It certainly thinks so.

It's website proudly proclaims: "Sustainable forest management is about finding a balance between all the different ways people use forests while maintaining the unique forest features the community values like biodiversity, clean air and water, habitat and cultural heritage. It is the key to managing forests for the long term". 

Its Tarkeeth Case Study says it "has been managing timber-harvesting alongside forest-based tourism for many years", that it "invests in developing recreational roads, walking and bike trails in local forests and plantations...in tandem with harvesting operations".

Fine words rarely adhered to in practice. FC’s modus operandi is to advise residents who live near to its proposed operations by letter, promising consultation, and requesting that they respond to the harvest plans as private individuals. 

There is no balance between commercial imperatives and community values. FC views the Shire as an industrial opportunity. This was taken to the extreme in the Tarkeeth where the drive for dollars saw FC clearfelling the nature strip outside the state forest boundary along the public road to residents' homes, and camping on the public crown reserves like an occupying army. And it wonders why it cannot get on with the neighbours!

And that tourist wonderland?

Tarkeeth is the closest forest to Bellingen town, Waterfall Way and South Arm Road, and the local forest for residents of Marx Hill, Fernmount, Raleigh, Tarkeeth and Brierfield. It is reasonable to expect recreational use of the forest to be strongly supported by FC.

Yet, to the contrary, there is not a single picnic area to support recreational activities either within the forest or on the Kalang River. Residents and visitors cannot even drive through the forest between Waterfall Way and the Kalang River because the public roads are not maintained.

We learned the hard way that the outcome of FC’s community engagement and consultation is merely notification of what has already been decided as it conducts a minimum of ecological and cultural assessments, appropriates council and crown roads for haulage, closes large tracts of the people's forest to transit and recreational use, and operates heavy machinery without regard for standard operating hours in an area close to town and surrounded by family homes. 

Residents and ratepayers deserve more than this. As harvesting has an ongoing, and cumulative impact upon our environment, planning must take into account the impact on the Shire, on residents, on the local amenity, and on our river catchments. 

Community engagement in the process should not be confined to “Dear Forest Neighbour” letters, fine words, and faux consultations with individual, and hence isolated residents, but rather, should take place in an open, transparent, and collaborative community environment.

There must be ongoing stakeholder involvement, meaningful consultation, dialogue and communication. Council and local environmental groups should respond to, and seek input into the harvest plans, including environmental safeguards, and mitigation measures that will protect residents and the local amenity. 

And Forestry Corporation should listen to the community and respond with actions rather than mere words.