Rural voters dislike logging
A leaked report commissioned by the logging lobby group Forest Wood and Products Australia (FWPA) and dated August 2018, showed that more than two thirds of people surveyed in regional Australia disapprove of logging native forests. No wonder the logging group has been keeping it secret.
Only 17% of regional voters supported logging native forests and 65% said native forest logging was unacceptable. This means the logging industry has no social licence to operate. The results support most credible opinion polls carried out since the 90’s which showed that 80% of Australians don’t want to see our forest logged.
The study used data from the 2016 Regional Well-being survey of 13,302 people, with showed more than 11,500 rural and regional Australians responded to questions about “acceptability of forestry-related activities”.
Most people thought logging forests was similar to destructive mining operations.
The study Community Perceptions of Australia’s Forest, Wood and Paper Industries: Implications for Social License to Operate was dated August 2018.
Read the Sunday Age article here