logging_in_national_parks_letter_to_ed

Letter to the editor of regional media
Andrew Constance MP and Premier Barry O'Farrell have both told us this week that the Government has no plans to log National Parks.
I am not reassured by this. They ?had no plans to allowing hunting in National Parks? either and we all know what happened there.
Even without that precedent I would be worried. The very first time I met Mr Constance, shortly after he was elected in  2003, he sounded out a group of conservationists on precisely this plan- to do a "tenure swap", putting some areas of National Park into State Forest (thus opening them up for logging) and substituting former State Forest.
We were dumbfounded and rejected the idea then as we reject it today.
Some of us had hopes for Mr Constance. He was parachuted into the seat of Bega from Sydney and one of his most vigorous and vociferous opponents within the Liberal Party against his preselection was the then General Manager of the Eden chipmill, John Sparkes. We mistakenly assumed he must therefore had some empathy with the environment and the forests. We only made that mistake once.
Sincerely
Harriett Swift