244. The First State to End Native Forest Logging, with Jess Beckerling (in full)

Jess Beckerling was Campaign Director of the WA Forest Alliance (WAFA) when we had this conversation (she’s currently put all aside to stand at the 2025 WA state election). Jess is a highly respected figure in the southern reaches of Western Australia, by both those who would traditionally have prioritised conservation, and those who might not have. I spoke with Jess back in July 2021 for the Clean State podcast. At the time, WAFA was seizing the opportunity it sensed to finally end native forest logging in WA.

With the comprehensive and poetically conceived Forests for Life Plan in hand, WAFA had been showing how we can stop bleeding finances, forests, farmlands and communities, and back in the growing suite of ecologically and economically beneficial industries. Come September, just two months after our conversation, the WA government agreed – and in an Australian first announced the end of native forest logging in WA. That end arrived at the start of 2024.

This is our conversation in full for the first time (previously having been restricted to a shorter episode on Clean State, and an excerpt of that on The RegenNarration). Then I’ve patched in Jess’s media statement from Parliament House on the dramatic day of the government’s announcement (a few minutes long), along with some of her comments.

Part of this episode was originally released as episode 8 of a series of 9 episodes for the Clean State podcast, dedicated to regenerative transitions in my home state of WA. Sadly, the podcast and its host non-profit are no more. But the episodes featured such brilliant guests and stories, that are still so very relevant, and not just to West Australians, so we resolved to re-release them here.

The Clean State Plan is on the episode web page below.

For more from behind the scenes, become a supporting listener via the links below.

Recorded 13.7.2021 & outside WA Parliament on 8.9.2021.

Title slide: Jess Beckerling (supplied).

With thanks to the CCWA, auspicing organisation for Clean State WA, for permission to re-release this series.

Music:
A Forests Dream, by Cloudjumper, sourced from the Free Music Archive

Chapters

• 0:00 End of Native Forest Logging in Australia
• 2:19 Jess's personal story
• 6:48 Forest Logging and Cultural Shift
• 17:39 Sustainable Timber Industry in Australia
• 28:45 The beautiful closing minutes initially cut from the Clean State episode
• 31:43 Media Conference at Parliament House on the Day

Transcript

Jess: 0:00

Premier McGowan has just announced that native forest logging is going to end in the southwest of Western Australia by the end of 2023. This is huge. This is an historic moment and we applaud the Premier and Minister Sanderson and Kelly for their leadership and thank them for this major and long-awaited breakthrough.

AJ: 0:21

You're with The RegenNarration d ad free, freely available, independent listener supported. This is regenerative media a whole food diet for your heart and mind. G'day and happy new year to you. My name's Anthony James and that was Jess Beckerling, Campaign Director of the West Australian Forest Alliance, or WAFA. Jess is a highly respected figure here in the southern reaches of Western Australia by both those who would traditionally have prioritised conservation and those who might not have.

AJ: 1:00

We shared a conversation back in July last year for the Clean State podcast, a spin-off series from the regeneration specific to WA. At the time, WAFA was seizing the opportunity it sensed to finally end native forest logging in WA. With the comprehensive and poetically conceived Forests for Life plan, WAFA has been showing how we can stop bleeding finances, forests, farmlands and communities and back in the growing suite of ecologically and economically beneficial industries. Come September, the WA Government agreed announcing the end of native forest logging in this state. It's an Australian first and potentially a much-needed transition model for further afield. My family and I have started 2022 in Jess's neck of these incredible woods, so it seemed fitting to kick off the new year of the podcast with this. You'll hear my conversation with Jess, closing with a few special minutes. That just couldn't fit in the Clean State half-hour format and I've patched in Jess's brief media statement made at Parliament House on the dramatic day of the government's announcement, along with some of her comments to the journos present. Here's Jess.

Jess: 2:18

I've lived in and around the South West Forest for the last 24 years or so and I feel a very strong dedication to their protection and with my very deep love and connection to these places which are so precious.

AJ: 2:34

And when did that start? I mean you mentioned the last 24 years living there in some capacity. But what about earlier in your life? Was the love forged earlier, or at least an instinct for it?

Jess: 2:44

Yeah, I think so. I was raised in South Africa till I was 10. We moved around a lot, but it was always the natural environment that really held me, and I come from a long line of ecologists and botanists, a lot of scientists going back through my mum's side of the family, and paleontologists and various other sorts of earth scientists.

