Native Forests and Woodlands

The Greens (WA) celebrate the uniqueness and natural beauty of Western Australia’s native forests and woodlands and recognise both their intrinsic value as well as their vital role in the protection and production of clean water and air, biodiversity, carbon storage¹, recreation and natural heritage. For all these reasons our remaining forests are of immense social, economic and environmental value.

We seek to end the destructive logging and clearing of our magnificent native forests and woodlands. After decades of clearing, over-cutting, mining, and general mismanagement, many of our native forest and woodland ecosystems have been left fragmented, degraded and in need of protection and restoration. The already serious impacts on our forests and woodlands of reduced rainfall and diseases like dieback are compounded by logging, mining and burning.

With comprehensive protection and good management our native forests can form the centrepiece of a World Heritage listing in recognition of their global significance.

Goals

The Greens (WA) want to: 

• protect and conserve all Western Australia’s native forest and woodland ecosystems
• implement a fair, full and immediate transition to plantations and farm forestry for the production of timber currently derived from native forests (See Greens (WA) Plantations, Farm Forestry and Timber Industry Policy)
• restore the ecological integrity and natural heritage values of all our native forest and woodland ecosystems through a fully funded, independently refereed and scientifically based management and research program
• make ecosystem health the foundation of all future native forest management policies and practices
• immediately end all current logging and thinning practices in native forests

Initiatives

In order to achieve the above goals, the Greens (WA) will initiate and support parliamentary and community action to: 

• ensure the inclusion of native forests in the federal greenhouse gas Emissions Trading Schemes (ETS)
• place all publicly owned native forests and woodlands under the management of a fully funded Conservation Commission of Western Australia with adequate powers and resources to oversee the research, development and implementation of a program to protect and restore ecosystem health
• ensure that the Forest Products Commission is subject to legally binding sustainability obligations
• cease issuing native forest log contracts, for chiplogs, charlogs and sawlogs, and wild sandalwood pulling licenses, and immediately wind up all existing native forest timber contracts, starting with Gunns Ltd, in accordance with a predetermined exit program
• abolish the WA Regional Forest Agreement and seek to repeal the Commonwealth Regional Forest Agreements Act 2002
• formulate a World Heritage listing proposal for southwest forest and woodland ecosystems
• recognise native title rights and consult local Traditional Owners in the management of native forests and woodlands
• promote community recognition of the vital long term role that our forests and woodlands play in the protection of the air, water, land and biodiversity of Western Australia, and in global carbon sequestration
• support GondwanaLink and the Great Western Woodlands proposal
• promote mallee species and biodiversity planting programs in the wheatbelt to restore ecosystem linkages between our native forests and woodland ecosystems
• base prescribed burning on formal, peer reviewed risk assessment and ecological principles, doing away with arbitrary area or fixed time interval targets, incorporating land use planning and residential design and community preparedness into risk reduction strategies
• investigate the impacts of a drying climate through this century on forest and woodlands in the south west and formulate strategies for ecologically sustainable ecosystem management
• rapidly phase out open cut mining in State Forests and Reserves, including bauxite mining in the northern Jarrah forest and mineral sands mining on the Whicher Scarp
• support and develop ecotourism and the associated high-value fine woodcraft sector

Glossary
1. carbon storage - A biological or artificial process that stores carbon 'captured' out of the atmosphere, usually as carbon dioxide (CO2) gas, in a semi-permanent form.