This response is part of the Ongoing Debate:Bushfires and Logging
Statement from a Tasmanian Government spokesperson in response to Australian Rural & Regional News, 6 October 2021
The Tasmanian Government is continually monitoring new scientific research to ensure the way we regulate forestry is contemporary and consistent with best practice.
The Government takes bushfire management and mitigation incredibly seriously and is taking a number of important steps to manage future risk and keep our communities safe.
The Government’s position, that actively managing our forests can markedly reduce fuel loads, is supported by a significant number of scientific publications.
As eminent academics Kevin Tolhurst (associate professor in Fire Ecology and Management at Uni Melb) and Jerry Vanclay (Professor of Sustainable Forestry, SCU) said in the Examiner on 13/09/21 on behalf of the Institute of Foresters Australia (IFA): “Closing down native forest timber harvesting is likely to have a much greater impact on increasing bushfire severity and extent across the landscape than the increase in local fire severity claimed by the opponents of timber harvesting.” [Available here]
