The management of Australia’s forests is tied up in an eleventh-hour deal secured between Labor and the Greens, which will now see a 26-year update to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act pass the Federal Parliament days before it breaks for the summer recess.
It comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Environment Minister Murray Watt announced beefed-up concessions to strengthen protections for native forests and bushland, while excluding fossil fuel projects from fast‑track and national-interest approval pathways.
Under the deal, Australia’s 10 regional forestry agreements (RFA’s) – including 3 in New South Wales (in Eden, the Upper and Lower East), five in Victoria (East Gippsland, North East, Central Highlands, West Victoria and Gippsland), the whole of Tasmania, and Western Australia’s southwest region, along with agricultural land clearing, will be brought under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act from July 2027.
“This bill could have enormous implications for not only public native forestry, but potentially all types of land-based activities,” according to Jack Rodden-Green, who last week warned that environmental lawfare could potentially make native and plantation forestry problematic. “RFAs cover all types of forests – including native and plantation forests. It is essentially a bilateral agreement whereby the Monreal process, modified by the RFA Act and EPBC, applies to state land.”
“Essentially, what the Greens have done is remove the commonwealth influence over state lands for the sole objective of threatened species,” he said. “It is a step backwards in a national framework for protection of the overall environment.”
“I have grave concerns for the future of our native forestry and plantation industries after seeing the new laws,” said Diana Hallam, the CEO of the Australian Forest Products Association. “With the loss of RFAs, native forestry will be effectively treated as ‘high-risk land-clearing’, and the Commonwealth Government will likely find itself, once again, in the middle of every disputed forestry decision.”
“The loss of Victoria’s RFA last year has had a terrible impact on local jobs and communities and undermined new plantation establishment,” she said. “The suggestions that plantations can replace the timber from our native forest estates are false – it will just lead to more imports from Brazil, Indonesia and countries with worse environmental standards than ours.
And whilst the move has angered forestry groups, the government has sought to offset opposition with a $300 million forestry fund, which is underpinned by a new Timber Fibre Strategy announced earlier this year, which Albanese said would deliver a “bigger” and more sustainable industry.
“When we came to government, we promised we would reform Australia’s broken environmental laws,” Albanese told reporters. “Today, we deliver that promise … These sensible, responsible and balanced laws are good for business and good for the environment.”
Meanwhile, Greens leader Larissa Waters said her party was “determined to get shit done,” but criticised Labor for refusing to make carbon emissions part of project assessments. “Our laws should protect us from the climate crisis, and we will keep pushing on that,” she said.
Last night, Wood Central was told by an insider with connections to the discussions that negotiations between the Labor, the Greens and the Coalition went down to the wire, with representatives from Watt and Albanese’s office meeting with the Greens and Liberal and National Party coalition members late last night.
