Public native forest logging in NSW is ending, and the Minns Labor Government must manage that end with honesty and fairness - not allow the transition to be gamed.
Recent Four Corners reporting showed what can happen when governments end native forest logging in one place, but fail to change the system around it. The trees and money can keep flowing and the destruction can be pushed across borders, hidden in less visible supply chains, or kept alive through public subsidy.
NSW must not repeat this mistake.
The end of public native forest logging cannot become another public payment for mill owners and logging companies. Public money spent on the transition must be tied strictly to public benefit - direct support for workers, retraining, income security, new jobs, First Nations ranger programs, environmental restoration, sustainable manufacturing, recreation, tourism and regional development.
Workers and regional communities must be supported. Corporations must not be allowed to capture public funds to prop up their unsustainable business model, compensate shareholders, or shift supply interstate, private native forestry or imported timber supply chains.
Our public native forests have been logged too hard, for too long. Decades of successive and unsustainable logging have diminished these forests so badly that most trees taken from the public estate are now killed for pulp, woodchip and low-value wood products that can be sourced elsewhere. All the while, koalas, greater gliders, owls and forest ecosystems are being pushed closer to collapse.
Public native forests are carbon stores, wildlife habitat, water catchments, cultural landscapes and living ecosystems. They belong to all of us.
We need to be honest about the niche market native forest logging is serving. Luxury products like benchtops, decking, panelling and pretty hardwood floors are not a justification for logging our precious public native forests.
NSW does not need to destroy koala habitat and greater glider den trees so that a small luxury timber market can continue as though we have not already destroyed so much of our ancient forest estate.
More than 90% of timber used in housing already comes from softwood plantations. The future of building is in plantation timber, engineered timber, recycled timber and manufactured timber products that are not linked to the destruction of our public native forests.
The future of our public native forests is protection, restoration, recreation, tourism, clean water, carbon storage, cultural land management and thriving ecosystems.
The Minns Labor Government must act now.