After reading the comments by Shirley Roeszler (Your Say GA 12/2) I couldn’t help but see the irony of comments attributed to Jim Speirs (article headed "Barwon River damage fear" GA 12/2). Like our politicians, Mr Speirs doesn’t seem to realise that Victoria is in the midst of one of our worst droughts in history and as Shirley Roeszler stated in her article, it’s old growth forests that nature intended to control the flow of water into and along our rivers.

In short the desecration of the Barwon River as with all of Australia’s rivers and waterways is as a direct result of mismanagement by our politicians and the logging industry.

To substantiate this statement; after the Second World War there was a minor famine throughout Middle East Africa, so to increase farm and pasture lands the USA went in with their tractors and bulldozers and clear fell tens of thousands of square miles of natural jungle. As a result of this desecration the tropical monsoon rains have since washed all the fertile top soil into the sea, leaving these lands little more than desert and the people almost totally dependent on food aid.

With salinity problems already apparent throughout Australia, all environment bodies throughout the world and even the United Nations have criticised the present Australian Federal Government for their mishandling of the environment and in particular the forest and logging industries.

It should be obvious, with some of Australia’s drinking water already at sub third world standard and our forests dwindling at a faster percentage rate, than anywhere else in the world, a moratorium should be placed on logging in controversial areas (such as the Otways) before the damage is irreversible.