Concerned and informed members of the public have been trying to prevent Chester coupe from being logged for some time now. Below is a timetable of events, with links to many of the documents..

September 2005; Chester coupe was nominated to the Conservation Commission as old-growth forest

How Old-Growth forest is assessed

The Consevation Commission method of assessment found that Chester did not comply with the requirements for Old-growth forest or minimally-disturbed jarrah forest

Results and data from assessment

There were a number of issues that were raised by the data collected

• The number of stumps per hectare has been averaged over the whole of the coupe, making the southern section of the coupe appear to be more heavily logged than it has been.
• The assessment of whether a tree os old-growth or regrowth appears to be subjective, and varies quite widely, with trees between 45 and 60 cm diameter varying beteween 'regrowth' and 'mature/senescent' randomly. According to documents used by DEC to assess the age of trees, these jarrah would be aged upwards from 110 years old.

Tree age assessment document

• The canopy assessment, which partly decides the level of disturbance, is done using 'benchmarking' - comparison with an area considered to be relatively undisturbed. In this case, the comparison is with Milyannup block, which although quite close by road, is far away in terms of forest type, as it is on the Blackwood plateau, and Chester is on the Nillup and Scott plains. This is like comparing the Hills suburbs in Perth to the coastal plain woodlandsof Wanneroo.

It was felt that that many of these data anomolies could be explained by the fact that Chester coupe is mainly woodland, (and therefore unavailable for logging), so the Conservation Commission was approached with these findings.

Letter to Conservation Commission

Reply from Cons Comm

It should be noted that although the stump count fits the criteria, the canopy assessment and the (perceived) % regrowth prevents the southern section of the coupe from being assessed as having 'minimal disturbance', and therefore unavailable for logging.

March 2008; Documents were obtained through Freedom of Information about the logging proposal. Areas of concern were local flora and fauna identification and protection, road construction, and forest hygiene, in regard to Jarrah dieback (Phytophthora cinnamomii).

These documents revealed that only desktop searches had been done for both flora and fauna, and only for the roads within the coupe. The presence of a Threatened Ecological Community was not admitted, A roading plan has not, as yet, been submitted.

They also revealed that, despite a large area within the coupe being identified as 'protectable' in regard to Phytophthora cinnamomii, (Pc) the protocols laid out in the Pc management documents - Management of Phytphthora and Disease Caused By It -have not been followed, specifically, a management plan on the prescribed form has not been submitted. Despite this, DEC has 'signed off' on forest hygiene.

Oct 2008; Chester Forest Recue camp established

Jan 2009; The Minister for the Environment was approached with the concerns raised by the FOI documents

Letter to the Minister