mattatcgsJust a few thoughts (and while I have been to the...

mattatcgs

Just a few thoughts (and while I have been to the Pilliga I can't claim to know it well)!

First while it is undoubtedly "disturbed" the presence of Callitris sp is indicative of a fire refuge, ie an area which was unaffected by fire stick agriculture through the millenia it was practised. Fire refuges are typically over-represented by ROTAP species and whatever the fauna equivalent is- (sorry but my interests (and studies) have been on the flora side!)

Second, while doing my post-grad studies I visited a number of blackbutt forest coups- obviously disturbed areas being actively managed by whatever State Forests were called at the time. Harvesting was done using AGS and it was interesting to hear just how restricted thhey were, not only by the AGS method itself, but by exclusions from individual coups needed to maintain habitat. One coup boss told us he was happy to have "greenies" looking the coups over as they had far more man power than he did and found everything- better to have a quoll latrine found before the logging plan was made than have a huge stink once operations were carried out! In the case of the quoll latrine I think the exclusion area was a 200 metre diameter! Anyhow, the point I'm leading up to is that, even though the Pilliga is a disturbed environment, there is no reason to believe there won't be some, possibly major impacts on any proposed operations there.

Third, just like the Forestry pholk I spoke to, there will be precise guidelines which ESG will be forced to comply with. As ESG's current operations are within a State Forest, I'm guessing they'll be all-but identical. Without knowing what species are (or may be) in the immediate operational area, it's hard to guess just how restrictive those guidelines will be.

Fourth, when you say, "This could include some offsets and sensible management measures", you raise a self-evident point. At this early stage of things ESG's "form" hasn't been that good though. I'd have thought they'd have made an effort to comply with the rehabilitation requirements relating to their pipeline to WP- failing to do so isn't a great look.

Fifth, groundwater will, rightly or wrongly be a major issue with this project. The concerns of farmer's in this regard are totally reasonable and understandable. Articles such as this; CSG groundwater concerns 'legitimate' ; are more than indicative of the issues confronting ESG in this regard.

TR