NEW national parks covering more than 70,000 hectares must be created in south-west NSW, and infrastructure built to create artificial floods, if the state's iconic red gum forests are to survive.
A comprehensive new report from the Natural Resources Commission, commissioned by the State Government, calls for a reorganisation of the timber industry in the region.
There was not enough water flowing down the Murray River, the report found, and in some areas up to 80 per cent of the red gums across vast swathes of river country were dead or dying. Some areas of forest needed double or even triple the current flows to survive in their current form.
"The science has shown that the forests no longer grow sufficient wood to sustain the current scale of the timber industry,'' said the commissioner, John Williams. "In the face of the scientific facts that we have detailed in our reports, it is untenable to do nothing.''
Dr Williams said he hoped the report's findings would inform the decisions of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, which manages river flows.
The logging industry was furious with the report's findings, which suggest that an industry on the current scale will cease to be viable in the next decade.
"This report has categorically failed to provide the balanced, scientific assessment it was charged with," said the executive director of the NSW Forest Products Association, Russ Ainley.
"The end result is the naive and completely baseless view that the forests will soon be dead, so they should be made into national parks."
The timber industry said small towns around Deniliquin would be ruined by any move to follow the report's recommendations, though some 35,000 hectares of forest would potentially be left open to logging if the report's recommendations are adopted.
Dr Williams said the commission's research was thorough and far-reaching, citing the endorsement of staff from key forestry studies centres and universities in support of its conclusions.
The Government has set up a working group, including senior staff from the departments of Premier and Cabinet, Environment and Industry and the NSW Treasury to ''co-ordinate the Government's response to the report''.
But the Premier, Kristina Keneally, made it clear that the pledge of her predecessor, Nathan Rees, to create a big new national park and provide an assistance package to loggers would largely be honoured.
Dr Williams said some of the expected job losses in the region would be offset by employment in a new tourism industry in a preserved forest, although he acknowledged that there would certainly be a net loss.
''Our estimate, and we'd like to see more research done, is that about 120 jobs in total will be lost,'' he said. ''But we've really got the opportunity for an iconic Australian park for the future, and it will produce a much greater economic outcome over time than the current timber system.''
The National Parks Association said the report offered the State Government a clear choice to preserve the forests or let them die.
The Wilderness Society welcomed the report's findings but called for further restrictions on logging.
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