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    • Conservation, environment and concerned citizens groups on the South Coast formed the South East Region Conservation Alliance Inc.(SERCA) in September 2005

    SERCA was incorporated on 2nd June 2008 (INC9889501). At its meeting on 23 October 2010 the South East Region Conservation Alliance resolved unanimously to support an exit from native forest logging on public lands and the Tasmanian Statement of Principles as a basis for reform of native forestry in NSW

    At the same meeting, the South East Region Conservation Alliance resolved unanimously to oppose the use of native forest biomass for electricity generation or any other industrial uses.

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    SERCA proposes

    1. Public native forests managed for carbon sequestration, and water and biodiversity values
    2. Private native forest owners given incentives to conserve forest areas
    3. Existing plantation supplies used for virtually all australias domestic and export uses. No new plantations are needed
    4. No native forest products for woodchips, electricity generation or biofuel Government policy distortions removed
    5. Genuinely clean, green industries developed in the regions, with new industries, new jobs and job training.

    77% of people polled in 2009 want no logging at all in native forests and the Eden chip mill closed. Why do state and federal governments continue to support it when Forestry NSW and Victoria admit to losing millions of dollars supplying pulplogs to the woodchip mills? Australia recognises the importance of foreign forests for climate so why do we continue to subsidise the destruction and degradation of Australian native forests in Tasmania, Victoria and NSW??

    Now there are plans to burn native forest wood for electricity under the Renewable Energy Mandate. This power will undercut and displace true renewable power from wind, solar, tidal and geothermal sources.

    Because Australia has more than enough existing plantation hard and soft woods to supply virtually all our timber and fibre needs we should end the intensive logging of native forests while supporting the transition to existing plantations leaving native forests to mature and store carbon.

    Background briefing on koala requirements, Aboriginal cultural landscape and growing Aboriginal resentment at woodchipping

    “When something of our Aboriginal culture is preserved and cared for the heritage of all Australians, European as well as Aboriginal is richer”

    From the introductory sign at Mumbulla Creek Falls

    From My People’s Dreaming by Max Dulumunmun Harrison. Uncle Max Harrisons words on the logging of Gulaga

    “Just a year after the handback of Gulaga and Biamanga to the Yuin people, forestry went in and cut trees down and disrupted the sacred songlines. When I tried to tell them they shouldn’t do that because it cut the direct line of teaching, it was disregarded. Forestry just overruled it and they persuaded some Yuin people to give the go-ahead. I was disgusted to even think that some of our mob wouldn’t listen; they know the story of the two sisters and our ways and how it told up on that mountain.

    People can’t understand about the sacredness and those songlines, those Dreaming lines. They say cutting trees down at the base of the mountains is not touching sacred sites up top, but they don’t understand about the short circuiting of the spiritual connectedness from one place to the other. As you know, when you drive around the country with your talking sticks – your mobile phones – you can get into what you call dead spots, the spots where you are cut off. This is what these people have done in coercing my mob, who don’t know the deeper of the story where the Dreaming travels to. They have cut the songlines. People cannot understand Aboriginal spiritual connectedness and the lines of connectedness. We have heard the comment before of ‘We’re not logging up on the mountain’. I say, ‘Yes, but the base is the strength, how do you think a mountain becomes a mountain. It comes from the bottom up and peaks at the top. If you haven’t got a strong base then you can’t stand up.”

    We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which we work and live, the Yuin Nation, Wolgalu, Ngarigo, Ngunnawal and Ngambri people(s), and pay our respect to Elders, past, present and emerging.