Jess: 3:06

So I think that's come through. And then we moved to Australia, like I said, when I was 10, lived in Perth through high school and then, when I came down to the southwest when I was 18, I was a first year uni student came into the forest and met some of the people who were working to defend them and I was equally blown away by their intelligence and capacity and commitment and way of turning difficult circumstances into hope and solutions, as I was by the just complexity and beauty of the forest themselves. So I've been brought into and then maintained my connection through both of those things.

AJ: 3:47

You've been recognised by not just people who care for the forests and who are with you, let's say, in those efforts, but also with a government award that tend to suggest, I guess, an ability on your part to reach across divides. Is that something that you've sort of held close to your methods and your processes?

Jess: 4:09

Yeah, I suppose. So I think synthesising the various issues and trying to draw them together and understand where the similarities are and how we can forge together and find solutions has always been something that I've tried to bring into the work that I do. So that early award that you're talking about, I think was the Youth Leadership Award that actually, richard Court at the time was the Premier and was responsible for the policy that was seeing old growth forest logging continue in the late 90s. It was his government who awarded me, so I suppose it must have, although the people who nominated me for that award were quite smart as well in not nominating me for the Environment Award, which was being sponsored by the department who was doing the logging, but for the Leadership Award, which was sponsored by a university. So it meant that I was much more likely to receive it.

AJ: 5:03

Yeah, that's a testament to you. So before we delve into some of the detail, let's just lay down why we're speaking today. That the pointed aspect of why we're speaking today, in the public survey that's out currently, and you've got a very sort of clear cut umbrella message for people with regards to that survey. Run us through it.

Jess: 5:23

Yeah.

Jess: 5:24

So the survey is an absolute breakthrough.

Jess: 5:26

We've been campaigning and making very loud noises for a long time about the need to fully protect what's left of the southwest forests and really feeling as if we're doing so up against this incredible political inertia that's been in this space for a long, long time.

Jess: 5:43

But this survey is the door opening for us to now be able to start that conversation about fully and securely protecting the southwest forests at a government level. So it's the first step in the development of the next 10-year forest management plan, and that's why it's so important because it's opening the conversation so that that next 10 years of how we manage the southwest forests can, instead of just being sort of tinkering at the edges, can be a complete rethink about the way that we're managing the forests. So it's a signal that our campaigning is working, that the state government are hearing the calls from the community, but also from businesses, who have been really very vocal and speaking very clearly about the need to protect forests for southwest sectors like tourism and honey production that rely on protected forests, and also, of course, from scientists climate scientists and biodiversity scientists and from traditional owners. And those calls now have reached a particular volume and are across such a widespread demographic in the state that government are now listening and we're making some progress.

AJ: 6:48

So the survey can be. I mean it takes about 20 minutes. It's not overly complex, but there are some. Obviously, your phrasing of questions come from particular lens and you'd like to really communicate with people what to look out for and what to emphasise.

Jess: 7:05

Yeah, thanks. So we've been absolutely inundated with requests from people. Within the first 24 hours I'd had about 100 phone calls and emails from people who said I'm filling in the survey and there's some really complicated questions and I don't know what to say here. So we've put together a guide. That's on our website, waferorgau. You can find it under the Get Informed section, dot, org, dot, au. You can find it under the get informed section, um, and it's been really widely used and we've had some great feedback from people saying that uh, which is what we intended.

Jess: 7:28

It hasn't been prescriptive. We haven't told people what to say. We trust that people know what they want out of the forest, but we've just tried to give some guidance on some of those particularly tricky questions. The main one is question 3.4 and um.

Jess: 7:41

It puts logging through the lens of the timber industry, which says um, only 1% is logged per year. So you know that doesn't sound that bad if it's creating jobs. Obviously, what that does is completely negates how much has already been lost and how destructive that logging is. They equally could have said if 10 football fields of Cary and Jarrah Forest are being cut down every single day, 10 football fields every day, when is that appropriate? And of course, they would have had a different sort of a response from people who aren't as well informed. So it is very loaded language and we want people to really be aware, when they get to that question, that that 1% equals 10 football fields a day, and also it's happening in the context of 90% of the natural vegetation in this global biodiversity hotspot already having been lost. So we've got this tiny and gorgeous and incredibly precious state forest fringing the coast, so important for climate and water and threatened species and all of the other things that we love about the forests, and no more logging of those precious forests is appropriate.

