“We are really concerned that this proposed trial of steep land cable logging will just be a first step to cable logging the huge area that has been identified by Forestry Corporation as suitable. We are concerned that this extreme style of logging is still on the books,” Nambucca Valley Conservation Association (NVCA) representative Lyn Orrego said.

“This steep, erodible country has been off limits to logging for many years, due to past incidents of massive erosion, sedimentation of our streams, and landslips following our normal intensive rainfall over summer.

“The trees on these steep slopes literally hold the country together.

“A forested catchment generates clean and abundant water, provides homes for our native wildlife, including the many forest-dependent threatened species such as the koala.  Furthermore, with climate change getting a grip, a mature forest stores carbon, contributing to the solution of this major problem,” she said.

The association has written to the Environment and Lands and Water Ministers asking for a moratorium on the plan until they visit the areas identified for this style of logging.

Nambucca Shire councillor Paula Flack, also a member of the NVCA said the Ministers had been invited to tour the relevant native forest areas.

“(Labor leader) Luke Foley ruled out this extreme form of logging during the recent election. Labor has committed to declaring a much needed Great Koala National Park over the same areas the Baird Government is looking at for cable logging,” North Coast Environment Council spokesperson Susie Russell said.

“Koalas have disappeared from over 75 per cent of their former range in NSW and they are extremely vulnerable to logging which destroys their habitat not to mention the fires that often take place after logging.

“Koalas and 32 other forest dependent threatened species are in dire straits due to the intensification of logging as timber runs out due to it being over allocated for many years.”