Australia’s native forests are unique on Earth, and have been looked after by First Nations Peoples for at least 65,000 years. Evolving over millenia, they’re home to plants and animals found nowhere else—including endangered species like koalas, greater gliders, swift parrots and Tasmanian devils.

These forests draw carbon out of the atmosphere and store vast amounts of it safely in their trunks, roots and branches, making them a vital ally on a rapidly heating planet.

Australia’s native forests are worth more standing, but Bunnings continues to sell products made from their destruction. 

Bunnings provides these phony assurances of sustainability using a certification called PEFC (or Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification). PEFC has a long track record of certifying the logging of old growth and other high conservation value forests in Australia.

Wood industry certifications are supposed to help customers find ethical wood products. 

But behind the PEFC certification lies a grim reality: unique forests decimated, and endangered animals losing their homes to chainsaws. 

Bunnings is not telling customers the truth about where its timber products come from.

Bunnings claims to have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy on illegally logged timber, but it’s sourcing wood from Forestry Corporation of NSW and Forestry Tasmania. Both of these logging agencies are certified by PEFC, despite having a track record of illegal logging activity or breaches. 

It doesn’t add up. That's why we’ve filed a complaint asking the ACCC, Australia’s consumer watchdog, to investigate Bunnings for greenwashing. We’re putting Bunnings and other big brands on notice that they need to back their claims of sustainability with real action, not hollow words.

If Bunnings is serious about only selling customers timber that is sustainable and legal, it needs to quit relying on the dodgy PEFC certification and stop sourcing products made from special native forests.

We've convinced Bunnings to do better before.

In 2020, Bunnings listened. After a years-long campaign prompted mass community outcry and a court case against one of its timber suppliers, Bunnings stopped accepting timber sourced by VicForests: the now-defunct Victorian government logging agency with a history of illegality and logging breaches. 

Since that win, Bunnings has claimed it has a "zero-tolerance" policy on illegally logged timber. But it’s still doing dealings with dodgy logging agencies—only this time, they’re in New South Wales and Lutruwita / Tasmania.

Native forest logging is a key threat to Australia’s globally significant tall forests, from New South Wales to Lutruwita / Tasmania. Logging wipes out habitat for threatened wildlife, fuels climate change by reducing stores of carbon, threatens water sources, damages cultural heritage and makes forests more vulnerable to fire. 

Sourcing native forest timber exposes Bunnings, its customers and investors to major risks associated with the severe, widespread impacts of native forest logging on:

• 🐨🌿Biodiversity: logging kills, displaces and threatens the survival of iconic native plants and wildlife, and destroys Australia’s globally unique ecosystems.
• 💧🌧️ Water quality and quantity: which are dependent on healthy forests across Australia.
• 🖤💛❤️ Cultural heritage: many forests hold significant cultural value, and logging often happens without the free, prior and informed consent of First Nations Peoples.
• 🌍🌡️ Climate: logging releases the carbon held in dense, tall forests, which goes into the atmosphere, gets trapped, and fuels global heating. (Here’s a simple forest carbon explainer).
• 🔥🔥Fire: logging has been shown to make native forests more vulnerable to fire.

As Australia’s largest timber and hardware retailer, Bunnings can help end forest destruction if it stops selling products with the dodgy PEFC certification and only sources deforestation-free timber. 

That means only sourcing timber that’s:

• 🌳 grown in sustainable plantations,
• ♻️ recycled, or
• ✅ FSC Forest Management certified.

Bunnings has shifted before—it dropped VicForests as a supplier when it was found to be logging illegally. Now we need Bunnings to take action to protect the special forests that remain.

It’s time to let Bunnings know that Australia’s native forests are too precious to be sold on its shelves. 

How you can help

• ✍️ Email the Bunnings boss: Tell Bunnings its customers don’t want their next project to come at the expense of Australia’s native forests.
• 💳 Donate to power our work: Help protect precious forests and bushland, right around Australia!
• ✉️ Subscribe to our emails: Get breaking news and updates on the Bunnings campaign!
• 🙋🏻 Volunteer in your local area: Meet like-minded people taking action on local environmental concerns, as well as national issues like deforestation.