AJ: 8:45

Yeah, and that's partly now because, as it's been said, the southwest forests are worth more standing now, of course, they probably have been for a bloody long time, but in a market sense they are.

AJ: 8:58

So in a sense the timber industry as it stands looks a bit like coal, where it's just dropping through the floor because we didn't transition well in it.

AJ: 9:07

Let's delve a little into how it's become so nonsensical, even from a financial perspective. So yeah, you talked about the cumulative impact, which is vital, and that somehow we've become now the state with the second highest rate of primary deforestation in the country and particularly with this sort of old which has always blown me away, this sort of old state with the second highest rate of primary deforestation in the country and particularly with this sort of old which has always blown me away, this sort of old third world export model not even a current one of cut down such an extraordinary you know asset, quote unquote and turn it into wood chips and the like, and that upwards of 80 percent of it goes to that, but that it's also the timber industry as it stands. Native forest timber industry is operating at a financial loss to the state. That's quite significant in the tens of millions of dollars. How is that passing muster and continuing? What's your take on that?

Jess: 9:58

Yeah, well, that's exactly right. It's been a long time since native forest logging was profitable and it's because of the way that it's been approached, like you said, that that export model and since the 1970s when wood chipping began in wa, it's been based on this very high volume, low value business model and we were sold a lie that it was only going to be the residue that was used for wood chipping and what we've seen now, as you said, is more than 80 percent of all the timber goes to these incredibly low-value products. And you know, in terms of the social implications, you know there's fewer than 500 people employed in the sector now and that number continues to decline. Those jobs are insecure and people in the timber industry are aware of that. So it really is, you know, the fundamental question of what on earth is going on, how is this being allowed to persist.

Jess: 10:45

I think there's a few things there. The first, most obvious one is the contracts that the government has entered into and they've got a certain period of time that they committed to supply that timber for Some of those even come with state agreement acts, which makes it increasingly even more difficult for government to extract themselves from, and others come with investment security guarantees, which were 10-year promises on top of current contracts that were introduced by the Barnett government to give industry a little bit more certainty so that they could invest and expand. So there are these legal and financial incumbencies on governments when they want to make policy change, which make it slightly more difficult. But actually I think that underpinning all of this is more of a cultural problem than a financial or a legal one.

Jess: 11:33

I think in WA and around Australia we still suffer from the terra nullius myth. We still suffer from this idea that the early pioneers and that manly kind of you know bringing the bush under control to create safe places for us to be able to build our houses. We still sort of have that in our dialogue in WA and, I think, around Australia, and we think of the forest as being never-ending. It goes on forever and there's little bits that we've clawed back for ourselves to be able to live in are really precious. We're on the brink, though, I think, of starting to really appreciate that the natural environment is a lot more than a commodity. It doesn't actually pose a threat to us. It takes care of us and it looks after us, and without it we're stuffed. And that cultural shift is becoming evident in the community and then, slowly, is becoming more palatable for government to be able to make the policy changes that are necessary that come off the back of that.

Jess: 12:26

Also probably, you know, maybe a shorter answer to your question is that in 2001, when we protected the old growth forest you know, according to the current definition anyway the wind was really taken out of the sails of the campaign. It had been such a big campaign, so well known across the state and the country, and people wanted to believe that we'd won. So in 2001, when people were celebrating, I had this horrible feeling in my guts that we weren't finished, but that the campaign had gone and what were we going to be left with. And it's been the last 20 years I've been really just fighting to put the spotlight back on the continued destruction in the forests.

AJ: 13:06

Wow, you mentioned some of the cultural aspects there and of course, fire management is another aspect that's been in the news a lot lately, in some again just sort of so nonsensical a way but locked into quotas of burning and so forth and doing inordinate damage, while other states are really picking up the cultural burning aspect. Turning to First Nations, empowering First Nations with custodianship in these sorts of manners that they know so well Is there scope in the survey to highlight that this is important for people?

