Government policy: The government’s “Protecting our old-growth forests” policy commits it to “the full protection of all our remaining old growth and high conservation value forests” (p.1); “the cessation of logging in all old growth forests and protecting these areas in a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative (CAR) reserve system” (p.4); “complete a rigorous assessment of other high conservation value areas to be included in the reserve system…” (p.4), and “the creation of 30 new national parks” (p. 1, 4). The CAR reserve system is to be based on the National Forest Policy Statement (1992) and the application of the JANIS criteria developed by independent scientists in 1997. “Protecting our old growth forests”, Government election policy, January 2001.

In relation to the proposed Forest Management Plan (FMP) and proposed conservation reserve system contained in it, there are a number of concerns held by forest conservation groups, summarized below.

The government adopted the definition and mapping of old growth generated by CALM for the RFA, which is NOT the nationally accepted definition as set out in the National Forest Policy Statement (1992). For example, unlogged (‘virgin’) forests alleged to have dieback present (or even forests which it says are likely to become infected in the future!), were ruled out as old growth, as were forests that may have been lightly selectively logged in the distant past. In other words, only unlogged forest free of dieback qualified as old growth forest, which contravenes the NFPS (and JANIS).

According to this definition and mapping there were 346,000 ha of old growth forest at the time of the RFA. The government’s policy quotes this figure as the area of old growth to be protected.

After the election, CALM re-calculated the area of old growth forest and said that instead of 346,000 ha there were now only 333,000 ha. CALM said that approx. 4,000 ha had been ‘lost’ due to logging since the RFA, another 4,000 ha ‘lost’ due to updated mapping for dieback, and another 4,000 ha ‘lost’ due to updated mapping for previous (historical) logging history. WAFA rejects these in-house and unverified recalculations and has told the government it expects 346,000 ha of old growth to be protected. This can easily be done by, for example, reclassifying unlogged forest allegedly infected with dieback as old growth forest, and reclassifying the least “negligibly disturbed” previously logged forest as old growth. This would be in accordance with the NFPS and JANIS. CALM says it has reclassified dieback infected old growth as old growth, but we have no proof of that.

It is proposed that several thousand hectares of old growth forest remain outside the formal conservation reserve system. While this may be justifiable in some cases (small patches distant from the nearest conservation reserve), it is essential that as much as possible be included in formal reserves and that areas that can’t be are strongly protected by other explicit means: clearly identifying and mapping it; establishing a 50 metre buffer around the actual old growth forest to shield it from the effects of adjacent logging and other destructive impacts; and managing it as conservation forest, not ‘production’ forest.

The proposed new reserve system in the Central and Northern jarrah forest regions falls well short of CAR status. For the Central jarrah forest region, a number of community-identified HCV forests, currently proposed for logging, should be added to the formal reserve system to better approximate CAR status:

• Dalgarup (Bridgetown) (recommended for protection by Conservation Commission, March 2002);
• HCV forest omitted from Blackwood National Park i.e. Helms and sections of several other blocks adjacent to the threatened Blackwood River south of Nannup;
• HCV forest omitted from Greater Kingston National Park: Warrup, Corbal, Mersea, Dudijup, and Kingston (all proposed for protection by CALM, April 2001);
• HCV forest omitted from Wellington National Park: Arcadia, Yabberup, Mungalup and Lowden;
• HCV forest omitted from Easter National Park (parts of Easter and Iffley – the existing proposed “Easter National Park” boundary as mapped by DCLM is ridiculous!);
• The small remaining unreserved portion of Central, adjacent to D’Entrecasteaux National Park (recommended for protection by Conservation Commission, March 2002);
• Palmer “petition area”, and HCV forest remaining in Roseneath (Collie);
• Small addition to Kerr Conservation Park, Balingup.

It is important to note that while many of these forests have been subject to one or other of two post-election HCV assessments, as promised in the government’s forest policy, those assessments were deeply flawed. For example, little or no field work was done in order to genuinely ascertain the conservation values of any of those forests, and the vegetation community mapping used to determine the degree to which JANIS and CAR reserve ‘targets’ were met has since been shown to be flawed (see 4.6). Both post-election HCV forest assessments highlighted the almost complete lack of scientific biological survey data upon which to base decisions about the adequacy of the proposed CAR reserve system.1

WAFA expects the government to keep its election policy on forests by fully protecting all old growth and high conservation value forest, including the community-identified HCV forests listed above.