Forestry
Can WA’s drought-ravaged forests survive this year’s prescribed burns program?
In coming weeks, the DBCA will start torching 200,000 hectares of the state to boost our defences in the face of increasing bushfires. But is it causing irreparable damage to our ecosystems?
- by Sarah Brookes
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WA’s parched forest canopy is turning brown as large areas die
From Shark Bay to Albany, WA’s famed national parks are experiencing mass plant deaths after the stress of the state’s unusually long, hot and dry summer.
- by Sarah Brookes
‘Forest gardening’: Stoush over Aboriginal corporation’s land management
Wombat State Forest near Daylesford has sparked a new chapter in Victoria’s forest wars, pitting Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation against a renowned ecology professor and his publisher.
- by Bianca Hall
‘I found I was more comfortable in the forest’: The scientist who took on the logging industry
Professor David Lindenmeyer looked neater than you’d expect for a man who has spent years in Australia’s oldest forests, locked in political battles with the industries that depend on cutting them down.
- by Nick O'Malley
Could planned burns be making our forests more flammable?
Hazard-reduction burns are designed to clear undergrowth and reduce the risk of large-scale bushfires. But the science is far from settled.
- by Bianca Hall
If a tree falls in the forest, let the fallen log lie, say conservationists
Debate is raging about whether trees that have been blown over in windstorms should remain in Victorian forests or be carted away for timber or firewood.
- by Benjamin Preiss
‘Not a great legacy’: Troubled state-owned VicForests to close within months
The Victorian government’s logging agency will close on June 30 after years of financial losses and claims of mismanagement.
- by Bianca Hall
‘I don’t like to lose’: Giant-killer Geoff Cousins declares war on controversial NSW industry
The man who stopped the Gunns pulp factory is turning his attention to this state’s hardwood forests.
- by Nick O'Malley
Critics fear change of logging law will further endanger greater gliders
Loggers will no longer be required to search for the endangered Greater Gliders and their den trees in known habitat areas in NSW.
- by Nick O'Malley
How a fight to save the bush became a battlefield
A bid to preserve rainforest trees and protect endangered animals led to a long-running campaign of intimidation.
- by Nick O'Malley
Minns declares native logging ‘has a future’ after landmark court case dismissed
Premier Chris Minns said on Wednesday the forestry industry, including native hardwood logging, “has a future” in NSW, but revealed his government would investigate the use of what he called “a new marketplace” in carbon offsets and the expansion of private softwood plantations.
- by Michael McGowan