Jess: 13:40

Yeah, there is a couple of spots where you can talk about fire and also about mining, which is the other really major effect, that impact on forests that often gets missed. There's only two places really where fire and mining come up as something that you can select as being something that you think needs to be managed. So I actually phoned and spoke to the person who put the survey together and is going to be managing the data, because there were some bits there that I really wasn't clear about, where they say which of these things need to be managed. What they mean is need to be hauled in and had a close look at. So that's where people should say fire and mining and native forest logging need to be managed. It doesn't mean you're saying they need to be done. It just means you're saying you recognise that they are happening and that someone needs to haul them in and have a close look at them.

Jess: 14:31

So, yeah, look, fire is having a major impact and we've got this outrageous annual target of 200,000 hectares per year that needs to be burned and wildfire is encountered in that.

Jess: 14:42

So, if you know, 200,000 hectares of forest burn in a wildfire. They still aim for their 200,000 hectare target for prescribed burning and it's having devastating impacts on biodiversity in individual populations of different species and, of course, on climate and health, and it needs to be put under some serious scrutiny. And there's a lot of great science that has now been done and it needs to be put under some serious scrutiny. And there's a lot of great science that has now been done and is being done. And, of course, aboriginal people have been looking after country for a bloody long time and have got the knowledge and the capacity and they need to be given some active custodianship from the policymakers and the agencies so that they can share that wisdom and science and knowledge with us so that we can be managing country more appropriately. And that is being done on smaller scales, but it needs to be done on a broader scale.

AJ: 15:35

Yes. Amongst the other big achievements over the decades is a more recent 12-month moratorium on logging of the two-tiered carry forest last year. So is that still in place and is that part of what has led to this survey?

Jess: 15:50

Yeah.

Jess: 15:51

So the first sort of win that we had just before the state election, that we knew we were getting onto the right path, was when that 12-month moratorium was extended for the next three years and that's 10,000 hectares of old-growth carry forest that should have been protected back in 2001, but wasn't.

Jess: 16:07

Because of the definition it's now called two-tiered, which you know it's a bit of a strange term. People wouldn't really know what it means. Essentially it means that it's got an old-growth and a regrowth component to it, so one or two trees might have been cut down in a two hectare area, which means it's been disqualified from all growth protection. So it's now called two-tiered, um. And yeah, we finally, after all these years, managed to get those 10 000 hectares of carry off the logging plans, which was, you know, just such a relief to me after such a long time of fighting for those forests. But um certainly doesn't take us nearly far enough towards the protection of the forests that we have left and that gave us confidence that we really were setting the foundation well for this next phase of the campaign, which is making sure that the next 10-year forest management plan is a forest conservation plan, and the next step has been the release of this survey.

AJ: 17:01

Okay, meanwhile, wafa has a plan that is taking all these learnings and what we need to do and putting it forward in a coherent framework which involves, indeed, the finance, economic stuff, sustaining communities, transitioning, of course, in that sense in a managed way, and protection of the forests in an integrative fashion, which is quite powerful and a terrific piece of work. So I was hoping we can leverage off this enormously. Do you want to run us through what led to that and the key components?

Jess: 17:33

Yeah, I'd love to. So it's called Forests for Life and there's a dedicated website to it that people can find. I was actually on maternity leave and unable to be out in the forest and doing a lot of the kind of normal campaigning that I do and spending a lot of time thinking about what we needed to do to bring this to a close. So I started researching programs that have been in place in WA and also around Australia and the world that have grown timber sustainably, of growing timber sustainably. I didn't want to just copy the plantation model of fence-to-fence tree plantings, which you know come with their own challenges. I wanted to look at how we could be growing trees in association with continued farming practice and bring benefits for water quality and salinity and amenity and all those sorts of things onto farms, because I thought that was more likely to work, was more likely to get up and also it brings benefits onto farmland.

AJ: 18:32

Well, just on that, jess, I see farmers packing out carbon farming workshops, trying to get a grip on the changes that are coming in that are ostensibly to incentivize them doing just this. So they are looking for ways to participate in the best fashion. It seems like a marriage made in heaven in that sense. You know, all come together with the same sort of overarching goal.

