Chester Forest Rescue Camp Steps Up (Australia)

2008-11-23
Local and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers cam­paign­ing to save over 800 hectares of rare, pris­tine for­est in WA’s south­west have set up a tree plat­form and sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty camp in the Chester for­est block after camp­ing on near­by pri­vate prop­er­ty for the last few months. The move comes as the For­est Prod­ucts Com­mis­sion (FPC) starts to mark out Dieback infect­ed areas and log­ging roads into the coupe. A call­out has been made to all to get down and sup­port the cam­paign.

Chester platform2008-11-23
Local and oth­er com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers cam­paign­ing to save over 800 hectares of rare, pris­tine for­est in WA’s south­west have set up a tree plat­form and sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ty camp in the Chester for­est block after camp­ing on near­by pri­vate prop­er­ty for the last few months. The move comes as the For­est Prod­ucts Com­mis­sion (FPC) starts to mark out Dieback infect­ed areas and log­ging roads into the coupe. A call­out has been made to all to get down and sup­port the cam­paign.

After sev­er­al months on pri­vate prop­er­ty near Mar­garet Riv­er, the Chester For­est Res­cue Camp has moved into the for­est as the log­ging date draws clos­er and the FPC begins to mark out log­ging areas and roads with­in the coup. A tree plat­form has been erect­ed and a com­mu­ni­ty camp set up on the edge of the coupe for what is expect­ed to be an ongo­ing cam­paign to save over 800 hectares of a world reco­ginsed bio­di­ver­si­ty hotspot.

Chester For­est Block is sit­u­at­ed South of the Black­wood Riv­er in WA’s south­west, approx­i­mate­ly 40km’s south-east from the town of Mar­garet Riv­er. It is com­prised pre­dom­i­nate­ly of Jar­rah and Marri(Redgum) wood­land with sea­son­al­ly wet low­land and a patch of Kar­ri towards the mid­dle of the coupe. There is a high num­ber of threat­ened and pri­or­i­ty endem­ic plant species (species that only occur with­in the local plant com­mu­ni­ty) with Chester For­est hav­ing a very high degree of species rich­ness. A large patch of for­est with­in the coupe and sur­round­ing Nature Reserve remains unin­fect­ed from Phy­topthera dieback ( see http://www.dwg.org.au/index.cfm?objectid=2C607FE0-C09F-1F3C-C87C8B2114B042F3) which threat­ens to destroy and degrade much of the For­est. The FPC plans to log right in the mid­dle of the unin­fect­ed, healthy for­est. Log­ging the for­est and all the dis­tur­bance that comes with it (Machin­ery, altered water flow, roads etc.) will only accel­er­ate the spread of Dieback with­in Chester and sur­round­ing pris­tine for­est and wood­land. Log­ging is expect­ed to com­mence in ear­ly Jan­u­ary.

With the effects of log­ging on Cli­mate Change, increase salin­i­ty, and ecosys­tem col­lapse now well doc­u­ment­ed, and 85 per­cent of WA’s native forests already gone, it is unac­cept­able that native forests con­tin­ue to be logged for tiny (some­time neg­a­tive) prof­its for indus­try and gov­ern­ment depart­ments. It is now well known that our forests pro­vide much more than just wood. They pro­vide us with clean air, water, healthy soil and sta­ble ecosys­tems to sup­port life as we know it.

Come and join the cam­paign to save Chester For­est and build the com­mu­ni­ty voice that is need­ed to stop the log­ging of our pre­cious nat­ur­al resources.

Get in touch with the Mar­garet Riv­er Envi­ron­ment Cen­tre (Ph/fax. 9758 8078)
Or call 0422535328 for more info and direc­tions to camp.
(a map will be post­ed soon for direc­tions to camp)

West­ern Aus­tralian For­est Alliance
Glob­al Warm­ing For­est Group