Charcoal burner over the border
Eighteen months ago conservationists successfully fought off a proposal to log and burn the western NSW Pilliga and Goonoo forests to create charcoal for a silicone plant at Lithgow. It was another plan for a massive woodchip operation, only this time in the ironbark and box forests.
The proponents have been quietly sniffing about for alternative forests to plunder ever since. News just in states that the charcoal burner could go ahead at Mogo on the NSW south coast near Batemans Bay. It would be fed by 200,000 tonnes of trees annually from everywhere within economical reach of a log truck.
As the surrounding regions have now been RFA’d (similar to being “Jeffed”) there is no obligation for any environmental impact study for the wood supply and it appears there would only be a token EIS for the burner and its impacts.
If this goes ahead, it will further entrench a massive additional woodchipping operation in SE Australian forests, including East Gippsland.