Having recently congratulated Barwon Water for acknowledging that poor logging practices result in a reduction of water quality and quantity, I was both dismayed and confused by Dennis Brockenshire, Chief Executive, Barwon Water’s letter (GA 18/12).

Barwon Water states that more research is required into the effects of logging and have agreed to make a formal submission to the Regional Forestry Agreement Steering Committee.

Was Mr Brockenshire pre-empting the results of any such research, when he claimed in his letter that, our water restrictions are not the direct result of logging?

I suggest, that Mr Brockenshire should be aware that historical records show that at the time of European settlement Australia had the largest, known, artesian fresh water basin in the world, covering all the eastern states. Due to over-irrigation and fertilising by farmers and the indiscriminate logging of our forests, not only has the volume of this artesian water halved but also much of the remainder is saline.

Mr Brockenshire should also be aware of extensive research carried out by Dr Denis Saunders, of CSIRO’S wildlife and ecology division, that revealed, that the extent of land clearing is even changing weather patterns, with an average drop in rainfall of 4%, apparently due to the increased ground radiation caused by vegetation loss.

Although scientists agree that forest clearing has a marked effect upon the quality and quantity of our available water, they tend to disagree as to what extent. Dr Saunders believes that Australia needs to regenerate 16 million hectares within a decade just to regain some balance in the ecological equation, while some other scientists believe that even 27 million hectares is insufficient.

(200,000 hectares of Australian native forest is currently denuded each year without any attempt being made to regenerate).