South Sister

Reasons not to log Coupe NI 114A

Forestry Tasmania (FT) has failed to respond and satisfactorily answer many questions and issues raised by the St Marys' community in relation to the logging of Coupe NI 114A, South Sister.

It has therefore become necessary to take legal action against FT in relation to the South Sister. FT has stopped consulting and by its recent destructive actions is running rough-shod over the community' concerns about this special mountain. FT began constructing roads on the coupe on Monday February 21, 2005.

This legal action is all about a small community standing up to government bureaucracy and corporations, who place money above environmental and animal protection, consultation with local communities and the health and well-being of people who are living in local communities.

Legal actions through the Resource Management and Planning Appeals Tribunal and/or the Supreme Court of Tasmania seem to be, at present, the only way FT will be controlled and made accountable to the law.

Logging the South Sister:

• - will reduce water supplies to local residents (German Town, Gardiners Creek and Dublin Town) and possible St Marys for up to 56 years (Roberts (FT), 2004)
• - Independent experts state that the risk of landslides on South Sister after logging is high (Stapledon, Rallings, Ingles, Leaman, van der Maesen) and further assessment is required. FT has given no consideration to the major tunneling from the old Jubilee mine that runs under much of the coupe
• - FT has failed to identify in their Forest Practices Plan 24 springs, soaks and wet areas on the coupe as documented by local residents
• - There are no plans to protect biodiversity as demanded by its own Forest Management Plan (FMP)
• - There is no 'strategic management plan' for the threatened species recorded on or around the coupe as mentioned by its own FMP
• - will result in the destruction of habitat for many species, many of which are threatened (listed on Commonwealth and/or Tasmanian Threatened Species List)
• - Logging is likely to destroy the 'line of parapatry' - the geographical line demarcating the habitats of the endangered Blind and rare Giant Velvet Worms. This environment is unique in the world
• - FT has given no consideration to the fact that the South Sister is a cultural and recreational icon and has been since 1802 (painted by an artist on Nicolas Baudin's expedition of the eastern coast of Tasmania)