WA’s forests: Time for another big leap forward!

Old growth and HCV
Forest allocation
Logging levels
Disappearing old trees
Mining
Burning our south west forests
Tuart destruction
Killing trees in water catchments
Conclusion

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It’s been seven years since the unprecedented WA community campaign to protect WA’s old growth forests led to Premier Geoff Gallop’s historic commitment to protect all remaining old growth and high conservation value (HCV) forests.

The Forest Management Plan 2004-2013 (FMP), which was developed to give effect to that commitment, created around 30 fantastic new national parks and other conservation reserves, and substantially reduced the amount of logging in our forests.

But, if we look at the big picture, how far have we now got in protecting the world’s only karri, jarrah, tingle, tuart and wandoo forests – which are found in south west WA and nowhere else on the planet?

Old growth and HCV

If we accept the very restrictive definition of old growth forest adopted by the WA government in the 1990s (i.e. ‘unlogged forest free of dieback’), most of WA’s old growth forests have been protected. There is however ongoing dispute at a local level about the identification and protection of ALL old growth forest., What is very clear is that the government has fallen far short of its commitment to also protect ‘all high conservation value forest’ – meaning that amazing forests like Crowea, Palmer, Helms, Arcadia and Yabberup have been or are being destroyed, and are planned for further destruction.

Forest allocation

Under the FMP:

Forest in secure conservation reserves has increased from 265,000 ha to 800,000 ha – an increase of well over 100%. This means that 42% of all publicly owned forest in the south west is now protected in secure conservation reserves.
Forest available for logging has been reduced from 1,100,000 ha to 800,000 ha – a reduction of 27%. This means that 42% of all publicly owned forest in the south west is available for logging. The remaining 16% is in informal reserves, where it cannot currently be logged.

Logging levels

Under the FMP, jarrah logging has been reduced from 490,000 m3 of sawlog per year to 131,000 m3 – a reduction of almost 75%. Karri logging has been reduced from 317,000 m3 per year to 54,000 m3 of sawlog per year – a reduction of 83%.

The level of production of chiplogs (karri and marri logs for the Marubeni-owned woodchip mill) and charcoal logs (jarrah logs for Simcoa’s silicon smelter) has also decreased – but should have been halted altogether! In 2006, Marubeni was provided with 194,000 tonnes of karri and marri chiplogs and Simcoa with 82,000 tonnes of jarrah charcoal logs.

Crucially, it has recently been shown that only 20% of the total volume of jarrah trees felled actually ends up as high value timber products, such as furniture and flooring. This contradicts claims that the continued logging of our forests is for ‘value added’ timber.

All up, about 6-7,000 ha of jarrah forest are being logged each year (down from around 15,000 ha/yr), and about 400-500 ha of karri forest (down from around 2,000 ha/yr).

It is of increasing concern that much of the jarrah forest that is currently being logged grows in the low and intermediate rainfall zones of the south west. With rainfall declining sharply due to climate change, this forest, most of which has already been logged previously, will simply never be able to regrow if it is allowed to be logged again.

Disappearing old trees

Although a lot more forest has been protected and logging levels have been reduced, in the areas of forest still available for logging the Forest Products Commission (FPC) and industry continue to target the biggest, oldest and most wildlife-critical jarrah, marri and karri trees left standing when the forest was previously logged. These big old trees are the very trees that are absolutely crucial in providing the hollows that about 40 species of native birds and mammals – many of them endangered – depend on for nesting and shelter. Since these trees take hundreds of years to develop hollows large enough to be useful to many of these endangered species, they are effectively irreplaceable and their continued felling cannot be justified.

Mining

Alcoa and Worsley continue to clear our jarrah forests at the rate of about 500 ha/yr for bauxite mining, permanently degrading the jarrah ecosystem in the process. Although the companies rehabilitate the mine sites with jarrah and other jarrah forest species, these areas will never return to their original condition, especially with climate change and dieback present.

Burning our south west forests

In 2006-07, the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC, which replaced CALM) deliberately burnt 139,000 ha of our south west forest ecosystems in ‘prescribed burning’ operations. Their target is 200,000 ha/yr. This level of burning is not based on science or Indigenous burning practices. It damages biodiversity, encourages the growth of fire-prone species, destroys the fire-retardant qualities of natural ecosystems, and contributes millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. It should be halted and replaced with a fire management strategy that actually protects the community without destroying the environment.

Tuart destruction

Despite government recognition, after years of community campaigning, that our unique coastal tuart forests and woodlands are in a dire state due to clearing for urban development, diseases and weeds, the government continues to approve new housing and infrastructure developments that destroy more and more of the little that remains. WA originally had 110,000 ha of tuart forest and woodland and we are now down to 30,000 ha, with hundreds of hectares more being destroyed every year. This cannot continue.

Killing trees in water catchments

The Water Corporation has come up with the brilliant idea of killing trees in the jarrah forests in Perth’s water supply catchments in the hope of increasing rainwater runoff into dams. They are currently trialling this approach – called ‘thinning’ – in the Wungong catchment, where they have begun poisoning or felling jarrah, marri, sheoak and banksia trees, including old growth veterans. The public might have been forgiven for thinking that this kind of ‘management’ belonged to the last century, but with governments and corporations desperate for cheap freshwater, just about anything goes!

Conclusion

The Gallop government’s forest policy was an excellent step forward for WA’s unique forest ecosystems but it is more and more apparent that the cumulative impacts of ongoing unsustainable resource extraction, degradation through repeated burning, dieback (and other pests and diseases), and climate change, mean that we need to fundamentally rethink what we are doing with our forest heritage. At the same time the importance of our forests as massive carbon stores is becoming more apparent. Current management (logging, mining, burning) is turning those forests from carbon stores to carbon sources – something WA with its out-of-control greenhouse emissions cannot allow to continue!

The WA Forest Alliance, of which TWS WA is an active member, is now calling for an end to all clearing, logging and thinning of our south west forests and woodlands. Sooner or later this will have to happen, so we might as well get on and do it in a planned and responsible way, rather than waiting for the system to collapse.