We were delighted to attend the High Tea for Can Assist at beautiful Tathra Beach and want to congratulate the caterer and presenters on the high standard of the event. 

Obviously, a great deal of thought had gone into the choice of table decor. 

We are food service providers in Port Douglas and as such, we appreciated the variety, choices and quality of the menu. 

We are aware of how much time and effort is needed for such a high standard. 

Congratulations on a sterling effort. 

We will take the memory of this function with us on our travels around Australia.

Gloria and Keith Atkinson

Port Douglas, Queensland

Hypocrisy 

highlighted

Prue Acton again attacks local industry armed with a handful of green-spun half-truths (BDN, 23/11) and succeeds only in highlighting her lack of knowledge and hypocrisy.

Ms Acton’s career was dependant on woodchipping. 

Without it there would not have been the brochures or magazine pages she used to promote products she made from woodchip-sourced rayon.

The wool she used was shorn from sheep grazing in paddocks cleared of timber, some of it the red gums that koalas depend on for food. 

She sourced cotton from land also cleared of trees, so she is by implication partly responsible for the degradation of koala habitat.

Yet she conveniently forgets all this as she tries to spin the tourism job angle without defining where exactly the “tens of thousands” of people are employed.

Certainly not in the Bega Valley Shire, where the population is no greater than 35,000, but somehow she uses that to dismiss the 300 local families supported by the native timber industry.

Then she tries to describe 40 years of forest management as degradation and blame it for the lack of koalas in the area.

She also ignores the real fate of the koalas that were abundant in the Bega Valley’s red gum habitat.

Rudimentary research shows they were sadly culled during WWI for their fur to make army hats and coats, then their red gum stands were decimated by the railway sleeper industry or cleared for agriculture and thousands were destroyed south of Eden in the 1952 fires.

The handful that is left is scratching around for young leaves of non-preferred feed species in harvest regrowth, as Robert Bertram’s surveys revealed. 

The inconvenient truth is many of the area’s koalas have been discovered in around the Bega Valley have been previously logged, so they seem to be dependant on forest regeneration to survive.

If Ms Acton was fair dinkum about supporting the local koala population, why doesn’t she use her influence and wealth to buy up agricultural land in the area suitable for red gum growth and create a habitat koalas might actually thrive in?

The simple answer is that she, like the local Greens and all the other chip mill opponents, isn’t interested in creating positive alternatives.

A win for them is not a flourishing rural community; it’s the destruction of an industry that supports it. 

That’s what’s really on the nose.

Justin Law

Eden

Caring community

This is just a short note to invite interested people to join a newly established group, The Bega Valley Hospice Group.

Our overarching aim is to improve the experience of people with advancing, incurable disease and their families by:

• lobbying for increased palliative care services in the area;

• ensuring those who need services will receive care in the place of their choice wherever possible;

• educating the public and health professionals about what palliative care is; and

• opening up the conversation about dying and end-of-life care to ensure people are empowered to make choices regarding their care.

Now is an interesting time in palliative care, with the NSW Minister of Health, Jillian Skinner, pledging $35million to improve palliative care within rural communities. 

To join us, find out more and add your presence to the cause, ring Sue on 0417 685 894 or email smiddlew@internode.on.net.

Sue Middlewood

Tathra

Golf course bunkered

As a long-time member and committeeman at Tathra Beach Country Club I was interested to read your article in Tuesday’s BDN (27/11) that Tura Beach Golf Course has been rated as one of the top 100 public golf courses in Australia and I extend my congratulations to Tura on this achievement.

I was also disappointed to see that the article failed to even mention the existence in the shire of what we believe is another great public course (albeit 12 holes) in our own Tathra Golf Course. 

I wish to allay any readers’ concerns the course may have fallen victim to a tsunami (aka “a no namey” in this instance) and disappeared. 

The Royal Tathra Course not only still exists, but continues to receive compliments from members and visitors alike on its condition and layout.

I trust this was just an “air swing” by the author of the article.

Trevor Mace

Tathra Men’s Golf

Climate catastrophe

For some considerable time I have frequently forwarded letters to the editor of the BDN in regard to climate change affecting the Far South Coast of NSW.

I think is about time that we consider the effects of a catastrophic event whether it is a combination of flood, fire, wind or smoke. 

Have we the ability to safely evacuate entire communities to some area of safety, if the roads are blocked by fallen trees? 

I think the residents of Tathra should count the number of trees that could block the road to Bega.

If we have a 100-year flood, how do we get to the new Bega hospital?

Ivor G Williams

Bega

Excellent attitude

Congratulations to the citizens of Eden who put up a strong case against the wind factory invasion, and to the JRPP members who made a good decision based upon the rights of individuals.

Congratulations are also due to Matthew Nott, who in his address to the alternative energy forum in Merimbula recently said that wind (and other) energy developments should take into account the negative visual impact, the noise and the bird strike risk of any such developments. 

This is an excellent, sensitive attitude, and highlights the different morals of those who promote wind farms for environmental motives as opposed to those who promote for financial motives. 

If it is true we need wind farms to save the world, then the quicker the better. 

If the financially driven developers were to follow Matthew Nott’s recommendation, then there would be no need for all the wasted time in protests and discussions, and the wind farms would arise much more quickly. 

Certainly it could cost more to site them out of harm’s way, but the time saved and the angst avoided would surely justify the extra cost of a few more pylons in what is already a very expensive project.

Paul Scherek

Tantawangalo

Seek justice

As regards the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse, I pray to God that such things be revealed and paedophiles be caught.

I therefore encourage any children who are being molested by family members, pastor, police, priest, teacher or any other, that you be not afraid to dob them in to the authorities, who are there to bring these evildoers to justice. 

Richard Merrell

Wentworth Falls

* Letters to the editor are most welcome. They should be no more than 300-400 words and should be typewritten or in clearly legible handwriting. Excessively long letters will be shortened and edited for length and legal concerns. Letters must contain the writer’s name, street address and daytime phone number for verification. Letters can be emailed or posted to the addresses on page four and will be published at the editor’s discretion.