A survey carried out by University of Canberra and commissioned by Forests and Wood Products Australia found a clear majority of Australians consider logging of native forests to be unacceptable.
Even in regional and rural areas, 65 per cent of people surveyed opposed native forest logging. The number was 70 per cent in urban areas.
The greatest opposition was in South East Queensland where 79 per cent opposed and only 8 per cent supported native forestry. That has potential political implications with support for the Greens growing in SEQ. In 1999, ARCS together with Queensland Conservation Council and The Wilderness Society reached an historic agreement with the timber industry and the Queensland Government, the SEQ Forests Agreement, to phase out native forest logging by 2024. Sadly, and irresponsibly, the Liberal National Party government under Campbell Newman scrapped the Agreement soon after they were elected in 2012. To date, the current Labor government has not restored the Agreement.
The following table provides the results by state.
| State | Unacceptable % |
Neither acceptable nor unacceptable % |
Acceptable % |
Don’t know % |
| NSW | 65 | 11 | 18 | 7 |
| VIC | 64 | 11 | 17 | 8 |
| QLD | 68 | 10 | 15 | 7 |
| SA | 70 | 10 | 10 | 11 |
| WA | 64 | 10 | 18 | 8 |
| TAS | 61 | 10 | 21 | 8 |
| NT | 58 | 11 | 16 | 14 |
The findings indicated that timber production from native forests is seen as an extractive industry akin to mining. In our view, that is a correct impression and native forest logging should never be seen as sustainable. Logged eucalypt forests never recover their wildlife habitat values. It would take well over a hundred years and they are logged on a cycle of a few decades.
The survey included more than 11,500 rural and regional respondents. The report was leaked to the Sydney Morning Herald in November but will be formally released following peer review.
NSW has entrenched continued native forest logging
In November, the New South Wales and Federal governments renewed the Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) for the Eden, North East and Soutern NSW regions extending them to 2039.
The Eden RFA was not due to expire until August 2019, North East in March 2020 and Southern in April 2021. Renewing them all in November 2018 is no doubt because of the upcoming NSW and Federal elections, both of which will occur before August 2019.
Renewal of the RFAs is a disaster for NSW forests. We covered the issues in a blog published in March 2018.
In addition to renewing the RFAs, the NSW government has approved the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals. These logging rules have been highly contentious and will further add to the impact of the RFA renewals. We covered the IFOA issues in a blog published in June 2018. Our submission to the NSW EPA can be found at https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/your-environment/native-forestry/forestry-regulatory-reforms/coastal-ifoa-remake. The link will take you to the IFOA Remake site. Click on ‘List of submissions’ to see the full list. The ARCS submission is at the top of the list as ‘Aila Keto’. You may also be interested in the submission from the Community Advisory Committee for Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area.
Keith Scott
The Australian Rainforest Conservation Society (ARCS) has expressed its dismay over the outcomes of the UN climate conference COP24. Speaking during her return from Katowice in Poland, Director of ARCS Climate and Forests Programme, Virginia Young, expressed shock and disappointment at the retreat from ambition represented in the COP24 outcomes.