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Findings: Surface Damage

Findings: Surface Damage This issue has been the subject of much of the material given previously, but statement of the clauses is necessary in the light of the breadth of non compliance with many of the environmentally related matters contained in the logging agreements:
"The Company shall exercise strict management control over its equipment operators to ensure that there is no excessive blading or excessive bulldozing of track through the bush."
"In wet areas the Company undertakes to use equipment designed for operation in such areas with minimal surface damage and will avoid the use of machines likely to cause serious soil disturbance and compaction."
(SLA, Clause 20)

Uniform lack of attention to these matters was seen across all logging coupes within the study area. Appendix 1 and photographic plates illustrate the disregard shown to these critical areas of sustainable forest management. The consequences of these impacts will be in evidence both on and off site for many decades and the former landscape patterns will certainly never be restored. In the most intensively impacted areas even rehabilitation of the former environmental attributes may be precluded by the alteration and/or loss of substrate.