Visit an Australian forestry website and you'd be forgiven for thinking that this industry was spearheading efforts to protect the last of our native forests, not cutting them down. Rather than photos of logging operations you'll see untouched landscapes, wilderness walks and accounts of employees' environmental and community involvement.

With a poll commissioned by Planet Ark in 2004 reporting that 87% of Australians want an end to old growth logging, the state's forestry industries continue to devote a significant slice of their budgets to public relations in an attempt to create an image of sustainability.

The phenomenon of forestry greenwash has reached epic proportions in Tasmania where Forestry Tasmania has positioned itself as the custodian of our natural environment, running tourism ventures and education programs in order to pass on the good word. In fact, several pages of the Forestry Tasmania website are devoted to discrediting the activities of conservationists campaiging to protect native forests. This is of course not surprising, condsidering that forest protection would deny them of their primary business activity: logging high conservation value forest.

Tactics used by the forestry industry in Tasmania long ago crossed the line from greenwash into illegal activity. In December 2003, Tasmania's literary giant Richard Flanagan detailed the extent of corruption in an article published in The Bulletin entitled The Rape of Tasmania, published in the Bulletin and also available in full on the Australian Conservation Foundation Website.

In 2006, Four Corners aired the documentary The A Team outlining how packaging company Amcor formed an alliance with the workers' union in order to infultrate green groups and hi-jack Labour forestry policy so successfully that "they owned the forestry policy of the party".

Despite this public airing of forestry's dirty laundry, logging continues unabated in Australia's forests. The destructive nature of methods used by the industry that they routinely describe as "sustainable" and "sophisticated" begger belief.

Internationally Recognised

The Australian forestry industry has repeatedly failed to attain certification from international accreditation programs such as the Forestry Stewardship Council; and has come under fire from peak environmental organisations in Australia (TWS, ACF) and overseas (Greenpeace, RAN) on an international scale for their use of logging practices long ago abandoned by all other developed nations.

The clearfell method used in Australia where every tree is taken, the area then burned and replanted with one or several species only, is devestating to the original ecosystem. The practice of planting monoculture plantations of single species on previously high conservation land ensures that the original ecosystem will never return and native forest habitat continues to recede. The forests that are being lost to this practice include ecosystems tens of thousands of years old that have remained in tact since the last ice age.

Management of our Native Forests

The forestry industry cliams that Regional Forestry Agreements (RFAs) ensure that our native forests are sustainably managed. According to the government's own State of the Environment Report 2001 "the pressures on biodiversity in old growth forests were identified as a major issue in the 1996 national State of the Environment Report (SoE 1996)...The RFAs do not provide a comprehensive coverage of all native forest types. Within some target regions many biologically significant ecosystems and species have not been adequately protected and the efficacy of many forest management prescriptions remain to be determined." The 2006 State of the Environment Report offers no follow up on this issue.

There are innumerable instances of the forestry industry breaching their own code of practice documented by the EPA, environment watchdogs, nature groups and scientists who visit logged areas (more detailed information coming soon).

The Bottom Line

Depending on who you ask, the definition of old growth forest and estimates of how much remains varies. On average, according to federal government figures and those of environmental groups, since European settlement, about 40% of the original forests of Western Australia have been lost forever, cleared to make way for farms, towns and roads (ANRA). Another 50% has been logged, leaving just 10% of the original old growth forest unlogged (WAFA). In Victoria, around 70% of original vegetation has been lost (ANRA) with less than 8% of old growth forest remaining (TWS). Less than 25% of Tasmania's original old growth cover remains (Greenpeace).

There is no sustainable way to harvest timber from the fragmented areas that remain.

Instead of offering statistics on the amount of forest that remains, the forestry industry often states the percentage of forest protected inside national parks. The industry uses this figure to give the impression that there is a large amount of forest and that nearly all of it is protected.

The fact is that, as areas outside national parks are lost through logging and land clearing, the forest inside national parks will account for a larger percentage. Following this logic, once all areas outside national parks are completely gone, we will then have achieved 100% protection!

Keeping Informed

The forestry industry and their dependent industries of paper, packaging and timber, work together to re-brand their products and come up with new campaigns to green their image, so it can be difficult keeping on top of all the greenwash. Here are some examples of what to look out for (more detail coming soon):

• Eco select Timber now extinct, see archives
• Envi "carbon neutral" paper
• Wood Naturally Better eco-friendly timber campaign (this website is full of statistics about the astounding level of old growth forest protected in Australia and how wood products are actually better than trees when it comes to the environment).

World Forestry Day

Forget World Forest Day, why celebrate the natural environmnet in its own right when you can celebrate the industry wiping it out! The following information comes from the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment:

"World Forestry Day is an international event celebrated on 21 March every year.

"World Forestry Day has been celebrated around the world for 30 years to remind communities of the importance of forests and the many benefits which we gain from them. The concept of having a World Forestry Day originated at the 23rd General Assembly of the European Confederation of Agriculture in 1971. Later that year, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation gave support to the idea believing the event would contribute a great deal to public awareness of the importance of forests and agreed that it should be observed every year around the world. March 21, the autumnal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere and the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere was chosen as the day to be celebrated offering information about the three key facets of forestry, protection, production and recreation.

"A forest, which we usually think of in terms of trees, is in fact a complex, living community. Beneath the forest canopy dwell interdependent populations of plants and animals, while the soil that forms the forest floor contains a large variety of invertebrates, bacteria and fungi which play an essential role in cycling nutrients in the soil and the forest.

"Forests provide many valuable things for the whole community. These include fresh water from forested catchments, a safe home for our flora and fauna, timber for our homes, furniture and paper, beautiful scenery and rugged environments for those who enjoy the outdoors, pollen and nectar for honey production, and archaeological and historical sites."