Bunnings is selling products from destructive logging operations in precious Australian native forests and using the dodgy PEFC certification to misrepresent them as “sustainable”.

PEFC stands for Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. It is an organisation that sets and endorses standards in different countries, specifying how forests should be managed in order to be sold with the PEFC logo. ‘Responsible Wood’ is the name of the PEFC standard endorsed in Australia.

A PEFC or Responsible Wood logo on paper or timber products indicate that the product has been “sourced from a certified forest”. Forest certification is supposed to help customers find ethical wood products, but behind the shiny PEFC logos and phony assurances of sustainability is a grim reality. 

In Australia, PEFC has a consistent track record of certifying products coming from highly destructive logging operations—including logging of endangered species habitat, high conservation value forests, old growth forests and illegal logging.

Swift parrots, quolls and greater gliders lose their homes. Unique forests are changed forever. That’s the reality of the logging that PEFC calls sustainable. 

PEFC-endorsed certifications have been subject to intense criticism by environmental NGOs and experts in many countries, and companies are turning to more robust due diligence and certification schemes, such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)’s Forest Management Australian standard. 

Bunnings customers should be able to shop for their projects without having to worry that the timber in their trolley comes from the destruction of iconic Australian forests.

It’s up to Bunnings to do better, and show leadership. By dropping the dodgy PEFC certification, Bunnings can make sure its timber is sustainably sourced and help protect Australia’s forests.

Native timber species sold at Bunnings include blackbutt, spotted gum, Sydney blue gum, stringybark, ironbark, tree ferns, and timber sold as ‘Tasmanian Oak’, which usually encompasses swamp gum, stringybark and gum-topped stringybark. All of these species are commonly logged in New South Wales or Lutruwita / Tasmania. 

A better timber accreditation to look for:

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)’s forest management standard for Australia is widely considered to be more robust than PEFC. FSC does not certify the logging of high conservation value forests or old-growth forests in Australia. FSC has not certified any state logging agency in Australia, including Forestry Corporation of NSW or Forestry Tasmania. 

Bunnings is selling timber sourced from Australia’s native forests, where destructive and illegal logging takes place.

PEFC certifies Forestry Corporation of NSW—despite the state-owned logging agency having an extensive criminal record. Forestry Corporation of NSW has received numerous convictions and been fined more than 1.75 million dollars in recent years for illegal activities. This includes logging hollow-bearing trees, logging in rainforest exclusion zones and logging in a national park.

Forestry Tasmania also operates under PEFC certification, yet citizen scientists have reported many alleged breaches of logging plans in forests managed by the state-owned agency. Alleged breaches include logging in streamside reserves, logging of swift parrot habitat, logging of giant trees, and post-logging burns. Forestry Tasmania has been fined multiple times in recent years for breaches by the under-resourced and understaffed regulator, the Forestry Practices Authority. 

Questions of legality continue to plague native forest logging in Australia, including in New South Wales and Lutruwita / Tasmania. Bunnings can’t rely on the dodgy PEFC certification to ensure its timber is sourced legally or sustainably. 

The problem goes beyond illegal logging. The logging of Australia’s forests is having devastating impacts on nature and communities. We need Bunnings to step up and protect Australia’s unique forests.

Bunnings stocks timber from trees critical to the survival of endangered wildlife, like koalas, greater gliders, swift parrots and quolls.

• Blackbutt and spotted gum are habitat and feed trees for the swift parrot in New South Wales
• Ironbark, spotted gum and blackbutt are habitat trees for the southern greater glider in New South Wales

Old eucalypts with hollows provide habitat for many threatened species, including the masked owl and critically endangered swift parrot. Other threatened species such as the Tasmanian devil and eastern quoll also rely on these forests for habitat.

