At the same time, Forests NSW was making its final preparations to log the habitat of a newly discovered small population of koalas in Tanja Forest, possibly the last of the once abundant Bega Valley koalas.

Forests NSW denies it, but the Tanja logging is primarily for woodchips, which cannot be sold in the marketplace.

Eighty-one per cent of trees will go directly to the chip mill and over 90 per cent of the wood taken will ultimately end up there, via sawmills.

Once chipped, they will sit on the stockpile for months to be weathered and contaminated by salt and an uncertain fate.

The chip mill closed this month for some weeks and will do so again next month.

Forests NSW will make a loss on the Tanja logging (and most other native forest logging) and SEFE will not be able to sell the woodchips that it makes from the trees.

All of this begs the question: why on earth is this madness still happening?

Harriett Swift Tanja