Forests For All

National Parks Association of NSW (NPA) initiated this campaign because we’re at a crossroads in history as the Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) start to expire. The RFAs are the deals between the state and federal governments that allow industrial logging of public forests. They have meant that for the last 20 years logging has been going on in our forests that has driven many species to the brink of extinction.

National Parks Association of NSW (NPA) initiated this campaign because we’re at a crossroads in history as the Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) start to expire. The RFAs are the deals between the state and federal governments that allow industrial logging of public forests. They have meant that for the last 20 years logging has been going on in our forests that has driven many species to the brink of extinction.

Our forests and wildlife deserve proper protection

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Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) have failed to protect Victoria’s threatened animals and plants, and make Victoria’s logging industry secure and sustainable. RFAs are out of date, and don’t take into account the impacts of climate change and bushfires. But now, you have an opportunity to ensure Victoria doesn’t get stuck with more of these twenty-year-long agreements.

RFAs exempt the native forest logging industry from national environment laws, including those protecting threatened species. This means loggers can destroy forest habitat for animals like Greater Gliders and Leadbeater’s Possum, without even having to apply to the government for permission to do so.

We need to end the ‘special treatment’ for native forest logging in Victoria. The first step is to simply allow the RFAs to expire, rather than just roll them over—which is what the Turnbull Federal Government wants to do right now. Longer-term, part of the solution is strong, new national environment laws. But right now, while the Victorian RFAs are being reviewed and are expiring, you can have your say.

Let the government know that Victoria’s wildlife and forests—like those to be included in the Great Forest National Park—deserve proper protection. Please take five minutes to make an urgent submission today (closes 29 January 2018).

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o whom it may concern,

I write regarding progress with implementation of the Victorian Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) from 1 July 2009 to 30 June 2014.

The RFAs sought to balance and protect the full range of environmental, social, economic and heritage values. However the Victorian RFAs have comprehensively failed to meet these objectives.

RFAs are out of date and not fit for purpose. They have failed environmentally, socially and economically, and must not be extended, or rolled over.

It’s time for a fundamental reset. Twenty years on from the signing of the RFAs, much has changed.

Under RFAs, logging exceeds sustained yields; wildlife are hurtling towards extinction; and the last green, unburnt tracts of forest are earmarked for logging, depriving other forest-dependent industries of the opportunity to provide employment and economic benefit to regional Victoria.

This overdue, mandated five-yearly review provides the opportunity to modify the Victorian RFAs, which expire from March 2018.

I recommend the following modifications, at a minimum:

End the native forest logging industry’s exemption from national environment law.
Strengthen management prescriptions for threatened species.
Make substantial additions to the formal reserve system.
Looking forward, the looming expiration of the RFAs provides a once-in-two-decades opportunity to put in place improved and modern arrangements for management of Victoria’s precious publicly owned state forests—ones based on current science, and on community views about how our state forests should be valued, used and managed.

Future forest management needs to be fairer, and actually deliver benefits for all Australians, not just the over-subsidised native forest logging sector.

Other forest-dependent industries—such as conservation recreation, tourism, agriculture, water and carbon—must be accounted for in any forest management arrangements going forward.

It is unjustifiable for the Victorian and Commonwealth Governments to extend or rollover the RFAs, which have led to destructive and unsustainable native forest logging, because their failings are so many.

This overdue five-yearly review ought to recommend the RFAs be abandoned. Instead, RFAs should be replaced with arrangements that ensure natural and cultural values are protected, and which support the completion of the industry’s shift into less-controversial plantation and recycled fibre—rather than entrenching unsustainable native forest logging.
    
Sincerely,

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