South-West Forests Defence Foundation Inc.

Saving jarrah and karri native forest in Western Australia

Draft Forest Management Plan 2024–2033

The draft Forest Management Plan 2024-2033 is seriously deficient and very disappointing.  It is glossy, padded out with extraneous material, and contains patent errors of fact.

For detailed comments on the draft please read our latest newsletter here.

We encourage you to make a submission – this is urgent – before 11.59 pm on Sunday, 18th December 2022 – please do it now!

Points to include in your submission about the
draft Forest Management Plan 2024-2033 (dFMP)

Choose the points you think are most important, put them in your own words.

Choose the points you think are important from the suggestions below.  Submissions can be made in three ways:

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FOREST MANAGEMENT PLAN 2024-2033

  • The final FMP must comply with the Premier’s decision to end native forest logging and set out how it will end.
  • The addition of areas to the conservation estate announced in previous forest management plans dating back to 1987 should be completed within one year.
  • The addition of 400,000 hectares of forest to the conservation estate should be completed within 18 months.
  • Noongar heritage should be protected, and Noongar people should be fully involved in forest and fire planning and management.
  • The final FMP must be easy to follow, short and to the point, with Key Performance Indicators for planned actions giving time frames for monitoring, assessment and completion.
  • The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) must be given adequate funding to protect the land it manages and conduct research and monitor and assess its activities with full public access to all its documentation.
  • ‘Ecological thinning’ of regrowth forest allows the Forest Products Commission to continue commercial logging and is contrary to government policy.
  • Thinning of regrowth forest causes soil compaction, which is harmful for all vegetation and lasts at least 50 years.
  • There must be no thinning of regrowth karri because karri self-thins, so thinning is unnecessary and does more harm than good.
  • There is published research to show that thinning in regrowth karri will increase the incidence of the Armillaria fungus, which kills young karri trees and weakens those that survive.
  • Thinning makes regrowth karri vulnerable to windstorms, which can and do blow down the retained trees and are projected to increase.
  • There should be no thinning of regrowth jarrah until long-term trials show that the alleged benefits actually happen.
  • Jarrah self-thins but it may take a long time (~100 years) so thinning is unnecessary and does more harm than good.
  • There is published research to show that thinning in regrowth jarrah will spread Phytophthora dieback, which kills hundreds of understorey species in jarrah forest.
  • Exotic species in mine site rehabilitation should be cleared and replaced with native species.
  • Non-sawlog wood from thinning and clearing mine site rehabilitation should be used for firewood.
  • Current fire management and prescribed burning are having devastating impacts on the biodiversity of the FMP area so the FMP must give biodiversity protection equal importance with protection of life and property.
  • The annual prescribed burn target (200,000 hectares to be burnt every year with 45 per cent of the FMP area to have a ‘fuel age’ of less than 6 years) must be abandoned.
  • There should be no prescribed burning in areas remote from dwellings and infrastructure except for proven biodiversity management burns.
  • Wildfire-mitigation measures should be taken within 500 metres of buildings, infrastructure and biodiversity assets in need of protection from wildfire.
  • Some of the funds used for prescribed burning should be used instead to acquire and use modern technology that allows rapid detection and at-source suppression of ignitions.
  • There should be no use of aerial ignition of prescribed burns.
  • The Conservation and Parks Commission should conduct periodic assessments of the implementation of DBCA’s prescribed burns and be provided with the resources to do so.