I am concerned about the Forest Products Commission's plans to log 1,610 hectares of Margaret River's beautiful Mowen Forest in 2014. The logging of jarrah and marri trees in the Mowen Forest will affect threatened animal species such as the Forest Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo, Baudin's Cockatoo, Brush-tailed Phascogale, Orange-bellied Frog and the Quokka. Logging will also increase the forest's risk of dieback and salinity, and will threaten the Blackwood River and other parts of our delicate ecosystem. The Mowen Forest has important significance to the Wardandi people, and Wardandi songlines may be destroyed with the logging of this forest.
Logging the Mowen Forest does not make economic sense. The Augusta-Margaret River community does not have a native logging industry, and the native forests and wildlife are significant tourist attractions. More than 80 percent of the wood logged from Western Australian forests is used for firewood, woodchips, charcoal and railway sleepers - and economic gains from logging are negligible. Every remaining native forest on our planet is vital for mitigating climate change. Instead of logging the Mowen Forest, the WA Government could protect the forest and earn alternative income through the sale of carbon credits.
It is completely unsustainable, on environmental, economic, social and spiritual grounds, to log the Mowen Forest. I respectfully ask the Government of Western Australia to support the protection of our native forest and cease all logging operations in Mowen Forest in 2014 and in the future.