Despite Latvia's excellent forestry practice, the international recognition enjoyed by our forest science and the sustainable approach pursued by the forest sector, sharp debates have been running in Latvia for years about how forests ought to be managed. All manner of self-appointed “specialists”, “opinion leaders”, incompetent politicians and members of marginal non-governmental organisations aggressively tell foresters what should be done and how… Battles of opinion are being fought in faraway Australia too, and there, as in Latvia, science-based findings are often ignored altogether…
How Australia's vast and diverse native forests are best managed has been disputed for decades, with even diametrically opposed views holding sway. The management methods used by forestry companies have been studied at length, tested in practice and, of course, improved. Outstanding Australian forest scientists such as John Raison, Sadanandan Nambiar, Glen Kile and Tony Bartlett have turned to the fight against the disinformation and ideology that threaten the sustainable management of Australia's forests.
Debate has intensified over the benefits of active forest management – particularly timber harvesting – and over how best to manage the threat posed by increasingly frequent forest fires. Unfortunately, the aggressive resistance of “environmental activists” to forestry practice has become highly politicised, coordinated, ideological and based on selective use of the available scientific information, often disregarding real practical experience. It is no surprise that operatives from certain organisations resort to brutal, hysterical methods that not infrequently border on terrorism.
A worrying inability, or deliberate unwillingness, to acknowledge scientific evidence and practical experience that differs from one's preferred view has emerged. This tendency is apparent even among representatives of academia. In this way disinformation is continually sustained, and it takes root in public attitudes towards forestry, forest science and the forest sector as a whole.
According to ABARES estimates, as long ago as 2016 Australia had 132 million hectares of native forest, of which 28.1 million hectares were considered suitable for timber production on public and private land. Once local restrictions were introduced, the area of multiple-use public forest available for harvesting was only about 5 million hectares. In 2015–2016 just 73,000 hectares of forest were harvested, or 1.5%. Over the past 20 years, timber harvesting from native forests in Australia has fallen by 75%, to 2.5 million cubic metres in 2023. The volume is split roughly evenly between sawlogs and pulpwood.
Australian forest scientists identify, and comment briefly on, six main areas of disinformation used by tendentious “environmental organisations” to oppose the sustainable management of native forests.
The key themes of disinformation and contention
1. “Clearing the native forests” (in Australia too, opponents of the forest sector insistently use this false phrase) is a burden on taxpayers
This primitive and wholly unfounded line of argument ignores the fact that forests in which harvesting takes place, in order to obtain the timber the economy needs, are managed for multiple purposes. Wood processing and the associated manufacturing industries provide substantial employment and generate very significant economic benefits for rural communities. In New South Wales, for example, native forest management generated US$29 million in revenue in 2023 and 2024, of which US$23 million was spent on providing for “public needs”. Across roughly two million hectares of state forest, money was invested in maintaining roads, bridges and tracks, in fire safety, in clean water supply and in recreation facilities, in order to promote the well-being of local communities and the development of tourism.
A study by Ernest and Young covering 2021–2022 shows that the management of native forests and hardwood plantations and the processing of timber employed almost 9,000 people across New South Wales and generated some US$2.9 billion in gross revenue. Native forests accounted for more than 75% of these benefits. What is more, well-managed native forests also guarantee substantial volumes of water for regional communities, settlements and towns. If the companies managing native forests received income from selling that water, they would become very, very profitable businesses indeed.
The management of protected forests, national parks and reserves also requires considerable public funding, which per hectare may exceed that for managed multiple-use production forests, where income from timber sales covers part of the management costs.
2. Harvesting is “clearing the forests” and “destroying the forests”
Critics frequently and deliberately spread disinformation by claiming that harvesting involves the intensive removal of trees from “old” forests of high conservation value, even though for decades now all these forests have regenerated either after earlier harvesting or after a forest fire, where one occurred in the area concerned. Harvesting is permitted only in small, carefully planned and precisely defined forest compartments. It is falsely claimed that harvesting causes permanent loss of forest (deforestation), even though under the forest management requirements laid down in legislation every harvested hectare must be effectively regenerated in a prescribed manner.
