End Native Forest Logging Now

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Dear Treasurer for NSW, Daniel Mookhey,
 
I am writing to you today in anticipation of your 2023/24 Statement of Corporate Intent for Forestry Corporation, to encourage you to commit to an end to native forest logging in New South Wales immediately.

As per the principal objectives of the Corporation, and with specific reference to objectives (a), (b), (c) and (e ), it is clear that native forest logging in NSW is no longer in the best interest of the economy, the community, and most critically, not in the interest of the environment.

Protecting NSW’s native forests is a key solution to the climate crisis. Carbon stored in big old trees is irrecoverable by 2050 and must be kept out of the atmosphere, Left to grow old, young forests can recover their integrity and large carbon stocks. Forests provide the only proven method to sequester carbon from the atmosphere at scale and store it relatively securely in living trees, dead wood on the forest floor and forest soils. The health, integrity and stability of our forests is intimately linked to all the species that call them home. Long unlogged forests protect more species, store more carbon more securely, ameliorate local climate conditions and provide higher quality fresh water than forests damaged by logging. Protecting and restoring the integrity of forest ecosystems is essential for the health and wellbeing of the majority of the people and communities in NSW.

Native forest logging in New South Wales is a loss-making business. The cost of native forest logging to NSW Treasury was $28million over the last 2 financial years – a position that is not expected to improve. Conversely the softwood plantation sector of Forestry Corporation operations returned a profit of $94 million over the same period. 
 
The economic gains to the people and State of NSW from protecting and restoring their native forests far outweigh the dwindling benefits to a small number of people derived at net cost to the State budget.

Fortunately, there is a new ecosystem accounting framework developed by the UN Statistical Commission (known as UNSEEA-EA) that provides a global standard for reflecting the economic value of ecosystem services in government economic accounts. The UNSEEA-EA has several important features. It is the first natural capital accounting framework to explicitly recognise the importance of ecosystem integrity (or condition) for the quality and quantity of the ecosystem services they provide and risk of future loss. And it is the first to recognise the ecosystem service of ‘carbon retention’- enabling governments to see differences in the stability of carbon storage in forests and associated risk of GHG emissions to the atmosphere based on differences in their condition.

The UNSEEA-EA would enable the NSW governments to reflect the economic value of forest carbon retention and carbon recovery potential from protecting native forests in its State economic accounts. The benefits to the states’ GHG accounts would, as a matter of course, also be revealed enabling a far more ambitious emissions reduction target to be adopted by NSW.

The economic value of carbon is far more valuable to the state than attempting to monetise and sell off the publicly owned carbon in our native forests as offsets to our biggest GHG emitters. Using publicly owned forest carbon to delay desperately needed emission reductions in fossil fuel emissions would be morally culpable.

The ecological services and functions of our native forests are intrinsically valuable. It seems ridiculous to spend millions of dollars on conservation programs for species like the koala and the Greater glider, while simultaneously spending even more money to subsidise the destruction of their habitat – the greatest known driver of their extinction.

As Treasurer, any effort you can take toward mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis must be taken. In the future, the climate crisis will cost our state millions through property loss and damage, infrastructure, service and rebuilding costs, as well as through losses in agriculture or other primary industry. Continuing to log will only exacerbate these costs. 
  
We want NSW Labor to be the government that ends the loss-making native forest logging industry. There is no time to wait. 
 
The end of native forest logging is inevitable, and the longer it is postponed the worse our budget and environments will be. We write this letter to encourage you to be ambitious, to take control of this situation and move toward ending native forest logging immediately.

Regards,
[Your name will appear here]

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