Stop the Logging of Old Growth Forests in Western Australia
2/25/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Stop the Logging of Old Growth Forests in Western Australia
Source: Technical University Braunschweig (Germany)
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: February 25, 1999
Byline: Lara Gurgone and Marce Cameron
Public outrage over the destruction of old-growth forest in the
south-west of Western Australia is growing. At the time of the
European invasion, the magnificent tall eucalypt forests covered 5
million hectares of what is now WA. Today, only 350,000 hectares
remain unlogged. Half of this priceless ecological treasure is
available for logging.
As the WA government prepares to sign the regional forest agreement
(RFA), a 20-year agreement which would allow timber corporations to
continue clear-felling and woodchipping WA's remaining old-growth
forest, hardly a day passes without news of further arrests of
protesters on the blockades. The blockades have attracted hundreds of
people, including high school students, football stars, fashion
designers and doctors.
Opinion polls reveal that more than 80% of Western Australians oppose
the clear-felling and woodchipping of old-growth forest. Doctors,
lawyers and business people have endorsed full-page advertisements in
the West Australian calling for the government to reject the RFA. The
WA Forest Alliance even organised a business men and women for old-
growth forest protest (in which participants had to wear business
suits).
The government has come under fire from within its own ranks. When
the Environmental Protection Agency condemned the Department of
Conservation and Land Management (CALM) for allowing unsustainable
logging and called for an immediate and dramatic reduction in logging
levels, the National Party, the Liberals' coalition partner, came out
in support of the EPA's recommendations.
The National Party has called for the phasing out of clear-felling in
all state forests. This is a cynical move: National Party primary
industry minister Monty House recently approved permits to clear
bushland near Jerramungup, an area earmarked for revegetation and
salinity control.
CALM, which is supposed to ensure the protection of old-growth
forest, is dependent for 70% of its revenue on timber sales and
royalties from the destruction of these same forests.
Wesfarmers, through its subsidiary Bunnings, is the corporation which
profits most from the clear-felling of old-growth forest. It has just
announced a record $81 million profit in the six months to the end of
1998. Wesfarmers is WA's biggest public company and a major donor to
the campaign coffers of the Liberal Party.
The ALP will debate forest policy at its state conference in May.
Labor's former environment minister, Bob Pearce, is now the executive
director of the Forest Industries Federation (the mouthpiece of the
timber industry). The right-wing Australian Workers' Union, which
covers the majority of forest workers and exerts a powerful influence
within the WA branch of the ALP, is strongly opposed to any reduction
in the sawlog quota on the false premise that forest protection costs
jobs
A hunger for profits is behind the relentless destruction of old-
growth forest in WA. The rapacious timber corporations, the Liberal
and Labor parties and the government bureaucracies that benefit from
logging royalties and woodchipping profits must be stopped. There is
an urgent need to rebuild a mass protest movement which involves all
those who want to see our precious ancient forests protected.