By Daniel Honan
Community opposition to logging at Tuckers Nob State Forest near Gleniffer has intensified, with local campaigners reporting a new protest site has been established and alleging Forestry Corporation of NSW has released a logging plan for the forest’s plantation compartments.
The plantation zones, covering roughly 1,678 hectares of the approximately 4,375-hectare forest, were excluded when the NSW Government announced the proposed Great Koala National Park boundary in September last year. A logging moratorium that applies within the park does not cover those areas, and Forestry Corporation has continued or kept harvest operations scheduled in the plantation compartments.
Local resident and campaigner Charlotte Rogers said opposition had grown following what she described as the release of a Forestry Corporation logging plan, with a new protest site set up in support of Senior Gumbaynggirr Lore Elder Aunty Alison Buchanan.
“Cultural as well as environmental values are now under threat,” Ms Rogers said in a statement to BSN. “No threatened species have been mapped and no consultation of the Gumbaynggirr elders has occurred.”
She said letters of complaint had been sent to federal and state ministers for environment, agriculture and Aboriginal affairs.
THE Forestry Corporation of NSW has previously said operations at Tuckers Nob are confined to plantation established on formerly cleared farmland, that operators are trained to search for koalas and inspect trees before felling, and that the timber supplies regional products including power poles, sawlogs and pulp.
A December 2024 survey of approximately 142 hectares of the plantation compartments, led by researchers from CQUniversity and Griffith University using scat searches and thermal drone imagery, recorded at least 25 koalas and identified patches of remnant original forest. The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal WILD, argued the areas should be reclassified as koala habitat.
Aunty Alison Buchanan is a publicly active Senior Gumbaynggirr Lore Woman. In March this year, she was named in a Land and Environment Court finding in which Forestry Corporation was ordered to pay $450,000 for cultural harm after failing to identify culturally significant trees in Wild Cattle Creek State Forest.
Community actions at Tuckers Nob’s plantation compartments along Roses Road began in early 2024, and campaigners have continued to call for the forest’s inclusion in the proposed park.