1. The WA state government under premier Geoff Gallop promised to protect "all old growth and high conservation value forest". It has halted logging in about 170,000 ha of such forest, and has proposed boundaries for 30 new national parks, which is great! But for various reasons, including manipulated definitions of 'old growth' forest and inadequate assessments of 'high conservation value’ forest, especially in the jarrah forests, important areas of forest that should be protected continue to be logged, e.g. forests excluded from proposed new Wellington, Kingston and Blackwood National Parks.

As a result of recent government decisions, about half of WA's public native forests will now be in formal and informal conservation reserves (980,000 ha), while the other half remains as state ‘production’ forest available for logging and mining (910,000 ha).

2. For the rest of this year (2003), logging levels are far above sustainable levels because the government promised to fulfil existing log supply contracts until the end of the year. The volume of logs allowed under the existing 10-year contracts, which was already unsustainable, does not take into account the ban on logging old growth forests. Thus we have an already unsustainably high level of logging imposed on a smaller area of forest.

3. The logging industry is pressuring the government very hard to try to get a new round of logging contracts for the next 10 years that will again be far above any sustainable level. If the new Forest Management Plan (FMP) currently being assessed by the EPA prior to final approval by the government adopts an unsustainable level of logging, as demanded by industry, most of the remaining state ‘production’ forest will be wiped out over the next 10 years.

4. Current logging and burning operations continue to destroy the habitat of many species, including endangered species, especially the 26 species of birds and mammals that need hollows in old trees for nesting, breeding and shelter. Under existing legislation, CALM and the Forest Products Commission (FPC) are not bound by the Wildlife Conservation Act or the CALM Act to protect threatened fauna and their habitat. The Greens (WA) proposed a Fauna Protection Bill, which would fix some major flaws in the legislation, but this was rejected by the government.

5. The methods of logging still being used include clearfelling in karri and 'gap creation' in jarrah. Both types of clearfell logging are highly destructive and totally unsustainable. As well as impacting on wildlife and habitat they cause major soil damage, erosion, and pollution of streams including salinity.

6. There is a chronic lack of monitoring, auditing and accountability, which means that even the things forest managers say they are doing to minimise harmful impacts don't necessarily get done and no action is taken for breaches or non-compliance.

7. Current logging and mining operations continue to be very wasteful of forests, trees, logs and unwanted species (e.g. sheoak, banksia). This MUST stop. One reason it keeps happening is because of the low price (royalty) charged by the government for logs from our forests. Low log prices encourage industry to waste and misuse resources and discourage the development of alternative plantation resources. The government promised a review of royalties but this still has not occurred. Research indicates logging WA’s public native forests occurs at an economic loss to the public.

8. Our forest ecosystems are under threat from a wide range of impacts, including climate change and declining rainfall; introduced species (e.g. foxes, weeds) and diseases (e.g. dieback); fragmentation through logging, mining and roading; and repeated burning. These threats do not act in isolation - they are cumulative and compounding. The government, CALM and the FPC continue to ignore the cumulative and compounding impacts of these threats.

9. The FPC continues to sell karri logs to Marubeni for export to Japan as woodchips and jarrah logs to Simcoa for use as charcoal in the production of silicon at Kemerton near Bunbury. Now the FPC has plans to re-commence woodchipping marri logs, this time for export to China. This would be a disaster and MUST NOT be allowed to proceed. (Felling of marri for woodchips stopped in 2001 when Japanese pulpmills said they would no longer buy marri woodchips from our native forests because their quality was ‘too low’!).

10. Government agencies, including CALM, continue to badly mishandle fire management and Phytophthora dieback disease control across the South West. Frequent repeated burning has serious impacts on ecosystems and fire-sensitive flora and fauna. Poorly controlled logging operations, especially in wet soil conditions, are a major cause of spreading dieback which can then seriously damage ecosystems over a wide area. Major improvements are needed in both cases if we are to approach ecological sustainability.