"PROTESTERS with two logging trucks greeted Premier Steve Bracks and Environment Minister John Thwaites yesterday as they launched the Great Otway National Park.
The state's newest national park... covers 103,000 hectares of coastline and rainforest along the Otway Ranges in the south-west. The new park comprises the existing Otway National Park, the Angahook-Lorne, Carlisle and Melba Gully state parks and tracts of former state forest. The national park will put an end to the timber industry in much of the region, for many years the scene of clashes between loggers and environmentalists. ... a further 40,000 hectares, known as the Otway Forest Park, has been set aside for trail-bike riding, four-wheel-driving, horseback touring and, for now, some logging. Mr Bracks said the native forest logging would be phased out in the Otways by 2008... ... The park would protect old-growth forest and 43 threatened plants and animal species including .. spiral sun orchid [Thelymitra matthewsii]" http://the.standard.net.au/articles/2005/12/12/1134235974848.html *********** Regards, VB _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
