Old Growth Forests - Logging in Old Growth Forests

Logging in Old Growth Forests

The large trees in old growth forests are economically valuable, and have been subjected to aggressive logging around the world. This has led to much controversy between logging companies and environmental groups.

The island of Tasmania, just off the south east coast of Australia has the largest amount of temperate old-growth rainforest reserves in Australia with approximately 1,239,000 hectares in total. While the local Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) was originally designed to protect much of this natural wealth, many of the RFA old growth forests protected in Tasmania consist of trees of little use to the timber industry. RFA old growth and high conservation value forests that contain species highly desirable to the forestry industry have been poorly reserved. Only 22% of Tasmania’s original tall-eucalypt forests managed by Forestry Tasmania have been reserved. Ten thousand hectares of tall-eucalypt RFA old growth forest have been lost since 1996, predominantly as a result of industrial logging operations. In 2006, approximately 61,000 hectares of tall-eucalypt RFA old growth forests remained unprotected. Recent logging attempts in the Upper Florentine Valley have sparked a series of protests and media attention over the arrests that have taken place in this area. Additionally, Gunns Limited, the primary forestry contractor in Tasmania has been under recent criticism by political and environmental groups over its practice of woodchipping timber harvested from old growth forests.