Gallop Government about to break its forest promises - Another 10 years of overcutting

• EPA report and recommendations released
• Appealing against the EPA report
• A new Forest Management Plan
• Background

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EPA report and recommendations released - Another 10 years of overcutting

The Environmental Protections Authority (EPA) released its report and recommendations on the new Forest Management Plan (FMP) on September 17. The new FMP decides the fate of WA's public native forests for the next 10 years and beyond. Conservationists are not happy. The EPA has failed to make recommendations in key areas:

• CALM's remapping and resulting loss of old growth forests. CALM is remapping old growth and saying it isn't old growth. Just one stump per hectare is enough. The EPA has not addressed this issue. The remapping must be halted and the deleted old growth forests reinstated.
• Continued or renewed marri export woodchipping. This grotesque industry must be ended once and for all.
• A significant increase in log prices. Just covering what the Forest Products Commission (FPC) claims is the cost of management is not enough.
• As for ecologically sustainable forest management, every forest management plan for the last 30 years has set a level of cut that is clearly unsustainable. This FMP is no exception. "The EPA accepts an annual cut of 131,000 m3 of 1st and 2nd grade jarrah sawlogs and a by-cut of 'other logs' of 534,000 m3."

The total allowable cut of jarrah logs of 665,000 m3 a year is completely unsustainable.

"The Premier Dr Geoff Gallop was elected on the promise to protect all old growth forest and all high conservation forest and to introduce ecologically sustainable forest management."

"The EPA has done nothing about old growth lost through remapping. It would also allow forests that local communities identified as having high conservation value like Helms near Nannup and Arcadia near Collie to be logged. That is unforgivable. No member of the public has actually seen the modelling CALM used to arrive at the sawlog volumes the EPA has endorsed. And we have no idea what data were fed into the models, so how can we believe the outcomes are ecologically sustainable?. While the EPA may have felt constrained by the Government's prior commitment of an unsustainable volume of sawlogs, we put before the Authority enough information to make it re-think the figures. It has failed to do so."

"Both the EPA and the Government deserve to be condemned for allowing yet another 10 years of overcutting. This certainly is not ecologically sustainable forest management."

"If the Government thinks that forests are off the election agenda, they have got another think coming."

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How to appeal against the EPA report

Please lodge a short written Appeal against the EPA's report on the proposed new Forest Management Plan.

The EPA has ignored the submissions of environment groups and instead recommended approving a plan which contains many elements which break government promises on forests.

Your Appeal should say that you object to a forest management plan which allows:

• Continued loss of old growth forest through CALM's secretive remapping process (14,500 ha lost to date since the election of Gallop government - this forest now available for logging);
• Failure to protect high conservation value forests such as Helms, Arcadia and Warrup;
• Continued overcutting of jarrah forests through the proposed total level of jarrah log production of 650,000 cubic metres per year;
• Continued woodchipping of old growth karri and marri trees for export to Italy, China and other new markets being developed, with no public consultation, by the Forest Products Commission;
• Continued use of clearfelling in karri and gap-clearfelling in jarrah forests.

You can view the EPA report at www.epa.wa.gov.au

We have two weeks from Wed 17 September to lodge an Appeal... Appeals close on 1 October.

Appeals should be addressed to Appeals Convenor, C/- Minister for the Environment, 29th floor, Allendale Sq, 77 St Georges Tce, Perth, 6000.

Lodging an appeal costs $10. Cheques payable to Appeal Convenor, C/- Minister for the Environment. Please contact the WA Campaign Centre for more information or assistance lodging your appeal.

Thank you.

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A new Forest Management Plan

In September 2002 the Conservation Commission, which has overall responsibility for the management of WA's public native forests, produced a draft Forest Management Plan (FMP) which, when finalised, will determine how much of our forest will be protected and how much will remain available for continued logging, as well as how future logging operations will be conducted. The plan will run for 10 years: 2004 - 2013.

The FMP has been referred to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) for independent assessment. The EPA released its report and recommendations on 17 September 2003 to the Minister for the Environment, Dr Judy Edwards.

The final stage of this long process will be a Cabinet (government) decision some time late this year to adopt and implement the FMP. Conservationists will need to continue to have strong input into this process right up to the very end to ensure no backsliding by government.

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Background

After a massive upsurge in public support for old growth forests between 1997 and 2001, the Labor Party led by Dr Geoff Gallop was elected to government with a policy to end logging in all old growth and high conservation value forest and to introduce ecologically sustainable forest management.

The Gallop Labor government has now been in office for two years. In that time, logging has been banned in about 180,000 ha of old growth and high conservation value forest, which is welcomed. Forests campaigned for for many years such as Giblett, Hawke, Peak, Sharpe, Jane and Hester will now be protected.

However, intensive logging continues throughout large areas of our jarrah and karri forest, including forest considered to be of high conservation value. Although the area logged and volumes of logs removed have decreased, this ongoing logging uses many of the destructive, wasteful and unsustainable methods that we have witnessed in the past.

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