Jess: 18:55

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think, when we kind of lift ourselves up and look over the landscape, one of the things that we would do, I think, if we had the benefit of hindsight, is we wouldn't have allowed for the clearing of all of those streams and rivers, would we? I mean, the impacts of that have just been so profound. We can't reverse that, but what we can do is protect all of the natural vegetation that we do have left and then start repairing where we've made these terrible errors. But there's no point going onto farms and shouting at farmers and telling them that they have to do that themselves.

Jess: 19:33

We need an integrated and holistic approach that's going to actually work, that farmers are going to be willing to take up, and so it's that stream and riparian veg restoration that has really motivated me. But at the same time, there are these obvious synergies, like you say, for the farmers, for potential income that's coming from these new economies and also for avoided deforestation. So one of the other things that really motivates me is I don't want, in 35 years' time, for us to be importing timber from overseas because we've completely stuffed up our own timber production here, which we have and we're continuing to do we need to get trees in the ground right now so that we're going to have our own timber, that our children are going to have their own timber, or they will be drawing on timber from other countries? So all of these things came together in my mind while I was sort of sitting at home with the baby.

AJ: 20:30

That's wonderful actually, I think that's a terrific sort of well. It's a terrific birthplace for this. Let's say that.

Jess: 20:36

Yeah, well it is. It's got a kind of a maternal and a relaxed, synergising rather than a rushed, you know, combative kind of yeah. So I think there is something in that. So the plan is for us to grow in two zones, in the southwest and the great southern, 40,000 hectares of high-value hardwood timber trees in association with existing cropping and grazing, and those would be east coast eucalypts for the timber trees in association with existing cropping and grazing, and those would be East Coast eucalypts for the timber trees and then obviously natives for the permanent re-veg that's associated with it. And they're grown in such a way that the cropping or grazing can continue.

Jess: 21:15

And there's been excellent models for this in WA and around Australia. $40,000 is a minimum. It would be better if we went higher than that, but that's the bare minimum for being able to get an economy of scale sort of situation so that you can build the processing centres. The contractors are going to be willing to go out to pull the wood back in. The trees have to be grown within 100km of the future processing centre, otherwise the transport costs become uneconomic.

AJ: 21:43

Well that's significant in itself that there'll be processing centres, that we'll have the skills and the manufacturing base to actually do our own work again.

Jess: 21:51

Yeah, that's right. And also they'll be centred where we've already had timber industry, so one will be centred on green bushes. All the roads are in already. There's a lot of people around there who have the skills and the history in the timber industry and then the other around Albany.

Jess: 22:08

And, like you said when you were introducing this, we've drawn on the lessons of the past, because there was mistakes made with the MIS scheme. One of them was that trees were growing too far away from future processing centres. Sometimes they were growing in, the lots were too small, sometimes the rainfall zone was wrong, the soil type was wrong and it wasn't managed in such a way that had a view to how those trees were then going to be used in the future. It was kind of let's just get trees in the ground, and obviously I'm a big fan of getting trees in the ground, but clearly we have to do it in a way that is going to be considered to have been valuable for the people who put the trees in. Otherwise they get bulldozed and burned, which is what we're seeing a lot of across the south coast still.

AJ: 22:53

Yes, and the management of the land over the millennia was never done in a haphazard fashion anyway, so it's just continuing in tradition. It's written how bad the current economy of this is going the deforestation model but on the other hand you've got industries that are already massively outperforming that dying timber industry. So on the one hand, you're talking about let's institute a world-class timber industry not get rid of one, but have a world-class level one and not the old third world model. Actually get manufacturing and processing back. And then you're talking about, yeah, tourism, hospitality, beekeeping, extraordinarily underrated economic contribution. It is a real picture you're trying to paint of let's back what's already emerged. We don't even have to sort of pluck out of the sky what we know works down here. Stop the erosion of those things and then, yeah, back them in. Talk to us a little bit about those realities on the ground that you've observed.

Jess: 23:50

Well, that's really just come out of the business sector.

Jess: 23:52

You know people have approached us and said particularly with the honey industry most recently that they're losing forests where their apiary sites are, that there's hardly any places where they can have their bees because, you know, there's fewer and fewer areas available for them because of logging and then also fire.

