Forest Products Industry

Federal Member for Lyne, Alison Penfold MP, has condemned Chris Bowen’s approval of the Improved Native Forest Management (INFM) methodology, saying it will accelerate job losses across the NSW North Coast while fundamentally undermining the integrity of Australia’s carbon credit scheme. Source: Timberbiz Ms Penfold said the Minister’s decision clears the way for the NSW Labor Government to generate millions of dollars in Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) by locking up State Forests as part of the proposed Great Koala National Park. “Workers have already lost their jobs because of the NSW Government’s harvesting moratorium, and this decision will only encourage further permanent job losses across the North Coast,” Ms Penfold said. “The people paying the price are not politicians in Sydney or Canberra. They are timber workers, contractors, truck drivers, sawmill employees, mechanics, small businesses and regional families who have built their lives around a sustainable forestry industry. “The Minister was required under the legislation to consider the likely economic and social impacts before approving this methodology. He concluded those impacts could be appropriately mitigated. I simply cannot fathom how he reached that conclusion. “Has Chris Bowen met the workers who have already lost their livelihoods? Has he spoken to the businesses already forced to make impossible decisions because of Labor’s forestry policies?” Ms Penfold said the decision represented far more than another environmental policy. “It fundamentally changes the purpose of Australia’s carbon credit scheme. “The ACCU scheme was established to encourage genuine new emissions reductions and carbon sequestration projects. It was never intended to reward governments for shutting down existing industries and then claiming carbon credits for doing so. “The Minns Government announced the Great Koala National Park first and then went looking for a funding source. Chris Bowen has now handed them exactly what they wanted. “Instead of encouraging genuinely additional carbon abatement, this methodology allows governments to monetise a political decision to prohibit an existing lawful activity. “If governments can create carbon credits simply by locking up productive land, we’ve fundamentally changed what Australia’s carbon market was created to do.” Ms Penfold said the decision reinforced a growing belief across regional Australia that Labor simply does not understand or value regional industries. “When Labor weighs up the interests of inner-city environmental activists against the livelihoods of people who live and work in regional Australia, regional communities lose every time. “This is another example of Labor treating regional industries as expendable while expecting country Australians to carry the economic burden.” Ms Penfold said the Minister’s decision was precisely the outcome she sought to prevent when she recently introduced her Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Amendment Bill 2026. “I introduced my Private Member’s Bill because I could see exactly where this was heading. “My Bill would have protected the integrity of the ACCU scheme by preventing governments from using Commonwealth carbon credits to fund political land-use decisions instead of genuine carbon abatement. “Unfortunately, Chris Bowen has chosen to ignore those concerns.” Ms Penfold called on the Government to immediately release the full advice, modelling and analysis provided by the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee that supported the Minister’s decision. “If Chris Bowen is confident this methodology satisfies the integrity standards required by law, he should release every piece of advice that underpinned his decision.” She also called on the Parliament to disallow the methodology. “The Parliament now has the opportunity to stop this dangerous precedent before lasting damage is done to Australia’s carbon markets and before Commonwealth carbon credits are used to subsidise a policy that has already cost North Coast jobs and threatens many more. “I urge every Member and Senator to stand with regional Australia, restore the integrity of the ACCU scheme and support the disallowance of this regulation.”

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Four of Australia’s most senior forest scientists have questioned the evidence underpinning native forest harvesting bans. In a new paper in the peer-reviewed journal Australian Forestry, they argue that closures of commercial native forest harvesting on public land in Victoria and Western Australia, and the push to extend such bans into New South Wales and Tasmania, rest on contested science. Source: Timberbiz The lead author is Dr John Raison, a former Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO who has spent nearly five decades studying native forests. He is joined by former CSIRO scientists Dr Sadanandan Nambiar AO, Dr Glen Kile, and University of Melbourne hydrologist Associate Professor Leon Bren. Between them, the authors bring more than 200 years of experience in sustainable forest management. The paper examines the scientific literature on six common claims made against native forest harvesting, spanning forest loss, water, fire and wildlife. They find a far more complex and nuanced picture than what is commonly portrayed to the public and in political discourse. Much of the science drawn upon to justify native forest harvesting closures comes from a singular narrow viewpoint that does not encompass or recognise the breadth of local and landscape-scale research that provides a counter-perspective. Blanket bans on harvesting, the authors warn, are only deepening the challenges Australia already confronts regarding maintaining the skills, capacity and resourcing needed to manage forests for their ongoing health and resilience and to meet domestic demand for wood products through locally sourced wood products. Australian Forestry managing editor Dr Mohammad Ghaffariyan said the paper brought together more than two centuries of combined research experience to ask a straightforward question about what the published evidence shows. “Australian Forestry exists to put work of this calibre in front of the people making decisions about our forests. Readers will weigh the findings for themselves, but the debate is better for having the evidence on the table,” he said.