Regeneration methods are well researched and well matched to conditions. Results are monitored continuously so that corrective measures can be taken where necessary. At present, selective harvesting is used in native forests for the most part. Sustainable harvesting is not “clearing the forest”, yet the malicious, continually sustained hostile propaganda equating sustainable harvesting and forest regeneration practice with “clearing the forest” persists (the same disinformation as here in Latvia). Forests are a renewable natural resource. Regenerating forests of varying ages across the landscape provides greater habitat diversity for native animals and plants.
3. “Clearing” native forests harms forest ecology, especially endangered species
Critics deliberately ignore the scientific evidence and the considerable effort and investment devoted to applying scientifically sound harvesting methods that reduce the negative impact on forests and on the environment as a whole. For example, a study by New South Wales Primary Industries monitoring koala populations at 224 sites over seven years concluded that well-managed timber harvesting and/or low-hazard fires do not reduce occupancy rates. The harvesting rules “provided koalas with sufficient and favourable habitat to maintain their density immediately after selective harvesting and within 5–10 years after more intensive harvesting”.
Recent aerial surveys indicate that koala density and occupancy are similar in national parks and in adjacent forests where harvesting takes place. This calls into question the need for the proposed Great Koala National Park (Greater Koala National Park, GKNP) in north-eastern New South Wales. Recent extensive CSIRO research in the northern part of New South Wales also indicates that koala numbers may be up to 10 times higher than previously estimated. That in turn suggests that koalas in this region should not be regarded as “endangered”.
Extensive, intense forest fires are a far greater threat to forest biodiversity than harvesting or fuel-reduction burning. The fires of 2019 and 2020 killed billions of native animals and sharply reduced the populations of many endangered species. In addition to devastating vegetation and harming wildlife, high-intensity fires cause severe soil erosion and, of course, damage watercourses and water quality. The environmental damage can persist for decades or centuries, yet “environmental activists” and “pseudo-ecologists” tend to forget about it soon after the fires are out.
4. Expanding plantations can quickly and easily replace the timber currently obtained from native forests
It is extraordinarily naive to claim, as is often done, that it would be easy to switch to plantation-grown supply for all the timber products Australia needs. Over the past decade the area of hardwood plantations has declined. This is chiefly because plantation land is being returned to agricultural use. The area of softwood plantations has not changed over the past 30 years. Australia faces a serious and still growing timber shortage that is delaying new house building and driving up its cost. Given the country's ambitious plans for tackling the “housing crisis”, this problem will become even more acute. Forest and wood products research in Australia indicates that some 2.5 million new homes must be built by 2034 in order to keep pace with population growth and meet rising demand. It is projected that the shortfall in timber supply will be met either by imports or by using steel or concrete, which generate very high carbon emissions. Claims that the additional building materials can easily be obtained from existing or new plantations are mistaken and unrealistic.
Despite the fact that timber supply from native forests has fallen by roughly 75% over the past two decades, there has been no stimulus of any kind for plantation expansion. Securing suitable land, community support and private investment to deliver that expansion is difficult, and some 20–30 years pass between establishing a plantation and harvesting sawlogs, which creates substantial financial and logistical obstacles. It is unrealistic to assume that the private hardwood plantation sector could be turned to something else, given that the plantations were established to serve the export markets most profitable for their owners. The main eucalypt species planted are also unsuitable for commercial sawlog production.
Reducing harvesting increases imports. According to Forest and Wood Products Australia estimates, hardwood imports into the state of Victoria rose by 40% in 2019–2023, following the announcement that the local hardwood plantation sector would be closed down. Most of the sawn timber was imported from Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, China and the USA.
5. Harvesting and planned controlled burning increase “forest flammability” and the risk of forest fires
Extensive wildfires pose a serious threat to lives and property, as well as to most forest values – soil and water, carbon stocks, timber volumes, biodiversity and so on. Following the so-called Black Summer fires, millions of hectares of densely growing eucalypts and acacias have regenerated in south-eastern Australia. Australian forestry uses a method known as “planned controlled burning”. Its critics maintain that such areas should be managed for many decades without further timber harvesting or planned controlled burning. It is clear that adopting such a strategy would sharply increase the threat of forest fires across the country (affecting both local communities and ecosystems).
The claim kept in constant circulation that “clearing” native forests increases “forest flammability” and hence the risk of high-intensity forest fires has been categorically rejected by three detailed studies of fire intensity and extent during the “Black Summer” forest fires of 2019 and 2020. These studies demonstrate that earlier harvesting had very little effect on the causes or the scale of forest fires in Australia.
