South East Queensland

Lyndon Schneiders
December 1999

From the mist covered mountains of the Scenic Rim on the New South Wales border up to the remote peaks of Kroombit Tops near Gladstone, the remarkably diverse native forests of south eastQA Queensland have been protected as a result of the Queensland Forest Agreement.

This agreement, brokered by Premier Peter Beattie, is the result of intensive negotiations between the logging industry and conservation groups. It represents a path forward in the often heated and fractious forest debate that has gripped Australia for much of the past 25 years - a debate that has produced plenty of sound and fury but achieved little in terms of placing the logging industry on a truly sustainable basis.

Those in government, the timber industry and the community who hope this dream will become a reality should take a close look at the 'Queensland' solution. The Queensland Forest Agreement is not a Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) in the way imagined by supporters of the woodchip giants. It does not involve the continued devastation of old growth, wilderness and other high conservation forests; it does not permit clearfelling; nor does it entrench the stagnant native forest sector of the timber industry at the expense of the plantation sector.

What the agreement does deliver is an immediate addition of 425,000ha of native forests to the conservation estate, a further addition of 575,000ha by 2025, and an end to logging of old growth and wilderness. It sees the end to proposals to introduce export woodchipping to Queensland's forests; and the exit of woodchip villain Boral, whose mills and forest allocations will be bought out and decommissioned by the Queensland Government over the next 12 months.

The Agreement represents a second chance for Queensland's forests after 150 years of sustained plunder. So fierce have been past logging and clearing operations, that only an abysmal 2.7%, or 98,000ha, of native forest still retain old growth values within the Forest Agreement area.*

It is a triumph of common sense and vision. It is an alternative way forward that operates in stark contrast to the failed, minimalist RFAs that have been completed in Tasmania, East Gippsland, the Central Highlands and Western Australia.

At the centre of the agreement is a genuine commitment by the Queensland Government and all participants to a sustainable and vibrant timber industry based upon existing and future plantations. A key feature is $18 million allocated to hardwood and softwood plantations to be established on already cleared lands. Ten million new trees will be planted over the next five years, creating at least 100 new jobs. A further 100 jobs will be created in an expanded National Parks and Wildlife Service that will be charged with the task of managing the massive new additions to the protected area estate.

Importantly, the Queensland Forest Agreement sees the immediate protection of the icons of the Queensland Forest campaign. Areas of immense biological significance, such as the Conondales, Bellthorpe, Kroombit Tops, Bulburin and the Blacktown Tablelands will be protected for all time.

Another first is that native title rights will be protected as an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) extends over the entirety of the Forest Agreement area.

This agreement would not have been possible without the extraordinary commitment of Dr Aila Keto and Dr Keith Scott of the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society, and also The Wilderness Society's national forest campaigner, Virginia Young.

Also critical was the community education and mobilisation undertaken by The Wilderness Society's Wilderness Action Group, plus a network of regional environment groups such as the Conondale Range Committee and the Sunshine Coast Environment Centre.

Twenty-five years ago Queensland aggressively supported the logging of the tropical rainforests of Fraser Island and the subtropical forests of south east Queensland. Today, the Wet Tropics and Fraser Island are inscribed on the World Heritage list, and the forests of the south east have been protected.

We have turned the corner; there is no turning back.

* A further 5.8% of the forest estate is likely to be old growth.