A keen amateur naturalist who moved to Wyndham in the 1980s, Bob Harris, says the forest and its rich biodiversity are potentially worth more to the region as an eco-tourism asset than as sawlogs or woodchips.

''It's like something out of The Lord of the Rings. There are trees in these rainforest gullies that are more than 700 years old,'' he said.

A consulting ecologist who runs a farm near Wyndham, Josh Dorrough, has raised concerns about the impact of logging machinery and clean-up fires on local populations of the giant burrowing frog (Heleioporus australiacus) a threatened species protected by state and federal environment laws. One of Australia's biggest amphibians, the fist-sized frog has yellow ''sun spots'', a purple underbelly, and black spikes on its front feet. Also known as the eastern owl frog because of its distinctive hooting call, it breeds in forest streams but spends much of its time in shallow burrows. Dr Dorrough said there appeared to be ''no systematic survey data'' available from the NSW Government to support a decision to locate an exclusion zone protecting the frog chiefly on private farmland.

''The frogs are forest-dependent. As far as we know, the species has never been found on cleared farmland,'' he said.

He said timber harvesting could crush and kill frogs in burrows, and also compact soils, making it difficult for the frogs to dig burrows.

Dr Dorrough wrote to NSW Forests chief executive Nick Roberts last month, urging the Government to reconsider logging Yurammie given ''available scientific evidence'' of increased fire risk, water loss and inadequate survey data of frog habitat.

For more on this story, see the print edition of today's Canberra Times.