Court 'backs down' on RFA
By Grant Coleman
PERTH — Under mounting pressure from opponents of old-growth forest logging, a large majority in Western Australia, the Court government has announced changes to the WA regional forest agreement (RFA). The amendments, however, do not protect either the remaining old-growth forest or the jobs of the timber workers in WA's south-west.
Premier Richard Court has reduced the amount of karri and tingle tingle timber to be logged, without forcing an end to the unsustainable logging of the much more extensive old-growth jarrah forests. As a result, job losses of up to 1500 have been projected in the timber industry and the towns servicing it, while only token protection has been given to forests.
In the amended RFA, the karri and tingle tingle quota is reduced from 175,000 to 50,000 cubic metres a year for the next four years. No more areas of high conservation value forests have been set aside for reserves, ignoring the concrete demands of opponents of the RFA.
All old-growth logging in karri and tingle tingle forests would cease in 2003. Timber needs, the amendments suggest, should then be met from plantations.
This means the dominant timber company in the region, Wesfarmers-Bunnings, has four years to reduce and restructure its work force, intensifying their work, before retraining the remaining workers for plantation work; any backlash against it from the timber towns for its job cuts will be minimised because the RFA and environmentalism will be blamed.
Moreover, the company will receive huge subsidies to finance the switch to plantation production. Already, the government is spending an estimated $70 million to subsidise a plantation timber mill.
An immediate end of all old-growth logging would force the corporation to switch to plantation timbers now and to retrain and continue to employ all those now involved in producing old-growth timber. Not only would jobs be directly replaced, but many more would be created in tourism, conservation and services needed by a growing timber industry.