Jim Howles gets upset when logging industry workers are blamed for destroying the environment.
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Mr Howles started working in the industry when he was a boy in the 1940s and said all the old-style bushmen respected the environment they worked in.
His comments follow several protests about the logging industry down South Brooman way.
The Ulladulla resident said during his time in the industry, they cared for the bush and all the animals that lived in it.
"Too right - we always had respect for the bush," he said.
"We always looked after the bush and all the animals.
"We used to burn it [the undergrowth] in the wintertime and kept it clean," he added as a way of explaining how they used to help prevent bushfires.
"They have let the bush go - especially since National Parks took over.
"I have never seen the bush look so dirty as what it was and that was before the Christmas bushfires came in."
He said during his era the bush was full of life.
"We kept it clean and the bush was full of animals and birds in those days," he said.
"No matter where you went or where you camped, there were birds and animals all around.
"You go out there now to the bush and you hardly see any animals."
They also used to be selective about the timber they harvested.
"You would not just go in and flatten everything," he said.
"It was only a select cut - not go in and flatten things as people think."
He added the current logging industry workers do not have as much area they can work in, compared to past generations.
"They are cutting it harder now because they don't have the room to move around as they used to," he said.
"In all the years I worked in the bush, I never killed one animal.
"Trees that had possums in them - you did not fall them."
Mr Howles said the bush today was not being looked after - by anyone.
His son David currently works in the timber industry which is very much a family concern.
Mr Howles' family started working in the timber industry in the Kangaroo Valley area in the 1940s.
The 86-year-old started working when he was just a boy and worked alongside his father Wally and they used supply timber for the mining industry.
They supplied timber to five different mines in the Wollongong area.
They later moved their business down to Ulladulla in the middle to the 1940s.
"It started off small but we ended up with 60 men cutting timber for us," Mr Howles said.
The Howles' worked from Tomerong right down to Narooma.
"It was from the sea - right back to the mountains," he said.
As a boy, he only went to school occasionally and his first job was to drive the horses in the bush.
When he was older enough, Mr Howles drove the timber trucks.
"I drove for millions of miles all up and down the coast," he said.
There were around 60 sawmills operating in the South Coast region.
"Timber cutting was once one of the biggest industries on the coast," he recalled.
He added everywhere you went, you would bump into someone involved in the timber industry.