A recent article in The Canberra Times claimed native forest logging was sustainable.
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It clearly is not. It is unsustainable in many ways, including its impacts on biodiversity, wildfires, carbon emissions and budget bottom lines.
First, native forest logging occurs in areas of high conservation value for many threatened species.
That is, the most important areas of habitat for many species are also those areas targeted for logging. This has been shown in NSW and Victoria. In the latter state, areas proposed for logging support up to an average of eight threatened species.
In addition, 99 per cent of proposed logging coupes in Victoria supported threatened species habitat before the industry was shut down in that state this January.
In Tasmania, logging is a key factor driving the critically endangered swift parrot toward rapid extinction.
Second, logged and regenerated forests are more flammable than old growth forests.
An increasing body of evidence from around Australia, as well as in western and eastern North America, is showing this to be the case. Logging-stimulated fire risk adds to safety concerns for people living in regional Australia and is a key reason why logging is unsustainable.
Making forests more flammable by logging them is a particularly poor management option in a rapidly warming world - where increased temperatures add significantly to the risks of more frequent, severe and widespread wildfires.
Third, logging is unsustainable because it generates significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
Logging generates the equivalent of 1.1 million cars' worth of emissions in Tasmania alone; it is the largest greenhouse gas-emitting sector in the economy of that state.
Conversely, the most recent 2023 IPCC report identified the conservation of intact forests as one of the most cost-effective climate mitigation strategies globally.
Indeed, it has more mitigation potential than wind power, and a comparative amount as solar power.
Fourth, native forest logging is unsustainable because it can persist only through being propped up by governments.
That is, it is economically non-viable and has been so for a long time.
In NSW in 2019-2020, NSW Forestry Corp received $246.9 million in handouts and yet still lost $28.2 million.
In Victoria, VicForests lost $269 million in the past two years before it was wound up a few days ago (not including a loan of $80 million that will never be repaid).
The industry in that state has also received more than $800 million in government handouts.
In Tasmania, the native forest logging industry has cost that state's economy more than $1.3 billion.
Despite such massive corporate welfare, employment levels in native forest logging have plummeted everywhere.
These kinds of ongoing handouts to an unsustainable industry are untenable given the cost-of-living crisis currently facing Australians.
If we don't log native forests, where will we get our timber from?
The answer is from plantations.
Nearly 90 per cent of sawn timber in Australia for roof trusses, floorboards and furniture already comes from plantations, especially softwood plantations.
Australian government data shows shortfalls of sawn timber in Australia are largely met from wood grown in New Zealand and Europe.
The native forest logging industry produces predominantly woodchips and paper pulp.
Importantly, plantation-grown eucalypt pulp logs are actually better for making paper and packaging that native forest trees.
Yet, Australia currently exports more than 95 per cent of its home-grown plantation eucalypt pulp logs.
Policy reform is urgently needed to keep more of that wood in Australia for Australian processing jobs and Australian-made forest products.
Exiting native forest logging will stimulate greater investment in the plantation sector - as occurred in New Zealand when it moved to a plantation-only industry.
Empirical evidence on biodiversity loss, fire risks, carbon emissions and economic performance all clearly show native forest logging is not sustainable. Stopping it is a sensible, rational and socially responsible policy decision.
Empirical evidence on biodiversity loss, fire risks, carbon emissions and economic performance all clearly show native forest logging is not sustainable.
Stopping it is a sensible, rational and socially responsible policy decision - as occurred in South Australia 50 years ago, New Zealand more than 20 years ago, and Western Australia and Victoria at the start of 2024.
It is time to make a rapid transition to a plantation-only forestry industry.
- David Lindenmayer is a professor of forest ecology and conservation at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at The Australian National University. He has worked on forests and biodiversity for more than 42 years and published 1470 scientific articles, including 49 books.
