WA forest meeting well attended

By Anthony Benbow

FREMANTLE -- More than 300 people packed the Fremantle Town Hall on April 22 for a meeting discussing the effects of forest destruction and the need for campaigns to stop it. The focus was on the old growth karri and jarrah forests in the south-west of WA.

The meeting was organised by the Greens (WA)'s Forest Campaign Group and the West Australian Forest Alliance. Speakers were Tasmanian Green Independent Christine Milne, Dr Beth Schultz from the Conservation Council of WA and Mary Frith from the Bridgetown-Greenbushes Friends of the Forest, in the south-west. The Wilderness Society also gave a short presentation.

Other groups represented included Rainforest Action Group and Environmental Youth Alliance.

The meeting opened with a slide presentation of the beauty and diversity of the state's forest alongside images of its destruction. Beth Schultz gave a short history of the last two years of forest campaigning in WA, detailing the attitude of CALM (Department of Conservation and Land Management).

Under the ALP government of Carmen Lawrence, CALM delayed environmental reports and submissions, and watered down plans and resolutions to favour the timber industry. “We kept an open mind when the Court Liberal/National Coalition was elected”, she said, “but not for long”. Liberal environment minister Kevin Minson amended management plans to increase “maximum allowable yields”, firmly putting the emphasis on resource extraction, with CALM remaining committed to “management”, not conservation.

Mary Frith also spoke of the attitude of CALM to the jarrah forests, pointing out that very little old growth jarrah is located inside national parks and that current logging rates (recently increased) will wipe out virtually all remaining stands of jarrah in the next 10 years.

CALM is also violating agreements that areas of forest with the most heritage value will be logged last.

Christine Milne pointed out that timber companies are trying to extract remaining old growth timber so quickly because better quality plantation woodchips from Latin American countries are coming onto the international market.

Milne also brought up Bunnings' plans for a pulp mill in the south-west by 2003, its outrageous claim that it will create 1200 jobs and its pressure to allocate more timber resources for such a mill.

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