The Western Australian state government’s latest “foolhardy” experiment with outsourcing forest industry governance to activists has blown up in the face of Environment Minister Stephen Dawson. Source: Timberbiz
That’s the view of the state’s peak timber industry body, the Forest Industries Federation of WA (FIFWA), following the release of yet another review of alleged old-growth forest within a regrowth forestry coupe.
FIFWA’s Deputy Executive Officer, Matt Granger said the latest review offered no surprises.
“The unremarkable result is that the review confirmed what scientists had already concluded from previous exhaustive assessments, that there is no old-growth forest in this re-growth coupe,” Mr Granger said.
“Mr Dawson acted with indecent haste two weeks ago to order the suspension of lawful highly-regulated timber harvesting operations, in response to ill-informed unrepresentative activists,” he said.
“The government rolled-over, abandoning principles of due process and good governance, to sacrifice honest worker jobs on the altar of the insatiable greens lobby.
“This disgraceful episode will only inspire radical activists to repeat their job-destroying tactics, while the timber industry is loaded up with the costs of unscheduled delays and stand downs,” according to Mr Granger.
“The State Government repeatedly and publicly states it fully supports the Forest management Plan; we ask they now back up these words with actions and stop undermining the process.”
