Daily Examiner, Grafton.
04.09.2007

A MEMORIAL to Clarence Valley timber pioneer Brinos Notaras is being planned for an area of Bom Bom State Forest, south of Grafton city.

Brinos, well-known for his dedication to the timber trade, was a driving force behind the J Notaras & Sons timber mill at South Grafton. Brinos's brother and business partner, Spiro Notaras, said eight hectares of land on the Pacific Highway, near the high-level bypass to Armidale Road, will be made into a memorial rest area.

He said Brinos was passionate about the timber industry and the rest area, to be named Notaras Grove, would contain material to educate people about the logging industry.

In particular, it would be used to inform people about the environmental value of selective logging on sustainable yield, a practice the brothers used successfully to log in the Bom Bom State Forest for 28 years.

The forest was one of the first areas the brothers tendered for, so the land for the rest area held sentimental value, Spiro said. He said the area would feature an old bobtail machine the brothers used to move trees in the 1960s, and an old tractor used to pull trees out of the ground. They would be mounted in concrete.

The rest area would also contain tables, chairs, shelter sheds and a toilet block.

Spiro is waiting on approval from the Road Transport Authority and Clarence Valley Council, but is expecting to begin the project in the next six months.

Brinos died in 2005, at the age of 75, after a head-on collision with a semi-trailer on the Pacific Highway at Woolgoolga.