Western Australia has just passed legislation that gives legal effect to the Cook government’s decision to end large-scale timber harvesting in native forests. The Bill—known as the Conservation and Land Management Amendment Act 2025, or the CALM Act—comes after the state, in January 2024, limited felled timber from native forests to activities that improve forest health and, controversially, also to bauxite mining extraction.
“This is a landmark moment for WA Labor and a major step forward for protecting our native forests,” said Matthew Swinbourn, WA’s Environmental Minister. “This Bill locks in that progress, ensuring our South West native forests are protected from large-scale harvesting and managed for their long-term health in the face of climate change.”
Wood Central understands that the new legislation will see more than 400,000 hectares of karri, jarrah, and wandoo forests transition to national parks, conservation parks and nature reserves.
Is Roger Cook using mining to strip protected forests?
The legislation comes after Wood Central last week reported that the bill was just a green smokescreen to distract from expanding forest destruction through mining. “Greenwashing is now a refined political art. The Cook government is a hungry wolf dressed in the sheep’s (environmentalists’) clothing. Like most predators, it picks on the small and the weak. Most recently, the timber industry has been the government’s victim to prop up a populist green image whilst continuing its destructive activities,” said Gavin Butcher, who has long opposed the state government’s decision to close the industry.
Butcher said that Roger Cook’s decision to legislate sustainability out of the CALM Act effectively discards more than 100 years of successful forest conservation and sustainability timber activity: “Driving this stake through the corpse of the timber industry was purely to appease the Greens. Removing sustainable harvesting from the Conservation and Land Management (CALM) Act is unnecessary; the current Forest Management Plan excludes timber yields until 2034. The government’s pitch that it is necessary to do this to “protect our forests” fails all tests. This is merely a slogan that does not match the government’s destructive behaviour.”
- To learn more about the CALM Act and why it prioritises strip mining over sustainable forest management, click here for Gavin Butcher’s contribution earlier this month. Please note, Wood Central does not have an editorial stance on the native forest management but it will from time to time publish content that is in the public interest.