Jess: 24:11

Climate change is having a huge impact. You know bees can kind of act as a bit of a litmus test or a canary in the coal mine for how well a forest is performing, because it can look like a forest is doing really well. It's got great flower every you know couple of years when it should be there, but the bees come back down to the hive and they haven't got any. You know there wasn't any pollen up there. So the beekeepers are quite often the people who are seeing the declining health of the forest and then, you know, experiencing that in a financial sense as well. So we've been approached by lots of people in the honey industry, but then also accommodation providers who've said you know, I'm getting these half-star ratings on my Airbnb site all of a sudden because people have been woken up by logging machinery.

AJ: 24:55

Wow.

Jess: 24:57

Yeah, and banging on their door at 3 in the morning because they can't sleep, because, you know, several people in Pempton area have been reporting that.

Jess: 25:07

And then avocado growers who the neighbouring forest is clear-felled and all of a sudden the wind is so severe that their avocados aren't growing. You know real tangible impacts on local businesses small scale, and then also really big scale businesses small scale, and then also really big scale. So, yeah, look, we've just been really heartened, though, by how smart and dedicated and thoughtful a lot of the players in those sectors are and how willing they are to come to work together, to make really excellent media commentary, to start talking to decision makers. So this really organic alliance is now forming, where our job is to be very clear about what's good for the forests and the forest health in and of itself, and the job of the business sector is to highlight that protected forests are actually better for the southwest, for social and economic considerations, and together we're telling a pretty powerful story. I think that the timber industry really is just the native forest timber industry. That just does not belong in the 21st century.

AJ: 26:16

There was a terrific Clean State short film with Mikey Chinotta, a honey producer, and he said one tonne of Jarrah firewood is worth about $300. One tonne of Jarrah honey is worth $30,000. That's landed pretty strongly with people to illustrate your point. And then, of course, yeah, we've touched on but let's highlight, because they're hugely significant the soil, water and climate connections and benefits related to this. I'm conscious that, with industry sort of playing its part, then what is your sense of the public support for this? Is that it's really sort of clamouring to a crescendo as well.

Jess: 26:52

Yeah, definitely. There was some polling done at the end of 2019 that showed 65, 68% I think it was somewhere between 65 and 68% of West Australians wanted to see the full protection of southwest forests, and a year later, at the end of 2020, it was 78% of people. So you know it was the same question. You know, clearly, a very significant increase in people's understanding. And, yeah, I mean, I think anecdotally, we all know you can't it's difficult to find anybody who thinks that logging native forests for woodchip, charcoal and firewood is a good idea.

Jess: 27:28

Yes, and then at an international level. You know you're talking about climate. The IUCN has shown that one third of all of the climate mitigation effort that we need globally must come from protecting forests. So it's not an insignificant contribution that native forests play, and we've got 850,000 hectares here that are still available for logging. So when we make a policy change which I think is on the horizon now and we protect that 850,000 hectares, that's a significant contribution that we have made to continuing to draw carbon down out of the atmosphere and to protecting biodiversity.

Jess: 28:06

And in terms of water, you know the loss that we've already brought to this landscape is immense, and what some scientists at UWA's Water Research Centre have shown is that more than 50% of the rainfall decline in the southwest of WA is a result of land clearing. So that should empower us to say we can make this significant contribution by protecting the forest at a global level. But also it really gives us the capacity to build local resilience, because we need rainfall down here and forests bring and make rain. So you know, the sooner we protect what's left and start restoring where we can, the better.

AJ: 28:45

The NAIDOC Week theme this year that we've just come out of was Healing Country. So right on with what you're saying here and it made me reflect on some of the conversations I've had certainly talking about our combined knowledge systems and how we can do this together in a really powerful way, and is that something you've observed and felt and experienced yourself?

Jess: 29:07

Oh yeah, absolutely. I think I remember hearing a story about some elders talking about how they'd had the information passed down to them about how the land you know used to go out all the way out past Rottnest. I've forgotten its name. Is its proper name, wajima?

Jess: 29:26

Wajima yeah, and the story incorporated all of this knowledge about how the Ice Age first started to encroach and how people knew what that was and then how it then receded and the way that the land had changed.

Jess: 29:41

And it incorporates all this beauty, you know, all this spiritual and cultural knowledge and way of maintaining our connection into country as we understand that better and understand it on so many levels.

