BICWA requests DRAFT Forest Management Plan is reviewed by the EPA.
Take action now and ensure that your voice is heard too! Time is running out, so submit your response today before it's too late.
Comments must be submitted by Thursday 18th May
1. Go to bit.ly/FMP-EPA-review
2. Click on ‘Complete this form to comment on the referred proposal’
3. Enter your personal details (Questions 1-4)
4. For question 5, select ‘Assess – Public environmental review’
5. Write your reasons, if you're struggling use ours as a guide. They don’t need to be long or complex at this stage of the EPA process.
BICWA’s submission for your info or copy-past if you wish to:
"The Forest Management Plan 2024-33 (FMP) is the single most important document that will determine the health and sustainability of our southwest forest ecosystem and the livelihoods that depend on their existence. The Proposed FMP requires independent examination with clear, binding, and enforceable commitments. Decades of logging, burning and other impacts, much of which we were told wouldn’t negatively impact, have resulted in many forest species suffering. They now require significant proactive recovery efforts to avoid forest ecosystem collapse. With the impacts of climate change already taking their toll, our forests cannot sustain another decade of sub-par and unaccountable management.
Confidence in the ability of DBCA to deliver adequate protection of our southwest forests is at an all-time low. Unless legally binding ministerial conditions are applied, the unrelenting decline in structure, functionality and health of our forests will continue. It will simply be history repeating. To appropriately set management plans for forests already on the brink, there must be a thorough independent assessment of the proposed Forest Management Plan. Importantly, this must result in binding conditions on forest management agencies with independent oversight, so that the West Australian community can be confident that our forests will be sustainable into the future.
Areas that form major parts of the FMP 2024-33 and must be independently reviewed are:
1) Ecological thinning: The FMP fails to clearly define and outline this practice to give confidence that DBCA’s ecological thinning, which we have never seen on such a large scale, does not continue to harm our forest ecosystem. Lacking is the implementation of a cautious, nuanced, and trialled approach, with a regular measured review, to meet a standard of management.
2) Prescribed burning: There must be an implementation of legally binding conditions to ensure that prescribed burning does not continue to have measurable negative wildlife, environmental, climate and human health impacts. Scientific proof of the detriment of prescribed burning to our forests and community is being ignored.
3) Commitment to increase protected areas: It will be near impossible to halt and then reverse the blanket decline in forest health without expediting the protection of 320,000ha of forests already on the table AND the additional minimum of 400,000ha as promised by the Premier in 2021."
Contact our Resource and Biosecurity Committee with any queries: resourceandbio@bicwa.com.au
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