A recent “theory” claiming that planned controlled burning does not help to contain fires but instead increases the fire hazard in the understorey and makes eucalypt forests more flammable has been justifiably criticised. A 2025 review published by a forestry association concluded that the evidence in the field does not support such claims, since long-unburnt areas burn very intensely, whereas areas subject to regular planned controlled burning have almost no understorey to feed a fire. Strategically applied planned controlled burning is an important part of the suite of measures for managing the risk and impact of intense forest fires in Australia's forests.
Opponents of planned controlled burning advocate response measures alone for bushfire management as a conservation strategy. Such a strategy has been tried in the forests of the western USA, which are “adapted” to fire. A particular fire-suppression strategy was pursued there for decades. It is now recognised as a failure, because it has had a negative effect on forest health and because devastating forest fires have become widespread in recent decades. Low-intensity controlled burning and the thinning of dense stands are now being introduced on a broad scale, along with mechanical fuel reduction. One of the leading ecologists in the USA explained in the journal Nature that “fire suppression in fire-prone systems is a deeply flawed and unsustainable conservation strategy”.
6. Harvesting generates large carbon emissions and harms the climate
To assess the carbon balance associated with harvesting credibly and as completely as possible, a full life cycle analysis (LCA) must be applied – a framework that takes into account changes in carbon stocks over time at the harvesting site; the carbon emissions associated with forest management and harvesting, transport and the processing of harvested wood products (HWP); the carbon stored in wood products during their service life and at disposal; all the carbon emissions avoided by using residues to generate energy that would otherwise be produced by burning fossil fuels; the benefits of substituting wood for more carbon-intensive construction materials such as steel, aluminium or concrete; and the carbon footprint of imported wood products brought in to replace domestic production.
An extensive review prepared in 2024 found that to date only one Australian study has used a full carbon life cycle analysis; it concluded that harvesting sustainably managed native forests and the subsequent use of forest biomass for HWP or energy generation can make a positive contribution to reducing the country's net carbon emissions. Other studies claiming that harvesting native forests increases net carbon emissions are either incomplete, or use inappropriate parameters to assess the components of the overall carbon balance, or overestimate rates of carbon accumulation in older forests and the long-term capacity of unharvested forests to store carbon, which is itself threatened by forest fires. Correspondingly, the benefits of harvesting and using timber have been underestimated, which has led to erroneous conclusions and to the aggressive propaganda that follows them, to the effect that “halting harvesting would deliver better carbon sequestration outcomes than sustainable management”, which involves timber production in selected areas only.
These findings mean that the proposal to develop a new INFM (Improved Native Forest Management) methodology for assessing the carbon emission savings produced by ending harvesting in native forests lacks any scientific logic. Development of the method has been supported by the New South Wales government's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. The Australian federal government, through the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, has made its further development a priority. Claims that a complete ban on harvesting native forests would yield large volumes of carbon credits expressed in monetary terms are imaginary.
Conclusions
The sustainable management of native forests, and support for it, draw on information from many decades of research and on practical experience. Even so, there are still people who advocate a complete ban on native forest harvesting, falsely asserting that “the science supports it”. “Theoretical” claims that timber harvesting increases the intensity of forest fires, causes greater carbon emissions, reduces catchment water yields and endangers koalas have been rejected by a number of detailed scientific studies over recent years. Over the past 60 years the use of strategically planned controlled burning has developed in Australia as part of an integrated approach to fire management. That in turn helps to contain and reduce the impact of wildfires in good time and to improve firefighter safety.
Foresters have the knowledge, the practical skills and an appropriate legal framework to manage native forests sustainably, including harvesting timber in small, carefully selected areas. Most harvested native forests are now subject to sustainability certification using international best practice methods. Rural communities and the country as a whole stand to benefit in various ways from adopting scientifically grounded policy and management practice. The forest management practice used in Tasmania, for example, is widely applied around the world and delivers continuous improvement in forestry.
The public, policymakers and politicians should be wary of the ever-increasing selective and unbalanced use of scientific findings, often dressed up in ideology, to promote anti-forestry views.
*ABARES, The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences is the research arm of the Australian government's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Its task is to provide professionally independent data, research, analysis and advice that support public and private decision-making on Australian agriculture, fisheries and forestry.