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Dr John Raison, Former Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO penned an open letter to the managing director of the ABC. This is that letter. The management of Australia’s vast and diverse native forests, understandably, is open to a range of views and often conflicting suggestions and actions. The provision of balanced information to enable informed public discussion would help the community, and the ABC should play a constructive role. Unfortunately, the recent ABC 4 Corners program [‘Timber turmoil’, 22 June] was yet another catering for the anti-forestry campaign, designed and delivered accordingly. Understandably, it has been widely criticised as biased, unfair and factually flawed by many stakeholders. It was seriously deficient in reporting on the science underpinning sustainable management, including harvesting, of Australia’s native forests. We are advised that the ABC was provided with relevant scientific background papers and offers from senior scientists to be interviewed – but to no avail. We recently published a detailed scientific analysis and rebuttal of the main claims and allegations made by activists against the harvesting of native forests (Raison et al., 2026). The program repeated many of the false claims and ignored all alternative science-based information Prof Lindenmayer (author of a book entitled ‘The Forest Wars’, 2024) had several appearances and was interviewed (and used to promote the program). He repeated his well-publicised (including via several ABC programs) claims including that harvesting is accelerating the loss of old habitat trees and other biodiversity values, is increasing bushfire risks and threatens water supply. He accused state forest management agencies of ‘rape and pillage’ of native forests. These serious allegations were left unquestioned by the presenter. All the claims above have been strongly challenged or debunked by critical scientific research and analysis published by several academics and researchers, and by experienced forest managers. The aging process and repeated wildfires are the main factors driving loss of old trees, not harvesting. Detailed studies over extensive areas have shown that harvesting does not increase either the severity or area burnt by wildfires at the landscape scale because harvested areas are small and dispersed. Fire weather, heavy fuel loads and steep topography are the main drivers of extensive wildfires. Good planning and regulated harvesting are effective in protecting water values – repeated claims that harvest of mountain ash forests is a threat to Melbourne’s water are based on flawed and outdated modelling. In this program and on several occasions previously, the ABC seeks only the opinions and conclusions on native forestry from one academic source, as though Australia has no other science-based expertise spanning our diverse native forests and how to sustainably manage them. The extensive on-ground experience of many hundreds of dedicated forest managers across the country seems to matter little. This skewed approach is a disservice to the community and does not reflect well on our national broadcaster. The program used emotive techniques to create a negative image of native forest harvesting. Thus, we saw the reporter and Prof. Lindenmayer standing on large stumps to create the impression that cutting down old-growth trees is common when in fact almost all areas now harvested are regrowth originating after earlier harvesting or wildfire. Nationally, about 95 % of current harvesting uses lower impact selective removal trees – but background images used in the program mostly show intensive higher impact harvesting operations. Then an activist spotlights to locate a glider and argues that their identification of ‘den’ trees will save gliders from harvesting. No mention is made of the considerable efforts made by the Forestry Corporation in pre-harvest surveys, and in modifying harvest plans and practices to protect endangered species. First class long-term research and monitoring by scientists from the NSW Forestry Corporation, the NSW Environment Department and CSIRO which shows that koala numbers are increasing, and that regulated sustainable harvests have no impact on their populations is not even mentioned. The activist from the Wilderness Society made the usual allegation, without providing any evidence, that harvesting is destroying forests and creating major threats to biodiversity, especially old-growth forests. The program made much of so-called “timber turmoil”! At the hub of the story was the discovery (by the ABC and anti-forestry ‘detectives’) that a small quantity of logs from Tasmanian public forests are being sold and transported to Victoria for processing. What is improper or wrong about that? The logs are being legally sourced from sustainably managed, independently certified, forests and being converted into high value, strong, long lasting (storing carbon) and beautiful wood products which we use. Those industries support rural economies and jobs for hundreds of fellow Australians and is exactly what we should do and promote. Such activities are internationally recognised as one effective way to support climate change mitigation. The allegations made by Prof. Lindenmayer and by the Wilderness Society that Victorian taxpayers are subsidising a ‘zombie’ industry are flimsy and highly disrespectful. Broad claims and campaigns against native forestry, including calls for a total ban on harvesting, are largely based on misinformation, selective or flawed use of science, misplaced focus on iconic fauna and exaggerated accounts of occasional management failures. Such campaigns hinder the development of better policies and practices that can benefit both the environment and the community. What we urgently need is not more “Forest Wars” or one-sided activism, but science-based forest policies that support informed conservation and enable sustainable forest management for multiple forest values and community benefits.   Dr John Raison, Former Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Dr Sadanandan Nambiar AO, Former Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO References: D.B. Lindenmayer 2024. The forest wars: the ugly truth about what’s happening in our tall forests. Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin J. Raison, E. K. S. Nambiar, G. A. Kile & L. J. Bren. 2026 Australia’s native forests can be sustainably managed for wood production together with other important forest values. Australian Forestry, DOI: 10.1080/00049158.2026.2663997

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