Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, I rise this evening to speak about a community meeting that I attended last Friday in Lilydale. This meeting was a forest meeting, and it was run by the Wilderness Society, but it was very much a community event. It was attended by over 150 people at the Safe Co Facility, and people were spilling out onto the footpath.
There was so much interest within the community to know what is happening with the forests around Lilydale and Mount Arthur. What was also interesting was that there was a wide cross‑section of the community there, so it was not just people who would typically support protecting forests – there were many people across the community who were interested in being there.
We know that this community has a long history of caring for their forests. I have heard from people in the community who say they see themselves as protectors of the mountain. They love Mount Arthur, they love the forests on it, and they live around the base of the mountain and see themselves as the guardians and protectors.
We know that the community have done amazing work in the past to protect the forests there. Back in the early 2000s, they formed a group who did quite incredible work in assessing the value of the forests out there and identifying the many species of animals, plants and trees that were out there. They were able to tabulate all the value of the forests, not just heart value, but also actual value in terms of species there.
They identified the Mount Arthur burrowing crayfish that was living there and the iconic Eucalyptus delicatensis. We know also that there is Mount Arthur Boronia, only found on Mount Arthur – nowhere else in the world. These are incredible forests that have really precious species living amongst them. We also know that these forests provide mature habitat for the swift parrot and for masked owls. I do not think that we associate forests with the north-east very much or with Bass, because so much of it has been lost, but that is what makes these forests incredibly precious.
They were protected through the community’s actions back in the 2000s, and some of the reasons that they were protected was because they were recognised as being remnant forests. There were reserved areas and some non-reserved areas, and the land that was protected was recognised for the connectivity that it provided. That connectivity was crucial for the animals and the plants in that area and provided an opportunity for that habitat to be protected in ways that was necessary for species in that area.
We know that the forests around Mount Arthur are also the watershed for Launceston’s water supply, and that was another reason that those forests were protected. It is incredibly troubling to hear that those forests are now under threat. The Greens, along with the Wilderness Society, were able to identify from right to information requests that the forests around Mount Arthur are on a priority list for the government to log. That is deeply concerning because the forests are precious, because the community love them, and because the community are active in their forests – they hike there, they live there, they run businesses there that rely on those forests. It is deeply distressing for the community to know that those forests are under threat. That was why so many of them came on Friday night to hear what was happening.
We will be continuing to work with the community. I know that the Wilderness Society will also be working with them and fighting and making it clear that these forests are valuable, they are precious. They must not be cut down. They must be protected as they have been protected. The protections must not be reversed, but they must be kept in place. These forests have far too much value for us to lose them, to throw them away for woodchips. They need to stay standing.