Bunnings is a well-known brand that takes customer concern and brand reputation seriously, and is a major buyer of timber products. 

By pressuring Bunnings to stop selling PEFC-certified products, and to only source deforestation-free timber (that’s grown in sustainable plantations, recycled, or FSC Forest Management certified), we can help make it unacceptable for big brands to source timber from precious Australian native forests.

Governments have a job to do too:

We need both governments and companies to take action to end environmental destruction. Effective and strong laws are urgent and critical to protect forests and bushland. At the same time, corporate actors need to urgently address deforestation risk in their supply chains and be on the side of forest protection, not forest destruction. 

When corporations walk away from deforestation supply chains, it reduces the demand for timber and pulp products made from special native forests and creates a narrative that supports governments to take action to protect forests.

A future that doesn't rely on the destruction of nature is possible.

This isn’t a choice between Australian forests and overseas forests. It’s a choice between forest destruction and responsible timber supply. 

The Wilderness Society does not support logging that drives biodiversity loss, wildlife extinctions or comes from unsustainable or illegally harvested sources—whether in Australia or anywhere overseas. Importantly, Australia already has laws banning the import of illegally logged timber, which we support. 

Bunnings can stop sourcing from the destruction of Australia’s precious forests without causing destruction elsewhere. And it can continue to sell Australian timber without the destruction. It means sourcing only from sustainable plantations and recycled sources, and requiring strict environmental standards and due diligence from all suppliers in Australia and internationally. 

Australia is a globally recognised deforestation hotspot, and we have the highest rate of mammal extinctions in the world. It’s clear Australia’s current environmental standards aren’t protecting forests and wildlife. Over 90% of our timber already comes from plantations—we can meet demand without native forest destruction. 

Australia can have a healthy, sustainable plantation-based forestry industry and Bunnings has an important role to play.

Timber production in Australia shouldn’t come with hidden costs—to endangered wildlife, life-giving ecosystems and our climate.

By supporting a full transition to sustainable, plantation-based forestry, we can ensure reliable timber supply while supporting nature and wildlife, protecting water catchments, and reducing bushfire risk for future generations. 

Plantations are powering up:

Right now, the vast majority of Australia’s timber—over 90%!—is sourced from plantations. This is only expected to increase as vast plantation estates, established in the 1990s and 2000s, reach maturity in the coming decades. 

Despite this, native forest logging is still occurring across the continent and in Lutruwita/Tasmania at alarming rates. It doesn’t make sense that these special forests are being destroyed, especially since we can meet our timber demand through plantation sources.

Plus, most wood products from Australian native forests are exported overseas. For example, in Tasmania, well over 90% of the end product of logging is low quality logs and woodchips, almost all of which is exported to China, Taiwan, Japan and Malaysia.

The economic benefits of sustainable plantations:

Native forest logging in Australia is not profitable and relies heavily on taxpayer-funded subsidies to function. Just last year, a government sanctioned report found the NSW native forest logging industry is “not economically viable” and questioned the “long term feasibility” of the industry. 

In Lutruwita / Tasmania, the native forest logging industry has received $1.25 billion in subsidies since the late 1980s. Both Forestry Tasmania and Forestry Corporation of NSW reported significant cash losses last financial year. 

Plantation forestry is more efficient than native forest logging, producing higher yields at lower costs. Moving away from native forest logging will bring economic benefits to Australia.

Right now, we’re:

1. Engaging directly with Bunnings’ decision-makers to urge the company to drop the dodgy PEFC scheme, and stop sourcing wood from precious Australian native forests
   
   We've also filed a complaint asking the ACCC, Australia’s consumer watchdog, to investigate Bunnings for greenwashing.
    
2. Uncovering the truth about the dodgy PEFC scheme to raise awareness to other companies that also sell products with this certification
    
3. Continuing to investigate logging breaches and destruction perpetrated by Forestry Corporation of NSW and Forestry Tasmania through methods such as citizen science and by using our satellite-monitoring platform, Watch on Nature