• Since European settlement, half of Australia’s forests have been cleared. Only 5% of the country has any forest cover remaining.

• Over 85% of the southern temperate woodlands has been completely cleared. Between 12 and 15 billion trees have been lost from the Murray-Darling basin alone.

• In 2000, exports of woodchips from native forests reached 7 million tonnes.

• Five-thousand square kilometres of woodland are cleared every year in Australia and forests are logged at the rate of 200 square kilometres per year.

• More than 5% of the world’s plant and animal species live in Australia’s forests and woodlands — more species than survive in all of Europe.

• Clearing of woodlands is a major contributor to Australia’s greenhouse gas pollution.

• The only way native forest products can compete with their plantation counterparts is through heavy public subsidies.

• Tasmania exports more native forest woodchips than all the other states combined.

[Source: <http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/fringe>. Got a shockfact? Email <glw@greenleft.org.au>.]

From Green Left Weekly, December 15, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

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