A failed process

The "deferred forestry assessment" process (DFA) has been an abject failure. Conceived after the Bedall woodchip debacle last year, with the stated aim of moving towards a world class forest reserve system in Australia, the process has been totally inadequate. It is not enough, however, to place the blame for the failure of the process on conservative state governments. Inevitably the coalition governments of Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania have done everything possible to frustrate the process. The conduct of the NSW state government has not been much better. Nevertheless, the final blame for the failure to protect remaining old growth forest from the chipper must lie with the federal ALP government. It is not enough for Prime Minister Keating to hide behind the biodiversity principles of the agreement as an excuse for incorporating non-forest or degraded forest areas in the reserves to be created. It is not enough for federal Environment Minister Faulkner to accuse the environment movement of being "aggressive and abusive" in negotiations. The fact is that the federal Labor government has an obligation to act to protect the remaining stands of old growth forest from woodchipping, which it is failing to do. Through the Export Control Act, the federal government has the power to control the woodchip industry. Logging companies require licences, granted by the federal government, in order to export woodchips to lucrative overseas markets. It is therefore possible for the federal government to limit woodchip operations without the cooperation of the states. Blaming the state premiers for failing to protect old growth forest is simply a smokescreen. The federal ALP government's real agenda in this process is to ensure the prosperity of the woodchip industry for the foreseeable future. In order to survive, the industry relies on massive government subsidies (infrastructure, low royalties). Without government patronage, it would largely cease to exist. While claiming to be balancing the interests of the environment against those of the woodchip companies, the federal ALP government is in fact giving in to the demands of a short term, destructive industry at the expense of irreplaceable forest values. The ALP government's surrender to logging interests is hidden behind a thin veneer of dubious scientific analysis. Nevertheless, the sell-out is no less real than the discredited Bedall decision of December 1994. In its protests against the failure of the DFA process to date, the environment movement has concentrated its scorn on so-called bureaucrats, both state and federal, who it claims have frustrated the process. Ultimate responsibility must lie with the politicians. It is only through mobilisations of the scale seen earlier this year that they will be forced to implement environmentally responsible policy, to create a genuine forest reserve that does effectively protect what little old growth forest remains.