By 2009 – 70% of Australia’s remaining forests were degraded from logging. 5
That outrageously irresponsible state of affairs worsened as this 2016 satellite informed image illustrates impact of unbridled logging and land clearing to 2016.
Since this map below the state of our forests is drastically worse.
Unsustainable logging and clearing continued up to and beyond the catastrophic 2019-20 fires when 8.19 million hectares of native forest burnt across several states, NSW being worst affected having 5.014 million hectares burnt.
So, despite the loss of a further 6% of that sparse amount of natural forest cover remaining, per the map above, and with entire ecosystems then clinging on for existence, state governments continued the brutal logging of even the last remnants of precious biota left standing, biota – the creatures remaining after more than 3 billion perished, and the sparse genetic material urgently needed for any regeneration. Though 81% of native forest burnt was in public native forests state government logging agencies still would not stop logging. Leaked government documents showed government’s ignored the very advice they commissioned, which urged logging to stop. Only court cases brought by the public – where they are permitted to do so – have resulted in any of the few reprieves from this outrageous regime, bringing the paucity of what remains of native forests closer to annihilation.
And despite all this, beyond a welcome 2022 Federal government decision to ban the use of any native forest biomass to make electricity, Australia still allows logging and burning of native forest biomass for thermal industrial heating and the production of crude oils for fuels. With wood combustion more greenhouse gas intensive than fossil fuels and a total forest cover loss of over 20% in the 2019-20 climate change fuelled fires, to permit any form of forest to be directed to combustion for energy is beyond illogical; it must simply be stated that policy that allows this is ignorance verging on madness, or corruption. Deliberate forest combustion at industrial scale jeopardises life on earth.
As global population continues to rise so does the already unsustainable rate of forest destruction. Native forests cannot and must not be allowed to be felled to fulfill this demand. They must stand and mature to allow us to best resist climate and biodiversity crises.
The only logical course of action to address the twin and inextricably intertwined crises of biodiversity and climate change is immediate protection of all native forest and vegetation – for carbon draw down, for habitat provision; without one, the other cannot function/exist. Without the resilience biodiversity brings to ecosystems, forests die. Without taking advantage of standing native forests to draw down dangerously high concentrations of atmospheric carbon, forests will die. Life on earth will, for our purposes, effectively cease.
Australia must legislate total protection of all that remains of our native forests. With full legislative protection from logging and clearing a national forest restoration programme can commence. Australia must stand firm to demand such protection for native forests, not only on this continent but globally. This affects us all.
Sources:
https://www.science.unsw.edu.au/news/extinction-crisis-looms-oceania-landmark-study
In the Line of Fire: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0720