The issue of illegal clearing of vegetation around Bermagui's Salty Lagoon has once again reared its head.
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Last Friday, a community meeting was held at the site attended by about 50 people concerned about the illegal activity.
It was an issue attendees clearly felt deeply, with one claiming "people's lives have been threatened with what's going on", while another was concerned about the bushfire risk saying "if we had a fire like Cobargo had none of us would have a chance here".
Salty Lagoon Nature Reserve Landcare Group member Gary McCarthy said the clearing had been taking place for the last five years and there used to be a "beautiful canopy of trees, but now it's all decimated".
Visitors can clearly see trees that have been cut or snapped within the reserve.
Mr McCarthy also pointed out a nearby location along Bermagui River on River Rd, where he claimed 11 trees on council reserve had been felled early in the morning on New Year's Day.
Djiringanj elder Gary Campbell, who said there were fresh water pits around the lagoon, said two years ago he and others planted about 90 trees at the lagoon but "somehow trees are just going missing again".
"If this is going to keep going on we are going to stay here and watch it and put the trees back where they belong," he said.
He said Merrimans Local Aboriginal Land Council owned four blocks around the lagoon, but had chosen not to build on the sites.
"We've left that as reserve for our children's futures," Mr Campbell said.
Bega Valley Shire Council compliance officer Christopher Pearson confirmed to those at the meeting that clearing in the Salty Lagoon reserve was illegal without written authorisation from council.
"Exemptions do exist, but my advice would be to make those calls to council first," he said.
He also said council had a "backlog of investigations" and speaking from a compliance point of view it was very hard to build a brief of evidence against an offender.
READ 2016 REPORT: Damage at Salty Lagoon
Bega Valley Shire councillors Jo Dodds, Cathy Griff and Liz Seckold attended the meeting and afterwards Cr Griff said the number of jobs that had been cut in forest management, both National Parks and Wildlife Service and state forests, should be reversed to reduce the risk of bushfires occurring.
"This situation, long-standing in Bermagui at several sites, is concerning because the fire crisis has given a sense of entitlement for understandably anxious groups to take the law into their own hands who think they are somehow reducing fire danger," she said.
"However, while planned and careful hazard reduction is obviously warranted, this idea of large-scale burning saving us is a fantasy and destructive to the very environment that has drawn us all here."
Cr Griff said the councillors who attended the meeting would report the scale of damage to senior council staff as well as the level of community concern, saying to tackle the problem council needed to install signage in the place of illegally felled trees, bring in more compliance resources and seek resources for cultural burning programs.
