Horses and People Magazine

Distributed through saddleries, produce stores
and selected outlets in Queensland and
northern New South Wales

Products We Sell

John Chatterton's Ten Commandments

$69.95

Barefoot Hoof Sculptor

$69.95

Pee Wee Bit Standard

$69.95

Pee Wee Bit Large

$69.95

Heal With Ease Tick & BIte Kit

$99.00

Next Issue Closing Date

Friday 18th October 2008

For advertising and rates information please go to our downloads page or send Maxine in Sales an This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and she'll call you

Latest Events

Sorry, no events to display

Latest Classifieds

Reg. Arab gelding
( / General Riding)
2009-01-02
STUNNING PAINT MARE
(Performance Horses / Western Horses)
2008-12-29
Trail Horse 12months Free Lease
( / For Lease)
2008-12-29

Counter

Visitors: 143284

Who's Online

Forest Access Team Says Farewell!

Written by David Somerville
Friday, 24 October 2008
Australian Horse Alliance S.E.Qld was elected to represent all horse riders at a mass meeting held at Caboolture Showgrounds in 2004. The election of AHA S.E.Qld by a large selection of horse riders and organisations present in Caboolture, overwhelmingly rejected Queensland Horse Council as being out of touch with the forest access needs of horse owners of S.E.Qld. This meeting came about after the demonstration outside Parliament House and prior to a further demonstration at the community cabinet meeting held at Caboolture. A lengthy period ensued whilst the government attempted to prove their stated objective of finding “Alternative Trails” by hiring specialised consultants. This expensive exercise simply proved the case for the horse riders. The only available safe trails were in the state forests which were to be gazetted into National Parks under the Sth. East Queensland Forestry Agreement. The problem for horse riders was that horse riding was prohibited in National Parks. During this period, the committee of the AHA S.E.Qld, Independant MP Peter Wellington, Queensland Endurance Riders Assoc., and others were busy keeping pressure on the government and trying to discover the leverage necessary to bring the government to the bargaining table. This came in the form of material discovered during a Freedom of Information application. This material was a report prepared internally for EPA . The report concluded that after consideration of all relevant published material there was no reason to ban horse riding due to environmental or erosion reasons. The discovery of this report enabled the AHA S.E.Qld committee to exert additional pressure on the government in the lead up to the 2006 election.In the hectic lead up days to the calling of the election, frantic phone negotiations with the Government led to a handshake deal less than 24 hours before the election was called. This deal was brokered by Dr Michael Gabriel on behalf of the AHA S.E.Qld negotiating committee. One week later, Peter Beattie announced the policy to allow conditional continued access for horse riding to state forests as part of his election campaign. As usual, the devil is always in the detail, and knowing this the AHA negotiating committee worked tirelessly to bring this ‘hand shake’ deal to fruition, first with the Director General of the Premier and Cabinet and later with the Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency and his relevant department heads. Throughout this process, the AHA negotiating committee worked closely with relevant groups within each of the 5 nominated project areas of; Brisbane Forest Park, Gold Coast / Tamborine, Caboolture/Woodford, Mapleton, Kenilworth / Imbil, Noosa. The AHA negotiating committee would like to extend their appreciation and thanks to all these local groups for providing the detailed localised knowledge necessary for the submissions to the EPA. The detailed information supplied by these local groups made possible the eventual outcomes.The forest access for horse riders has finally been resolved with an overall 95% acceptance by EPA of the locally nominated trails in the 5 project areas of; Brisbane Forest Park, Gold Coast / Tamborine, Caboolture/Woodford, Mapleton, Kenilworth / Imbil, Noosa. Like all negotiated situations there have been some notable exceptions to the 95% acceptance by EPA. The Dayboro/ Mt Mee section of the Brisbane Forest Park was one such casualty. A decision by the government back in the late 1990’s to restrict activity in this section of Brisbane Forest Park to mechanised activity ( 4Wd’s and Bikes) has led to the horse owners of this area being granted restricted ‘cross park’ access on two separate trails. The negotiating committee, after meeting with and negotiating, submitted a letter from the 4WD Association of Queensland to the EPA which stated that 4WD’ers had no problem sharing the trails in the Dayboro section with horse riders. The final decision unfortunately was negative due to public liability insurance and duty of care issues.In the Noosa section, vital trails to the connectivity between the government trails and the Noosa Trail Network were not granted on the premise that they were not ‘management roads’ and maintenance budget constraints. Although these trails were small in number they were of significant importance and loss to that area’s overall trail network. The pony clubbers in the Tamborine area had a major problem accessing the state forest reserve. Whilst they had for years traversed a trail on the border of the National Park ( with permission from the local head ranger) this was to become not available and the only option was the main Beenleigh/Tamborine Village road which is a 100 kph road with regular high usage by tipper trucks travelling at 100kph ( the empty ones are the worst due to the banging and rattling) and no suitable verge for horses to traverse. A very dangerous option for all horse riders! The outcome for this area has been the agreed building of an additional trail alongside the boundary of the National Park connecting to the existing trail used by the children and the re-alignment of the boundary of the National Park so that the entire connection trail will be outside the boundary of the National Park. This long term solution was what the negotiating committee had argued for. The local residents were happy with the outcome. The government has appointed a Scientific Monitoring Committee, Chaired by Dr Marc Hockings. The brief of this committee is to design monitoring programs to measure the impact of horse riding on the nominated trails over a 20 year period. The AHA negotiating committee attended the two day workshop held recently in Brisbane and attended by the head rangers of each of the nominated areas as well as representatives of the conservation movement, Drs Aila Keto and Keith Scott. This workshop highlighted the problems of finding base lines for measurement on what are essentially ‘‘multi use” trails. AHA pointed out that all the nominated trails were not for the exclusive use of horse riders and were subject to use by other recreational activities as well as illegal motor bike activity. In addition to this, it was pointed out that none of these trails had been constructed specifically with recreational activities in mind, and were, in the main, old logging tracks. Correctly designed trails could alleviate many problems. The scientists will be responsible for the design of the monitoring programs to be used whilst the technical department of the EPA will be responsible for the implementation and gathering of the data. The data will be quantified by an appointed statistician and analysed by the relevant scientific specialists. The EPA rejected the AHA request that horse riders be allowed to appoint their own scientist representative to this committee. There will be no requirement for the EPA to release full transcripts of the bi- annual reports as they are for the Minister. This process is flawed and has no public accountability, especially to the group most affected by the possible outcomes – horse riders. The AHA committee was working on this situation but has now withdrawn from the process as the Queensland Horse Council has demanded control of all further negotiating. This report to the horse riders of S.E.Queensland is timely, as most issues connected with our original brief have concluded. In closing, I would pay tribute to a major member of our team, Dr Michael Gabriel, who was responsible for the phone negotiations which has led to the current 95% acceptance of the trails network being retained for future use by horse riders. Michael Gabriel had an aggressive brain tumour throughout these negotiations, but carried on to achieve a successful outcome. Michael sadly passed away last year as a result of his brain tumour. The other members of the negotiating committee were representatives of ATHRA,( Australian Trail Horse Riders Assoc.,) Peter Gamble and Graeme Sleeman ( Immediate Past President of Qld branch ) and representative of QERA ( Queensland Endurance Riders Assoc.,) Dick Collyer (Immediate Past President). The members of the committee are proud of their achievements on behalf of all the horse riders of S.E.Queensland and wish you, your children and your grandchildren, all good, safe, riding for years to come on the forest trails of South East Queensland. David Somerville Co-Ordinator AHA- S.E.Qld negotiating Committee (retired)