Will Keneally keep her Red Gum promise?

The Wilderness Society Sydney Inc.
Media Release
2 March 2010

The National Parks Association of NSW and the Wilderness Society Sydney have this morning unfurled a large banner outside the Premier’s office to urge her to deliver today on her promise for large new Red Gum National Parks.

A large banner reading ‘Stop logging the Murray River Red Gum forests’ was strung between the trees outside Governor Macquarie Tower in Sydney. A decision on the future of the forests is expected today.

“This will be a chance to rescue Labor’s abysmal environmental record and put the Premier on the map for the environment” said Belinda Fairbrother, spokesperson for The Wilderness Society.

“The NSW Government has not delivered any major conservation outcomes in this term and delivering on their green promises is crucial to their integrity with the electorate.”

Since 2007 Labor has overseen windbacks in planning laws, massive expansions in coal mining and a blanket approval to a car rally in World Heritage rainforests. Hunting and tourist developments in National Parks are still on the agenda.

“Premier Keneally must create new National Parks across the River Red Gum Forests, as promised, if she wants to be able to present any environmental credentials to the people of NSW” said Carmel Flint, Spokesperson for the National Parks Association of NSW.

“The NSW Government needs to implement the decision of the independent umpire – the Natural Resources Commission.  They mustn’t turn their back on the best technical advice.”

Environmentalists have expressed deep concern around the concept of ‘transitional parks’, where logging is phased out over a number of years.  Millewa forest, the centrepiece of the National Parks system promised last year, is at risk of becoming damaged goods through ‘phase-out’ logging.

“The environmental crisis facing these forests is extreme, with over 80% of trees stressed, dead or dying in some areas.

The forests simply won’t cope with a transitional period that allows logging to continue – logging must end now if there is to be anything left worth placing into National Park” concluded Ms Flint.