The Australian government does not intend to fully exit from native forest logging, but it wants to ensure that the 10 regional forest agreements (RFAs) are subject to the new environmental standards, which will be published in the coming days.
That is according to Murray Watt, Australia’s Environment Minister, who is introducing a suite of new environmental laws to Parliament. “Our government does not have a policy of ending native forestry in the way that the Greens are seeking,” Minister Watt told ABC Insiders yesterday. “What we have said is that we’ll follow the recommendations from Graeme Samuel and apply the national environmental standards to regional forestry agreements.”
“What that means in practice is that native forestry would need to meet higher environmental standards than currently required under legislation,” Watt said. That’s a big step forward in terms of the environmental management of native forestry, but it doesn’t go as far as what the Greens are seeking (which is) an all-out ban.”
On the future of native forestry, Minister Watt, who previously served as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s first Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, does not want an outright ban. “Leaving aside the jobs and economic potential…there are a range of products that Australians depend on that rely on native forestry – so we don’t want to go as far as banning it already, but we do want a much stronger environmental outcome in the forest than what we currently have,” he said.
Neither will the government budge on plans for a new environmental watchdog to curry favour with the coalition: “There is no way that Labor would drop the creation of a new EPA (environmental protection authority), that is something that we have taken to two elections, which has been endorsed explicitly by the Australian people…so we think it’s a really important measure to really lift the compliance and enforcement of nature in Australia,” Watt said.
“I think it’s really that a national EPA has a high degree of independence from the government of the day, which is why we have specified that when it comes to who they prosecute and who they investigate, what sort of finds they dish out for environmental damage, that should be independent of ministers. We don’t tell the DPP who they can prosecute for murder or assault; it’s an independent process.”
As it stands, there are 10 Commonwealth RFAs in operation: 5 in Victoria, 3 in New South Wales, 1 in Western Australia, and 1 in Tasmania. In addition, there is a ‘Comprehensive Regional Assessment for South-East Queensland’ that covers forest operations in South East Queensland, but that was established by the State Government and is not considered an RFA,” he said. These agreements have effectively enjoyed exemptions from national environmental laws on the basis that reserves and forest-practice requirements are sufficient. In effect, they are long-term plans for the sustainable management and conservation of Australia’s native forests.”
Please note: Wood Central will provide further coverage on these reforms and their effects on the Australian forest products industry in the coming days.
