Last week, the West Australian government committed to ending native forest logging in the state’s southwest by 2024, and phasing out logging in all native forests by 2033. This unprecedented move has stunned environmental campaigners and foresters alike.
The move is divisive, and emblematic of a much bigger, nationwide struggle between the native logging sector – which maintains that logging can be carried out sustainably – and environmental campaigners and scientists, who want to see all native forest protected, especially after the devastating bushfire season of 2019/20.