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Stop Forestry Corporation causing ‘serious and irreversible harm’ to burnt out State Forests Aslan Shand
North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) are calling on the government to heed the report and stop logging in NSW’s fire ravaged forests. ‘We are calling upon the new environment Minister, James Griffin, to fulfil his responsibilities and immediately implement the NRC minimalist recommendations to reduce the risks of logging compounding the massive impacts
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n late November 2021 a leaked report revealed that the independent report (on the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approval) from the Natural Resources Commission’s (NRC) to the NSW government to stop logging areas hardest hit by the Black Summer bushfires had been ignored. Once again the
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CHESS by Ian Rogers English Grandmaster Nigel Short is never far from the news, whether it be claiming that women’s brains are wired differently from men’s, which explains why they play worse chess, or announcing that Saudi Arabia had banned the game. (The first claim was refuted quickly, the second went around the world despite being completely bogus.) However, in recent times Short himself has been the news. The former world title challenger caught Covid twice in the past six months, the latter Omicron version last month leaving him in hospital on oxygen for five days. Three weeks after testing positive at the London Classic, Short was in Cattolica, Italy, for the Vergani Cup – and again stirred up controversy when he was outplayed by a lowly ranked local 14-year-old, Lorenzo Candian, in the following manner. 2021 Vergani Cup White: L Candian Black: N Short Opening: French Defence 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 h6!? A Short eccentricity, which led to a spectacular loss against Australia’s Gary Lane at the 2004 Calvia Chess Olympiad. 4.Bd3 c5 5.c3!? cxd4 6.cxd4 dxe4 7.Nxe4 Bb4+ 8.Bd2!? A strange gambit, given that 8.Nc3 is fine for White. 8...Qxd4 9.Bc3 Nc6 10.Nf3 Bxc3+ 11.bxc3 Qd8 12.Bb5 Nf6? A serious oversight. After 12...Qxd1+ 13.Rxd1
Nge7, White must still prove compensation for the pawn. 13.Bxc6+! bxc6 14.Nd6+! Ke7 15.Ne5!! ‘I hadn’t seen this at all,’ admitted Short. 15...Bd7?! 15...Qc7 16.Ndxf7 Rf8 was a better try. 16.Ndxf7 Qc7 17.Qd4! c5 18.Qf4! Rhc8 19.Rd1 Be8 20.Nd6 Nd5 Desperation, but 20...Rd8 loses to 21.Nf5+!! gxf5 22.Ng6+, winning Black’s queen. 21.Nxc8+ Rxc8 22.Qg3 Kf8 23.0-0 Kg8 24.c4 Ne7 25.Rfe1 Nf5 26.Qa3 Nd4 27.Qh3 Bf7 Here White’s phone alarm went off, handing Black the point on forfeit. Such incidents are far from unknown and there the matter might have rested, but for Short’s comment: ‘I was totally outplayed today by a 14-year-old kid, with an Elo of 1966. I had two choices: either resign, or play on stubbornly and wait for his phone to ring. I chose the latter, and he was instantly forfeited.’ The strange phrasing led many to suspect that Short was indirectly accusing his opponent of somehow cheating through his phone. Short’s supporters pointed to Candian’s nearperfect play from move 13 onward, while others ridiculed the notion that a mobile phone in a bag could be useful. Short’s vague wording and unwillingness to elaborate enabled him to stay above the fray. Short’s form did not improve in later rounds while Candian has been as inconsistent as any teenager, mixing good games with bad. As with most of Short’s controversies, this is a storm in a teacup.
16 The Byron Shire Echo `ëŕƖëſƷ Ǩǩǽ ǩǧǩǩ
of the 2019-20 fires, including on koalas,’ NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh said. ‘It is now over six months since the NRC advised the Ministers for Environment and Foresty to immediately tell the Forestry Corporation to implement their recommendations, until the logging rules were changed.’ Mr Pugh has said instead of implementing NRCs recommended changes it has been ‘back to business as usual’ for the Forestry Corporation. ‘The Forestry Corporation rampage through forests knowingly and intentionally causing serious and irreversible harm to forests and species severely affected by the 2019–20 fires while Ministers refuse to do their duty and stop Forestry’s excesses. ‘The NRC recommended that logging stop immediately in Taree Management Area because of the extreme risk logging would cause serious and irreversible harm, a month later Forestry started logging the only unburnt State Forest (Yarratt) and they are still at it,’ explained Mr Pugh. ‘In burnt parts of the Casino Management Area the NRC recommend that Forestry protect some unburnt and lightly burnt forests in temporary Fire Offsets for three years postfire. Additionally, because of the widespread burning of hollow-bearing trees, the NRC recommended the retention of additional
Burnt koala habitat following the Black Summer fires of 2019/20. Photo supplied mature trees where there are less than eight hollowbearing trees per hectare remaining, and the retention of the next 16 “largest (recruitment) trees” per hectare as potential future hollow-bearing trees. ‘Camira State Forest (near Whiporie) is the only one where Forestry have pretended to comply, though as proof they are bereft of any shred of ecological integrity they have put aside the most heavily burnt and logged areas in Fire Offsets, while intending to log most of the four per cent of the forest that escaped the worst of the fires.
Preliminary inspection reveals koalas present ‘Worse still the Forestry Corporation have re-released their 2019 logging plan for the koala hotspot of compartments 6 and 7 Braemar State Forest and their 2020 logging plan for Myrtle State Forest, without any attempt whatsoever to apply the NRC recommendations.’
This koala survived the 2019–2020 Black Summer fires at Braemar State Forest. Photo Dailan Pugh NEFA says that since the fires they have undertaken surveys to identify places where koalas survived the fires in Braemar and Myrtle State Forests, which are now proposed for logging instead of protection as Fire Offsets. ‘Some 75 per cent of the already depleted koalas in the Banyabba Area of Regional Koala Significance, covering the Richmond lowlands, were killed in the 2019–20 fires, along with tens of thousands of koala feed trees,’ said Mr Pugh. ‘And now the Forestry Corporation are intent on
attacking koalas and their feed trees in their remaining refuges.’ NEFA say they have provided details of these failures to implement the NRC recommendations to Minister Griffin and’ implored’ him to ‘please fulfil his responsibilities and take action to stop causing serious and irreversible harm to forests and koalas’. ‘Taking action to protect the ecological values of public forests is clearly in the public’s best interest, the Minister must act urgently,’ says Mr Pugh.
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