Shane Scanlan, Blackwood
I write regarding the story about VEAC’s recommendations for national park status for the Wombat State Forest (‘Higher status for forests’, Midland Express, September 18).
Your observation that “higher status” and “greater conservation protection” has been recommended for the Wombat may not actually be in the forest’s best interest.
The Wombat is a re-grown forest that needs ongoing management. Being locked up and left to its own devices may, in fact, lead to negative environmental consequences. The rare and threatened species you reference will suffer further decline if the forest deteriorates.
Here in the middle of the forest in Blackwood, the local community is vitally interested in this issue. We’d love to know what science has led VEAC to its recommendations but are being denied such an opportunity, with the council refusing a request for a local information meeting.
This refusal adds weight to local suspicions that VEAC is following a pre-determined outcome proposed by ideologically-driven activists from your circulation area.
You appear privileged that chair Janine Haddow gave you her time to explain VEAC’s recommendations.
Her comment that “there is a large amount of recreation that occurs in these forests” is accurate and it’s also plainly obvious that this is the primary source of significant and unsustainable erosion.
But VEAC’s proposed solution does not ban four-wheel-drive vehicles and trail bikes from the forest.
Instead, it bans locals from walking their dogs, collecting firewood from designated areas, camping, riding horses, prospecting and hunting.
Local people genuinely want to know what this exercise is all about.
If it doesn’t actually help preserve and sustain the forest, then why bother?
