Shock Announcement

On September 8, 2021, without any prior warning or consultation with industry, the WA Labor Government announced an end to native forest logging from 2024. This announcement left businesses, employees and regional communities shocked and unsure of their future. 

Read FIFWA's initial statement here. 

There are many concerns surrounding this decision, including:

• The $50 Million Just Transition fund is inadequate to meet business and employee needs, and fails to account for the regional communities which will also be deeply impacted. 

• Businesses currently operating in the native forestry sector are not able to simply transition to the softwood plantation sector, as the two are not interchangeable. There are issues with supply chains, suitability of machinery for processing different species and in order to replace native forest timber with plantation timber, with comparable qualities, would require a plantation estate almost the same size as the existing state forest. This is not viable. 

• Forest management remains vital. For forests to cope with a drying climate, pests and diseases, and to control and minimize dangerous wildfires they need to be thinned and managed. Currently these management costs are offset by timber production and the native timber industry. Who will bear that cost going forward? Who, and how, will the forest be managed?

• Native forestry exists to meet the demand for hardwood timber. There is no surplus in other states, so consumers will have no choice but to buy imported timbers from countries that do not always share our ecologically sustainable forest management practices.
  
  More information on sustainable native forestry can be found here.