In a Media Release on November 14, North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) stated that logging of native forests was unacceptable and had no social licence. Part of the release is printed below:
The
evidence is clear from a recent industry survey of over 12,000 Australians that
the logging of public native forests has no social license and rather than
logging of public native forests being entrenched for a further 20 years it
must be phased out as soon as possible according to the North East Forest
Alliance.
The
Forestry and Wood Products report "Community perceptions of Australia’s
forest, wood and paper industries: implications for social license to
operate" surveyed over 12,000
people from throughout Australia and found 70% of urban, and 65% of rural
Australians find logging of native forests unacceptable, compared to just 10%
of urban, and 17% of rural Australians finding it acceptable.
This reaffirms polling by Reachtel in northern NSW (Ballina and Lismore)
late last year that showed that over 48% of people believe the most important
value of State forests are the protection of wildlife, nature and trees, with
another 23% considering it is the protection of water supplies, 10% carbon
storage and 9% recreation. Only around 10% considered the best use was for
logging, woodchiping or burning for electricity.
Continued
logging of public native forests clearly does not have a social license and
must be phased out as soon as possible, said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
"Logging
of native forests is a dinosaur industry, and with 87% of our sawn timber now
coming from plantations there is no excuse to go on logging public native
forests,
"Native
forests are far more important for tourism jobs, recreation, water yields,
mitigating climate change and saving our declining wildlife, such as Koalas.
"The
NSW and Commonwealth Governments need to start listening to the community
rather than the National Party, and refrain from the imminent intent to
entrench logging of public native forests for a further 20 years in new
Regional Forest Agreements while further increasing logging intensity and
slashing environmental protections.
"Instead
of increasing logging the Governments need to implement a strategy to rapidly
phase it out, and begin repairing the damage they have inflicted on our
irreplaceable public forests", Mr. Pugh said.
