The Forest Wars

Since colonisation, Australians have been frantically logging their native forests as if their lives depended on it. Their lives do depend on the forests – but on keeping them, not destroying them.

World-leading forest expert Professor David Lindenmayer exposes the unsettling truth about what is happening in Australia's tall eucalypt forests. Despite what we are told, logging makes bushfires worse for decades after the chainsaws stop, and kills iconic animals and birds each year in droves, driving many species closer to extinction. The trees that are logged mostly end up as paper and cardboard. And it's not profitable: taxpayers are funding it.

Lindenmayer reveals an unholy alliance between state forestry, the timber industry and unions. Loggers routinely breach regulations, and industry intimidates anyone who questions what they are doing. Worse still, even where native forest logging is supposedly ending, efforts are being made to continue it under a different name.

Forests purify our drinking water. Forests are our best hope to reduce carbon emissions. Forests preserve biodiversity. It's time we realised the value of leaving Australia's native forests standing.