Biripi Country 2429 on Facebook, Save Bulga Forest Today, email bulgaforest@gmail.com for more info.
Directions are simple: Turn off the Pacific Highway at Taree, head to Wingham then follow the signs to Ellenborough Falls, it’s on Tourist Route 8 if you’re coming from the Pacific Highway.
Logging stopped AGAIN by locals in Bulga State Forest, Biripi Country
21 December 2022 – Santa arrived overnight to lift the spirits of those trying to protect the Bulga State Forest. Perched on a tree platform suspended from a tall gum tree, the ropes link together trees due to be cut today.
Anti-logging protests ramp up in Bulga State Forest as NSW government responds to inquiry
22 December 2022 – via ABC – Residents living near the Bulga State Forest in New South Wales have launched a protest against native forest logging in the area saying the region is still recovering from bushfires.
“This area burnt in 2019 when the bushfires raged across our neck of the woods. It is clearly a recovering forest … and the animals that lived in the forest have certainly not recovered.
“We’ve got global leaders meeting [at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference] in Montreal saying the world needs to do more to protect the world’s forests … and yet in our backyard these trees are falling.”
Plan needed to end native logging – While protests against native forest logging ramp up, the state government has released its response to an Upper House inquiry into the long-term sustainability and future of the timber and forest products industry.
The government supported, or supported in principle, 16 of the inquiry’s 24 recommendations.
World Wildlife Fund Australia conservation scientist Stuart Blanch said the response was a missed opportunity to commit to transitioning away from native forest logging.
“What we are calling for is a strong plan that ends the native forest logging era in NSW and puts us on a very firm, well-funded transition to a plantations-based timber and fibre sector”
Stuart Blanch said
Bulga Plateau locals blockade forest
19 December, 2022 – via Echo – Locals from the Bulga Plateau have vowed to resist attempts by what they say is the State-owned logging corporation’s carnage in Bulga State Forest, and to that end this morning they blocked access to the logging zone.
‘If Dom Perrotet won’t stand up to the National Party cabal that make the resource decisions in NSW, we will.
‘It’s time for ordinary people, all of us to #StandUp4Forests and #SaveBulgaForest.’
local forest campaigner Susie Russell
NSW forests could become net carbon emitters in coming decades, report finds
5 January 2023 – Via The Guardian – Declining soil organic carbon could undermine state’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050
Forests in New South Wales could become net carbon emitters in coming decades, undermining state government efforts to reach net zero emissions, according to a report by one of its own agencies.
The Natural Resources Commission has warned the Perrottet government the benefits the state’s forests provide are degrading and will continue to degrade without “major intervention”.
The report, published in December, urges the government to avoid “business-as-usual management approaches and reactive policy decision making”, saying this would lead to “sub-optimal outcomes at best, or ecosystem and industry collapse under worst case scenarios”.
Environmentalists, NSW Forestry Corporation at loggerheads over native timber harvesting in key koala habitat (Dorrigo)
7 September 2022 – Via ABC – The battle between environmentalists and the New South Wales Forestry Corporation (FCNSW) over native hardwood logging is intensifying on the Mid North Coast.
Protesters have been locking themselves onto harvesting equipment in the Ellis State Forest, west of Coffs Harbour, and others have entered restricted logging areas to monitor operations.
They say logging in these areas is destroying key koala habitats when the species is at its most vulnerable.
Locals are welcoming supporters to join them on the frontlines to protect what remains of our precious native forests Save Bulga Forest on Biripi Country 2429 for more details.
Native forestry in NSW is directly costing NSW residents $441 per hectare of forest that is destroyed. The hardwood that is harvested from public native forests is a huge waste of the resource considering that most of it goes to low quality uses such as pulp for toilet paper and wood chips for burning offshore.
