Regional Forest Agreements Archives - Page 3 of 5

Planting The Seed For Proper Forest Management

February 5, 2016

Nineteen years ago this week, the forest wars were meant to end.

Nineteen years ago, the first of 10 Regional Forest Agreements was signed, aimed at weighing up the needs of forest-based industries and conservation within areas of native forest.

As the then-Environment Minister Robert Hill said, we were meant to see “more effective management of endangered species by protecting areas of high quality habitat, by making programs more focussed, and by setting priorities for specific plans to protect threatened species”.

But with ...

20 year legal exemption must go

February 3, 2016

Wednesday 3rd February marks the 19th anniversary of an agreement that has allowed the logging industry a legal exemption from Australia’s environment laws.

Jill Redwood from Environment East Gippsland, where this exemption from commonwealth laws was first introduced says the Turnbull government is planning to instate another 20 years of this special treatment.

“We have one more year before this archaic agreement expires. To continue this out-dated, anti-environmental exemption to the laws for a passé and declining industry is deplorable”.

“Being exempt from ...

Legally exempt extinction?

February 3, 2016

Our state and federal governments signed away our native forests exactly 19 years ago today (3rd Feb 1997). They were deemed exempt from commonwealth environmental laws. Ever since our forests have fed a massive overseas woodchip market.

This immunity from the law will end next year and the Turnbull Government wants to roll over this special treatment without pause or scrutiny.

Much of our wildlife is now critically endangered ...

Greens push for 21st century vision for Australia’s native forests

January 31, 2016

A year to the day that the first Regional Forest Agreement is due to expire, the Greens are calling for a comprehensive reassessment of how we manage native forests in Australia.

“Regional Forest Agreements were meant to bring the forestry industry into the new century, but right now the native forest logging industry is operating like it did in the 19th and 20th Centuries,” said the Australian Greens spokesperson for forests Senator Janet Rice.

“The past two decades have seen massive changes ...

Our native forest regulations need to move with the times

July 20, 2015

The rules governing our native forests, RFAs, were drawn up nearly 20 years ago. They need to be thoroughly reviewed and updated to reflect the changes in the forestry industry that have occurred in the last two decades.

BIT BY BIT, Tony Abbott ...

Life after the RFA

April 27, 2015

Since the East Gippsland RFA was signed in February 1997, we have seen:

licences issued for unlimited woodchip exports from the region a five year permanent blockade of the Goolengook heritage listed old growth forest. Hundreds of people were arrested. Politically and financially this was costly to the government and what remained was eventually protected. areas which have previously been identified by the government as having national and state significance for biological values have been logged. Threatened species become more threatened. The RFA’s were ...

Forestry agreements need a full overhaul, not just a tick and flick

April 1, 2015

Regional Forest Agreements were supposed to give certainty to both loggers and conservationists. But they haven't. Pengo/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY For almost two decades, the management of forests in parts of Western Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales has been underpinned by state and federal Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs), defined as “20-year plans for ...

Managing Victoria’s Native Forest Timber Resources

December 11, 2013

This audit examined whether Victoria’s native forest timber resources on public land are being managed productively and sustainably.

The Department of Environment and Primary Industries (DEPI), VicForests and the Department of Treasury and Finance are managing the timber resources in a productive way that delivers socio-economic benefits to regional communities. VicForests has demonstrated that its commercial decisions balance the need forlong-term economic returns with the need to support a sustainable industry.

DEPI and VicForests demonstrate many environmentally, socially and ...

Environmentalists urge Rudd to scrap ‘failed’ forestry deal with states

July 31, 2013

Green groups looking at legal challenge to Regional Forest Agreements they blame for pushing species towards extinction

A coalition of environment groups has urged the federal government to tear up its “failed” forestry deal with states, which they blame for unsustainable logging and pushing species such as the Leadbeater’s possum and numbat to the brink of extinction.

The groups, including Victorian-based My Environment and the Environment Defenders Office legal network, said they were looking at legal options to challenge the government if ...

Newman Govt – opens up Qld to logging!

February 26, 2013

industrial rainforest species

Queensland was the only state that managed to do away with their clearfelling of native forests as a result of the RFA. It also has no woodchip industry, but Campbell Newman now wants both by the looks.

The Queensland govt gave the go ahead in February to log almost 2 million hectares of forest and woodlands previously excluded from logging!

It has even pushed through plans to ...

Topic: Regional Forest Agreements