Jess: 29:54

And there was this guy sitting on the ridge with an archaeologist and they were just recognising how their knowledge and understanding of country matched, but through these very different ways of having understood and being taught. And you know, I see that all the time. But the problem is, I think we recognise and appreciate Western science but we're still so far behind in. You know, that science, which it is it comes from trial and error and testing of hypotheses and that Aboriginal people have been practising here for such a long time is a potential gift to all Australians and to the rest of the world that we just haven't accepted yet and that's insulting. It's insulting to the Aboriginal people who have their hands out willing to offer it, and it's an insult that we've been continuing with for, you know, ever since colonisation, and it's high time that we stop it and recognise the incredible value that could come from just listening.

AJ: 30:58

Beautifully said, and I've just been really moved by a recent podcast I did on the regeneration with Willem Fervida, who's the CEO of Commonland, and in his recent report that launched with the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, he actually put Oral Maguire's quote at the top of it. Biodiversity is a manifestation of spirit, and so there's a lovely grounding to sort of boldly bring to in his case the international sphere that he's working in, but just a lovely way to ground us in the deeper feeling and connection.

Jess: 31:35

That is such a beautiful. I've never heard that biodiversity is a manifestation of spirit.

AJ: 31:40

Yeah.

Jess: 31:40

Wow, absolutely beautiful. Premier McGowan has just announced that native forest logging is going to end in the southwest of Western Australia by the end of 2023. This is huge. This is an historic moment and we applaud the Premier and Minister Sanderson and Kelly for their leadership and thank them for this major and long-awaited breakthrough. The southwest forests are incredibly precious and they're vital to climate. Their leadership and thank them for this major and long-awaited breakthrough. The South West Forests are incredibly precious and they're vital to climate and to wildlife and to biodiversity and culture, and this new direction that the Premier has announced today to end native forest logging in just over two years' time is profoundly important and will be heartily welcomed by the West Australian community. But I have to say this is not the end. We still have two years ahead of us until the forest management plan is signed and sealed and we must maintain our focus and ensure that this very welcome new direction results in the forest protection that we so desperately need in this state.

Jess: 32:49

This announcement from the Premier today comes as a result of the work of thousands of people over many decades, and I want to acknowledge every one of you and say also to forest supporters we're on track and we're nearly there.

Jess: 33:08

We're going to fully and securely protect what's left of the Southwest's native forests. I also want to be clear that the Premier's announcement doesn't address all of the threats facing the forests. It doesn't end the clearing of the Jarrah forest for bauxite mining or deal with issues surrounding thinning of degraded regrowth forests. It also doesn't address fire management. There will, however, be plenty of opportunity coming up for us to have an effect on these other major issues during the development of the next 10-year forest management plan and through other processes, and we'll be facing them with the same determination that we are face logging with. We also look forward to the development of world-class farm forestry sector and a just transition for those currently engaged in the native forest logging industry. But today we've made history Western Australia will become the first state in the country to end native forest logging after all of these decades, and our precious native forests will be protected for their climate, biodiversity, water and cultural values. Thank you. How is the union feeling about this?

Jess: 34:16

I haven't actually had a response from anyone in industry yet, but there is a generous package from government. So there's $350 million that's been made available to the plantation expansion, which is obviously going to create a lot of jobs and and grow a lot of timber, and there's 50 million dollars available to help workers who need to transition.

Journo: 34:35

Obviously, this is a great start. Is there anything more you'd like to see from the government to further protect our forest?

Jess: 34:40

Yeah, look, the next two years are going to be really critical. We can't take our eyes off the prize. A lot of damage can still be done in the forest in the next two years, so we want to make sure that that damage is minimised and also we want to see the expansion of the farmed wood sector. That's going to have really significant benefits on farms and on cleared land for water and salinity. It's also going to make sure that we're not only self-reliant in WA for softwood, which is critically important, but also for hardwood.

Journo: 35:06

You mentioned this statewide. What would you like to see Australia-wide, eventually?

Jess: 35:10

Oh, this needs to happen across all of Australia. It needs to happen across the globe. Forests are critical for climate. They draw carbon out of the atmosphere and they store it safely in the soils and in the trees, and that's where we need the carbon to be. And they're also obviously critical for biodiversity. So we need to be protecting forests across the whole globe. But thank God that finally, this long-awaited win is coming to WA.

Journo: 35:35

And what are the steps from now until 2023 onwards to protecting our forests?

