April 4,  2023 / –

Local residents are engaged in a protest action to halt native forest logging in the Doubleduke State Forest.

A 23 year-old Lismore law student, Kashmir Miller, has suspended herself on a platform 25m high in a tree by a rope attached to three NSW Forestry machines.

Miller says, “Native forest logging is accelerating the climate crisis. Every tree cut down is a step further along in the extinction crisis. We need to preserve the amazing, unique biodiversity of Doubleduke for our own sake, as well as the wildlife.”

The 2,600 hectare forest is located 50 km south of Lismore. It was closed by authorities in February as a response to increased protest activity in the area.

The forest was heavily impacted by the 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires, and  is a known habit for several vulnerable and endangered species, including koalas, four species of large forest owls, and the yellow-bellied glider.

Local ecologist, Anastasia Guise, says “the 2019-20 bushfires had a catastrophic impact on threatened species already under enormous pressure from climate change and environmental land use changes on a landscape-scale.”

The Save the Banyabba Koala group have called for a stop to all logging in Doubleduke State Forest.

Guise continues, “This forest is full of old, hollow-bearing trees which are essential habitat for these species, and one of the key features we know were lost right across the landscape during the fires.  

“Extinction is forever. We need to take seriously the protection of species and habitats in the long term, and industrialised logging of native habitat is absolutely counter to that purpose.”

A 2020 inquiry into NSW koala populations and habitat found that without action, koalas in NSW could be extinct by 2050.