Australia’s forests at breaking point: national laws urgently needed

The Wilderness Society welcomes the Four Corners program examining Australia’s native forest logging industry and the impacts on forests, wildlife, and climate. The issues raised are not isolated to Tasmania—they reflect a national policy failure that continues to allow the destruction of irreplaceable ecosystems across multiple states. 

Australia’s native forests are in crisis. Decades of industrial logging, land clearing, and increasingly severe fires have pushed iconic forest ecosystems and threatened species to the brink. Instead of strengthening protections, governments have continued to weaken environmental safeguards and hand decision-making powers to the states, where industry pressure is often strongest and oversight weakest.

As highlighted in our national campaign, ecosystems do not stop at state borders, and neither should environmental protection. Australia urgently needs national environmental laws with strong federal approval powers, robust enforcement, and consistent national standards to protect threatened species and remaining forest habitat.

Taxpayer subsidies have also long supported the transition away from native forest logging, yet destruction continues in Tasmania, as well as in Western Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. This contradiction must end. Australia has a clear opportunity to complete a just transition to a sustainable, plantation-based timber industry while protecting remaining native forests for future generations. 

The Wilderness Society’s position is clear:

• End the industrial logging of Australia’s native forests
• Establish strong national environmental laws with federal approval and enforcement powers
• Stop weakening protections by devolving responsibility to state governments
• Protect habitat for threatened species and lock in a just transition for timber workers and regional communities

The Four Corners program, that aired last night, reinforces what communities, scientists, and Traditional Owners have been saying for years: Australia cannot afford piecemeal regulation of its forests. National environmental challenges require national leadership—and urgent action.

The Wilderness Society Tasmania will be participating in the program, bringing on-the-ground perspective from one of the most contested forest regions in the country.