Furphy: Native forest logging in NSW is done selectively and therefore does minimal damage.

Fact: Native forest logging is industrialised and damaging.

Logging in NSW public native forests now involves both “intensive” and “selective” logging and is done in the context of significant cumulative damage. “Decades of industrial-scale logging have damaged the structure, function, and composition of Australia’s forests; increased the threat from severe fires; and generated social distrust – all in a disrupted climate regime” (Wardell-Johnson et al. 2024 pp.1).

The NSW Environment Protection Authority describes intensive logging as “high levels of tree removal and ground disturbance undertaken to promote regeneration” (NSW EPA 2023). Intensive logging is allowed in 140,000 hectares of forests between Grafton and Taree (including areas inside the proposed Great Koala National Park, Cadman n.d.) and in the Eden area. Selective logging “is the most common harvesting practice in coastal timber production forests” and “selectively removes trees from the harvest area … with the aim of maintaining the existing forest structure” (NSW EPA 2023).

The introduction by the NSW Government in 2018 of the present rules for logging (the Coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals) increased the permitted intensity of logging, including selective logging. The rules also relaxed other environmental constraints in a push to maintain timber supply from native forests (Pugh 2024a pp.129-130). In selective logging, a minimum basal area of 10 or 12 square metres of trees per hectare of forest is required to be retained (NSW EPA 2023). Natural forests may have a basal area of 30 to over 60 square metres per hectare (NEFA n.d.a) – up to five or more times the allowable post-logging density.

Industrialised native forest logging is ecologically damaging and unsustainable. It removes hollow-bearing trees relied on by many forest creatures, and deprives creatures of food supplies. Some animals are killed during logging; others die later due to loss of shelter, territory or food, including threatened species. But logging impacts much more than the felled trees and the creatures who directly depend on them. Logging uses large, heavy machines, including bulldozers, harvesters and log grabbers that weigh 20 to 30 tons. These machines trample the other layers of the forest, bare and compact the soil, and damage retained trees. Logging changes soil structure and chemistry, increases erosion, pollutes streams, alters streamflows, and results in weed and pest invasion. It fragments forests, simplifies ecosystems, releases carbon to the atmosphere and increases bushire risks. (See Lindenmayer 2024 pp.19-99; NEFA n.d.b; Pugh 2024a pp.27-117).

Further reading

NEFA (n.d.b). The logging rules explained. Webpage. Available at: https://www.nefa.org.au/logging_prescriptions.

Lindenmayer, D. (2024). The forest wars. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, pp.19-99.