Forests – precious and wild
Photo: East Gippsland Forest (c) Ern Mainka
The Wilderness Society is the only conservation organisation in Australia with a nationally coordinated forest campaign. We campaign in every State affected by native forest logging to protect forests from chainsaws and bulldozers.
The Wilderness Society’s national network of State and regional campaign centres means we bring a national overview to Australia’s forest campaign, as well as working cooperatively with smaller regional groups around the country who are campaigning to protect their local forests. The Wilderness Society is also the only conservation organisation campaigning on forests at every level. Our community foundations and structure allow us to carry out environmental education, community mobilisation, forest rescues (blockading), national and international lobbying, research, consumer and corporate campaigning, State and national election campaigns, and more.
We are now running ground-breaking national campaigns on local council purchasing policies, consumer education and empowerment (such as the One Stop Timber Shop website and the bestselling book Forest-Friendly Building Timbers, and corporate policies and actions. We are also working on many other issues, such as Regional Forest Agreements, plantations, the Greenhouse Effect and carbon, the Montreal Process, and development of Ecologically Sustainable Forest Management principles and processes. The time has never been better to drive woodchipping from our shores, and this industry can expect reinvigorated opposition from The Wilderness Society. We are currently developing campaign strategies to counter the latest threat to Australia’s forests – burning trees from native forests for power generation.
We are working around the country on the Tasmania’s tall trees and the Tarkine, the forests of New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia.
New South Wales
Photo: Greater Murramarang, South Eastern New South Wales
Greater Murramarang,
South Eastern New South Wales
The Wilderness Society continues to campaign against the continued logging of old growth forests, to end export woodchipping and to expose the NSW Government’s promise to end woodchiping by the Year 2000. In the last financial year, over 750,000 tonnes of woodchips were exported from Eden in South Eastern NSW while over 250,000 tonnes were shipped from Newcastle. That’s over 1 million tonnes of forest still leaving our state as woodchips. The Wilderness Society is also campaigning strongly for large new reserves in the Brigalow Belt South including The Pilliga, Goonoo and Bebo. These forests have an uncertain fate after Bob Carr’s empty promise to make a decision on this region containing the largest remaining temperate ironbark and box woodland forests in Australia, falling for the sake of firewood, fenceposts and mineral exploration.
There are successes on the horizon for some of The Wilderness Society’s Forest conservation campaigns. Part of the Wilderness Society’s Wild Country Vision, the Melbourne to Brisbane Conservation Link has has already been mostly achieved, all that is required is the reservation of some vital forests and corridors in between existing reserves. Also, the campaign to create a Jilliby reserve in the Watagan Mountains has snowballed into a high profile voting issue on the Central Coast over the last 10 months. The campaign team has been hugely successful due to widespread community awareness, letter writing and letter to the editor drives, forest open days, direct action, rallies, green policing, involvement by both Gosford and Wyong Council and the Joint Water Authority, and constant media attention. Congratulations to these campaign teams, as the Carr Government has recently promised to protect these important old-growth forests of the state’s northeast. Finally, after campaigning for three years, the community can now be assured that no wood-fired power stations will be built in NSW. The announcement came at the end of August, after an enormous swell of public pressure.
Tasmania
The Wilderness Society is continuing with the campaign to promote the values of Tasmania’s wild forests. The Wilderness Society’s corporate campaign is now focusing on the Tasmanian logging company, Gunns Ltd, and its biggest shareholder the Commonwealth Bank. This is the company that owns all four woodchip-export mills in Tasmania. It consumes about 90 percent of logs extracted from old growth forests. Meanwhile, a new presentation, Journey into Old Growth, has been prepared. This Powerpoint show, with superb images, maps and information, will tour Tasmania. We have also accelerated our advertising campaign. Full-page ads calling on the Premier not to axe his own Tasmania Together process have appeared in local newspapers. An airport billboard briefly caught the nation’s attention. We are organizing filming and photography in threatened forests, working with the Tasmanian Community Alliance, to disseminate images and information. We have mapped and exposed the extent of Forestry Tasmania’s planned assault on Tasmania’s forests over the next three years, and are creating maps of the forests that should be reserved (see last issue of Wilderness News).
Victoria
Goolengook remains one of Victorias hot spots. The proposal to extend the Errinundra National Park to include Goolengook is the only way to guarantee the protection of these remarkable old growth forests and the wide array of rare and threatened animals and plants which live there. In October 2002, just weeks before Premier Bracks called the November 30 state election, the Labor government announced a moratorium on any further logging in Goolengook, while the Victorian Environment Assessment Council (VEAC) undertakes an inquiry into the future of the region. The Wilderness Society fears that the terms of reference for the VEAC Inquiry will only identify an alternative wood supply for any areas of old growth forest scheduled for logging in Goolengook. Also this year, the government plans to log both the Thomson and Armstrong catchments. This will result in further declines in water yield and clearly shows an inability on the part of NRE to appropriately manage Melbourne’s water catchments. Finally, the Wilderness Society NSW and Victoria and National Parks Association of NSW and Victoria, in cooperation with regional groups are seeking to establish a Melbourne to Brisbane Conservation Link.
Western Australia
The Western Australian Forest Campaign has been reactivated with the release of the recent draft Forest Management Plan (FMP) in September 2002 by the Conservation Commission. Nell the Numbat has returned to the streets of Perth and Fremantle. Her task: to raise public awareness about the failings of the draft FMP and the urgent need to take action. This plan when finalized in 2003, will run for ten years and determine how much of our forest will be protected and how much available for continued exploitation, as well as how future logging operations will be conducted. In its current form, the plan does NOT fulfill a single promise made by the Gallop Government at last year’s State election. NOT all old growth and high conservation value forest have been protected; logging methods are NOT ecologically sustainable (clearfelling is still endorsed); and the critical issues of waste and mismanagement (i.e. the need for improved recovery rates) has been largely ignored. At the close of the public consultation period on October 15, The Wilderness Society WA had received over 5,000 submissions to the draft FMP, most expressing concern about the inadequacy of proposed forest protection measures and opposition to the proposed levels of logging.
Did you know? Australia’s forests contain the tallest flowering plants on Earth, more than one twentieth of the world’s land biodiversity, and over three quarters of Australia’s plant species. Yet they are being logged at a rate equivalent to almost two million quarter-acre suburban household blocks every year. One hundred and thirteen forest species in Australia are listed on Government Threatened Species lists, and in 1995, Australia exported more woodchips than any other country on Earth. For more information, see Facts About Australia’s Forests and Logging.
“A Fringe of Green” – NEW Wilderness Society forest booklet released
“A Fringe of Green…protecting Australia’s Forests and Woodlands”, The Wilderness Society’s new 12 page illustrated booklet on everything you ever wanted to know about our forests, threats to their future and current forest campaigns, is now available at your nearest Wilderness Society Campaign Centre.
Saving Australia’s Forests: Information on Australia’s Forests and Logging in Japanese Language (the website of the Japanese Environment Group JATAN)
For more information, please contact:
Julie McGuiness
WildCountry Coordinator
Email Julie McGuiness
Workphone: 02 6249 6491
Mobile:
Created: 07 Mar 2003 | Last updated: 07 Mar 2003