Jess: 35:40

Well, look, it's not over yet. We need all of our supporters to stick with us. We need all forest supporters to stick with us. The development of the next 10 year forest management plan is gonna be critical. It's gonna be detailed. It's gonna be important that we get it right. So there's gonna be community meetings, there's gonna be all sorts of opportunities for us to make sure that the detail of how forests are in fact managed from 2024 onwards is spot on. We've had so many decades of our forest being mismanaged and this is our opportunity to get it right.

Journo: 36:11

Any specific challenge that you guys would be facing in the next two years that you've already identified.

Jess: 36:17

Sorry, do you mean in terms of the campaign? Well, look, I think if people wrongly read this as having been a complete win for all forest issues, that would be a mistake. We've still got a way to go to deal with other issues facing the forests, and we've also got a way to go to make sure that the detail around how forests are managed in the next 10-year forest management plan is spot on. So we need to make sure that the way that any kind of management activities occur in the forest actually looks after the ecological health of those forests.

Journo: 36:50

Any chances that it will go wrong?

Jess: 36:53

Well, look, we're feeling optimistic. We really believe that we're on track here. This is an historic breakthrough and it comes on the back of huge community support. I mean the announcement of the survey results, where 17,000 people took a lengthy survey which you needed a reasonable amount of information to get to the end of, and that the majority of people strongly agree that all native forest logging should end, is a very good basis for this announcement to be made on. Thanks for your time this morning. Thank, you Pleasure.

Journo: 37:27

I am recording. Okay, so, Jessica, you were telling me before what kind of went through your mind when you heard this news. What was your first reaction?

Jess: 37:36

Oh, it's a huge thing. It's an historic moment for Western Australia and for everyone in Australia.

Journo: 37:49

ou gave me a lovely answer before when I asked you, you know, if you looked back at this moment in 20 years time, what would you hope that you could say? this moment actually meant What tangible impact it would have.

Jess: 38:00

Well, this is a shift in the way that we perceive of the forest. It's a shift in the way that we value them. It's an acknowledgement by the McGowan government that the forests are so precious, that their intrinsic values and their values for climate and water and culture are so significant, and that we need to be looking at the forests through that lens, not through a lens of extraction or profit. So I hope that when we look back on this in 20 years, we see it as having left a really significant legacy and we see it as a moment in time in which we shifted the way that we look at our natural environment. It's not about extraction, it's about conservation.

Journo: 38:38

And in terms of extraction. This decision will, of course, have an impact on jobs in many small regional communities. What message do you have for people in those communities who might be worried about their livelihoods and the future of their towns?

Jess: 38:50

Yeah, look, it's really important. And these sorts of transitions do come with challenges, and we absolutely acknowledge that. I'm from the South West, I've lived in the South West for more than 20 years and I understand those challenges. But I think that the McGowan government's announcement about the $350 million for expanding the plantation sector and the $50 million for the workers is good. It's a good start. There is going to be some bumps, but we're looking forward to there being a just transition. And, look, we need to get out of native forest logging. It's not sustainable, it's not profitable, it was going to end anyway and we need that just transition to take care of those workers.

Journo: 39:29

And for West Australians, who might not know much about this issue, I suppose. How would you explain it to them, in terms of the impact that this will have? Why should it matter to them?

Jess: 39:38

Well, we're talking about a huge area of forests. We understand that a minimum of 400,000 hectares of Kari and Jarrah forests will finally be taken off logging plans, so that means that those forests are going to be drawing down carbon from the atmosphere. The habitat value in those forests is phenomenal. It's impossible to interpret how many animals, how many plants are now safe to continue to live in those forests. The streamlines that run through those forests are so precious and they're now protected. This is a major breakthrough.

AJ: 40:20

That was Jess Beckerling, Campaign Director of the WA Forest Alliance. For more on Jess and WAFA, see the links in our program details and if you're particularly interested in more stories like this from the great south of WA, have a listen to episodes 78, 79, 82 and 87 of The RegenNarration from last year and stay tuned for more soon. With thanks to the generous supporters of the podcast for making this episode possible. Please join this growing community and help keep the regeneration going. Just head to the website via the show notes regennarration. com. support. Thanks as always. The music you're hearing is A Forest's Dream by Cloudjumper, sourced from the Free Music Archive. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening,.