THE traditional functions of NSW’s historic Pilliga forest, which has been home to the cypress pine industry for more than a century, are under threat from state government moves to lock up the area in national parks and nature reserves.

Many a Sydney house was built with the high quality cypress pine of the Pilliga, a 750,000 hectare semi-arid forest and scrub in northern central NSW between the Warrumbungle and Nandewar ranges .

All of which alarms the farmers and timber workers who live in and around the Pilliga. Farmers whose leases run into the edge of thePilliga believe their operations will become unviable if the Pilliga is locked up.

RURAL

THE traditional functions of NSW’s historic Pilliga forest, which has been home to the cypress pine industry for more than a century, are under threat from state government moves to lock up the area in national parks and nature reserves.

Many a Sydney house was built with the high quality cypress pine of the Pilliga, a 750,000 hectare semi-arid forest and scrub in northern central NSW between the Warrumbungle and Nandewar ranges .

But the post-war building boom is now long gone. Most of the old- fashioned, often ramshackle looking mills that characterised theregion have closed over the past two decades, victims of modern occupational health and safety requirements.

Last Friday NSW Premier Bob Carr released his position statement Action for the Environment, which declared the Government was now focusing on western NSW, with a $7.9 million acquisition program for lands to be included in a reserve system.

The first stage of the Government’s review is known as the Brigalow Belt South Regional Assessment, which contains the Goonoo and Pilliga forests. The report is due at the end of 2002 and is to assess environmental, economic, social and cultural values; theprocess being coordinated with other government programs including salinity, native vegetation conservation and catchment management.

All of which alarms the farmers and timber workers who live in and around the Pilliga. Farmers whose leases run into the edge of thePilliga believe their operations will become unviable if the Pilliga is locked up.

But the moves have been welcomed by powerful green groups such as the National Parks Association, which has heralded theGovernment’s statements as “one of the most significant breakthroughs for conservation in western NSW for many years.”

Western woodlands officer for the association David Paull said they were “very happy” and dismissed local concerns, which are many.

A delegation calling itself the Pilliga Push came to Sydney last month determined that unlike other parts of the state, the locals would not have national parks and nature reserves pushed upon them unwillingly.

Timber workers who continue to derive a living from the Pillaga, and the surrounding property owners who use the area to graze cattle, believe that government moves could be disastrous not just for the region’s economy but, ironically, for the environment as well.

The Pilliga — made famous by Eric Rolls’s book A Million Wild Acres – is a unique forest in that it requires constant human interference in order to remain productive. In the late 1800s the area looked nothing like the forest conservationists now have their eyes on. If thetrees aren’t thinned the cypress sprouts up like grass, the trees gridlock in early adolescence and can remain locked for more than a hundred years. It makes for a dark and unhealthy forest.

Prior to European settlement this thinning was achieved by regular burning off by Aborigines, which kept the country open and allowed the trees space to grow. Since the cypress industry got under way early last century the thinning has been done manually. It is hot, hard and poorly paid work. But timber operations in the Pilliga still keep seven mills operating, providing employment for 155 people.

The Pilliga Push, otherwise known as the South Brigalow Conservation Management Committee, has presented NSW parliamentarians with a list of demands. The Pilliga locals see no reason why the Government, rather than taking land out of production, can’t work with landholders.

“The conservation-at-any-cost people want to lock up large areas of the Pilliga as national park, which is more about idealism than conservation outcomes,” said group leader, farmer Rod Young.

He said the complex Regional Forest Agreement process in other parts of NSW had led to a loss of jobs and productive farm land.

“If the Government wants to resume our land, whether it’s freehold or leasehold, it should only be in co-operation with the landholder,” Mr Young said.

Demands to the Government include that leased land not be subjected to resumption regardless of the nature of the lease, that no privately managed land be placed in reserve or national park, that demonstrable conservation outcomes be specified, and there be a full social and economic impact assessment.

Mayor of Coonabarabran Fred Clancy says people in the area do not want a national park and believe such moves will only lock up thearea with no conservation gains. “We don’t want quarantining of the land,” he said.

Conservation director for NSW Farmers Matthew Crozier said regional forestry agreements were incredibly complex and non-see- through processes which had left many farmers and landholders dissatisifed, if not outraged. “This is an area that relies on its land-based industries for its wellbeing,” he said. “This policy is unacceptable to the rural community. There is a need for consultation, not the sledgehammer approach currently being adopted.”

Forestry worker Robert Madden from Baradine said koalas had never been seen in the area when he was a boy, now they are a common sight.

He said the present forest management practices created bio- diversity. Left to their own devices cypress trees locked up into impenetrable thickets of no use for conservation. “We live a long way from Sydney and there appears to be no local consultation,” he said. “The bureaucrats tell us we will have input; it hasn’t happened. All we will get left with is a decision that we have to live with, foisted upon us by people who in the main have never even been here.”

What the surrounding agents say

* Nigel Boyce of Porters For Property in Gunnedah:

The government moves would make it very hard to sell the surrounding mixed farming properties because no one would know whether they are going to be taken over. He said to be viable properties needed to be at least 2,000 acres in size and be able to run at least 300 breeders (cattle).

“It will affect land values badly,” Mr Boyce said. “Rural properties are hard enough to sell now, you don’t need another difficulty.”

* Greg Doolan of Player, Doolan and Korff in Coonabarabran:

If a national park went ahead farms would be much harder to sell. “This is not high priced country, mainly because of its isolation,” he said. “But it is good farming country, fetching around $440 a hectare.

“If they stop logging it would destroy the forest, which is one of the greatest assets of the area. The unemployment burden would increase, we’ve already lost sleeper cutters, and that all impacts on neighbouring towns and the cost of houses in the villages.”