Australia has the worst record for wildlife destruction of any modern nation. Most of the forests in NSW have already been destroyed, mainly for cattle and sheep. The remaining forests have been grossly mismanaged by State forestry organisations for decades. Our unique native animals are becoming more vulnerable and endangered every year as their habitat is destroyed on public and private land. The catastrophic recent decline of Koalas in this state is merely a symptom of a vast ecological tragedy occurring on our watch.

Now most of the laws protecting these last forests have been thrown out by the Baird Liberal/National State Government. Landholders have been given open slather to destroy trees on land they occupy (In NSW no-one actually 'owns' land, but are its occupiers and therefore its custodians). Loggers are now 'clear felling' (Newspeak for totally annihilating) our publicly owned native forests and turning them into monoculture plantations of dubious market potential, killing all the wildlife and permanently destroying their homes while denuding alarmingly steep hills of all soil.

Soil, gravel and rocks are being washed into our waterways, trashing them and destroying the last clean water courses in the State. Our water catchments are in dire peril. Most of our rivers and creeks are ALREADY  undrinkable, turbid, poisoned streams, mainly due to disastrous logging and mining practices.

Almost all environmental protections and sensible precautions have been removed from forested land in NSW. Some forests are being COMPLETELY destroyed for multinational mining corporations, leaving vast, unremediated toxic pits where marvellous, unique forests stood. And these operations run entirely at a loss, subsidised to the tune of many millions by Australian taxpayers. This is thoroughly unsustainable on every conceivable level.

Our children will look back on this moment in their history and wonder what drove us to such heartless, thoughtless, uneconomic madness. Mr Baird, you have the chance to become the hero that turned all this around - to bequeath a rich, healthy world to our descendants - or you can be remembered as the vandal who destroyed everything worthwhile in this State at such a monumental loss on so many levels.

Reinvigorate the Native vegetation Act, ban the slaughter of our endangered animals and plants and reinstate the multiple use policies that applied to State Forests in the past - don't turn our native forests into toxic plantations - and enforce the laws that protect our forests and waterways!

Our children's future is in your hands. The lives of all our unique wildlife are in your hands. Be a real hero. Save their world.