Western Australia has banned it. Victoria has set an end date. Queensland is ceasing it in two years.
By contrast, the NSW government is still logging native forests. Taxpayers are being forced to fork out $441 for every hectare of native forest cut down.
That’s $20 million of public money each year to subsidise the destruction of the Australian bush.
NCC members started an official parliamentary petition to end native forest logging. If this petition gets 20,000 signatures it will trigger a formal parliamentary debate. By reaching this milestone, we will test the politicians on whether they will protect native forests in the lead up to the state election.
In the last two years alone, koalas have been listed as ‘endangered’, yellow-bellied gliders and gang-gang cockatoos as ‘vulnerable’ and greater gliders have been decimated by bushfires.
It’s time NSW caught up with other states and protected native forests by ending logging.
This morning the Sydney Morning Herald reported the dreadful financial loss native logging makes each year. That’s dollars wasted. But the catastrophic loss of trees and wildlife is incalculable. Native forest are Worth More Standing.
Professor Andrew Macintosh from the Australian National University told the Herald:
“If this was a true commercial operation it would be closed. It is only surviving because the state government is essentially choosing to underwrite it for an increasingly small number of jobs”
The petition to protect native forests calls for:
- A plan to switch to 100% sustainable plantation timber by 2024
- The release of the secret Natural Resource Commission report into logging.
- The expansion of national parks with additions of high-value state forests
- A ban on burning native forests to generate electricity
A year out from the state election we are launching the Worth More Standing campaign.
Forests are worth more standing for the koalas, gliders, quolls, birds and other species that live in them.
Forests are worth more standing for their natural beauty.
Forests are worth more standing for regional economies and recreation.
Forests are worth more standing to stop the drain on public funds.
Forests are worth more standing storing carbon and mitigating climate change.
Ending public native forest logging and transitioning to 100% plantation timber can save one million hectares of Australian bush.
The destruction of native forests must end. Other states are already protecting their forests, it’s time NSW did the same. Plantations can provide the timber we need without the environmental cost.
Sign the parliamentary e-petition
Let’s end native forest logging now to ensure a brighter future for our amazing forests and our iconic wildlife.
Thanks for your support,
Wilson Harris
Community Organiser
Nature Conservation Council |
