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Terania Creek Logging

Reference 25

Late last week it appeared as if the message, after five years, is at last getting through. In the forest, as foresters were felling trees. it became impossible to guarantee the safety of polrce and conservationists in the area being logged. As police cleared one area, people crept back into the forest from other areas and risked serious injury. Because of this, the Forestry Commission placed a week long moratorium on logging.

Coincidentally , the NSW National Parks and Wildlife service last week, issued a preliminary report on Terania saying that the area was of spiritual significance of the Bungalung Aboriginal tribe and should not be touched until a thorough study had been done on this matter. Evidence of Aboriginal inhabitation has been found in a cave close to the logging area. The Aboriginal liaison officer with the NSW select committee on Aboriginal Affairs. Burnam Burnam, was so angry with the Forestry -Commission last week that he asked John Bruce, a senior forester for the area. to meet him in the Terania Forest last Friday morning.

He threatened to subpoena' Bruce r over the way Aboriginal sacred places had been endangered through the logging operation. At the Terania Camp meeting on Friday morning. Burnam praised the conservationist's for their stand. and described 'them as "the new aboriginals of Australia."

But if the Terania battle is won on the aboriginal issue, as it may well be, this still leaves other forests under threat. The halt to logging for the next week has at least allowed further discussion and lobbying to occur on all fronts of the struggle. and possibly some more sanity will be introduced into the issue again.