Stop the logging! Regional Forest Attack
By Lara Gurgone and Marce Cameron
Public outrage over the destruction of old-growth forest in the south-west of Western Australia is growing. At the time of the European invasion, the magnificent tall eucalypt forests covered 5 million hectares of what is now WA. Today, only 350,000 hectares remain unlogged. Half of this priceless ecological treasure is available for logging.
As the WA government prepares to sign the regional forest agreement (RFA), a 20-year agreement which would allow timber corporations to continue clear-felling and woodchipping WA's remaining old-growth forest, hardly a day passes without news of further arrests of protesters on the blockades. The blockades have attracted hundreds of people, including high school students, football stars, fashion designers and doctors.
Opinion polls reveal that more than 80% of Western Australians oppose the clear-felling and woodchipping of old-growth forest. Doctors, lawyers and business people have endorsed full-page advertisements in the West Australian calling for the government to reject the RFA. The WA Forest Alliance even organised a "business men and women for old-growth forest" protest (in which participants had to wear business suits).
The government has come under fire from within its own ranks. When the Environmental Protection Agency condemned the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) for allowing unsustainable logging and called for an immediate and dramatic reduction in logging levels, the National Party, the Liberals' coalition partner, came out in support of the EPA's recommendations.
The National Party has called for the phasing out of clear-felling in all state forests. This is a cynical move: National Party primary industry minister Monty House recently approved permits to clear bushland near Jerramungup, an area earmarked for revegetation and salinity control.
CALM, which is supposed to ensure the protection of old-growth forest, is dependent for 70% of its revenue on timber sales and royalties from the destruction of these same forests.
Wesfarmers, through its subsidiary Bunnings, is the corporation which profits most from the clear-felling of old-growth forest. It has just announced a record $81 million profit in the six months to the end of 1998. Wesfarmers is WA's biggest public company and a major donor to the campaign coffers of the Liberal Party.
The ALP will debate forest policy at its state conference in May. Labor's former environment minister, Bob Pearce, is now the executive director of the Forest Industries Federation (the mouthpiece of the timber industry). The right-wing Australian Workers' Union, which covers the majority of forest workers and exerts a powerful influence within the WA branch of the ALP, is strongly opposed to any reduction in the sawlog quota on the false premise that "forest protection costs jobs".
A hunger for profits is behind the relentless destruction of old-growth forest in WA. The rapacious timber corporations, the Liberal and Labor parties and the government bureaucracies that benefit from logging royalties and woodchipping profits must be stopped. There is an urgent need to rebuild a mass protest movement which involves all those who want to see our precious ancient forests protected.