David Lindenmeyer
The Forest Wars
The ugly truth about what’s happening in our tall forests
Allen & Unwin, 2024
Lifts the lid on destruction of native forests by government corporations and logging industry that is making bushfires worse, killing wildlife and costing taxpayers millions, for the sake of woodchips for export.
Since colonisation, Australians have been frantically logging our native forests as if our lives depended on it. Our 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 our 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 our native forests standing.
About the Author
Professor David Lindenmayer AO is a world-leading expert on forest conservation. Winner of the Macfarlane Burnet Medal, he is ranked among Australia's top 50 scientists. Based at The Australian National University, he has led some of the largest scale environmental research programs in Australia for over four decades. He is the author of 49 books on forests, including The Great Forest.
