Australian government gives up bid to open up protected forest to loggers
The Australian government ended its push to log World Heritage-listed forests on the southern island state of Tasmania on Sunday, after the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO issued a report calling for the area to remain protected from logging.
One of the last expanses of temperate wilderness in the world, the forest in Tasmania covers nearly 20 per cent, or 1.4 million hectares, of the southern island state.
The conservative federal government in 2014 controversially tried but failed to have Unesco revoke World Heritage status for parts of the wilderness to allow more access to loggers.
READ MORE: Unesco rejects move to revoke Tasmanian World Heritage status
It was the first time a developed country had asked for a delisting.
“Today we confirm that we accept the recommendation of the monitoring mission that special species timber harvesting should not be allowed anywhere in the World Heritage Area,” Tasmania’s Environment Minister Matthew Groom said in a statement.
“It was important that the mission experts had the opportunity to hear all sides of the debate, and having done so, their clear advice to the World Heritage Committee is that there should no timber harvesting in the World Heritage Area including for specialty timbers.”
