A WA parliamentary question scrutinizes the Minister for Environment and Heritage regarding the draft Forest Management Plan, specifically addressing claims made by the Wilderness Society about its alignment with government promises and the validity of data used.

AnsweredQoN 761Legislative Assembly
Asked
25 February 2003
Portfolio
the Environment and Heritage

QuestionView source ↗

(1) Does the Minister agree with the statement made in the November 2002 issue of the Wilderness Society’s magazine that ‘In its current form, the (draft Forest Management) plan does not fulfil a single promise made by the Gallop Government at last year’s State election’?
(2) If not, why not?
(3) Is the Wilderness Society correct in the following statements made in its magazine article, ‘The draft FMP is based on outdated and discredited Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) data’, and ‘The definition of old growth forest was taken from the RFA. It is an inadequate and manipulative definition which cuts out large tracts of old growth forest – especially in the Central Jarrah region’?
(4) If not, why not?

AnswerView source ↗

Answered
9 April 2003
Responded by
Minister for the Environment and Heritage
Response time
43 days
(2) The Draft Forest Management Plan contains objectives and strategies to deliver the Government's old-growth policy commitments. Implementing these policy commitments began in February 2001. The Government has achieved its commitments to end logging in old-growth forests on State-owned lands, for example, and boundaries for 16 of the 30 new national parks the Government has committed to establish have been released to date. (3) No. (4) The draft plan draws on data that was compiled for the RFA but various elements have been refined since 1999. Criticism of the data used in the RFA process has been reviewed by independent panels and the majority of the criticisms were judged to be unfounded. An independent panel will examine the sustained yield calculations for the new forest management plan for conformity to ecologically sustainable forest management. The nationally agreed definition for old-growth forest pre-dates the Western Australian RFA.
(3) No. (4) The draft plan draws on data that was compiled for the RFA but various elements have been refined since 1999. Criticism of the data used in the RFA process has been reviewed by independent panels and the majority of the criticisms were judged to be unfounded. An independent panel will examine the sustained yield calculations for the new forest management plan for conformity to ecologically sustainable forest management. The nationally agreed definition for old-growth forest pre-dates the Western Australian RFA.
(4) The draft plan draws on data that was compiled for the RFA but various elements have been refined since 1999. Criticism of the data used in the RFA process has been reviewed by independent panels and the majority of the criticisms were judged to be unfounded. An independent panel will examine the sustained yield calculations for the new forest management plan for conformity to ecologically sustainable forest management. The nationally agreed definition for old-growth forest pre-dates the Western Australian RFA.
The nationally agreed definition for old-growth forest pre-dates the Western Australian RFA.

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