South East Timber Association, 14 February 2025. This submission is in response to the article Logging does indeed increase fire risks!: David Lindenmayer, by Professor David Lindenmayer, published on ARR.News on 12 February 2025. The entire series of articles and interchanges is listed below.

Members of the South East Timber Association respectfully disagree with many of the assertions made by David Lindenmayer (Logging does indeed increase fire risks) and have a few observations and questions relating to Professor Lindenmayer’s opinion. Kosciuszko State Park was established in 1944. Areas of the original dedication, now in Kosciuszko National Park (KNP), were either never harvested or last harvested more than 80 years ago.

Why are areas of once mature alpine ash in KNP, twice burnt in less than 20 years by high intensity megafires, not complying with Professor Lindenmayer’s leading-edge views on mitigation of high intensity megafire risk?

The photo below, if taken before 2003, would have shown a mature (80 years +) alpine ash stand. A high intensity fire killed the stand in the 2002-03 fire season. The regrowth was burnt by a high intensity fire in 2020. All the 2003 regrowth was killed and most of the original trees burnt.

Aside from some seedlings on the side of the road, the original area of the alpine is either significantly understocked or has no alpine ash at all. So much for the theoretical construct of permanent protection. Has any of the ANU carbon experts calculated the loss of carbon here and in similarly affected stands elsewhere in the KNP?

A national park in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area (GBMWHA) has the unenviable distinction of being the starting point of the Gospers Mountain high intensity megafire.

This fire is part of the complex of high intensity megafires that burnt 79 per cent (855,310 hectares) of the GBMWHA. High intensity fires occurred in prior years and affected the estimated percentages of the GBMWHA as follows. In the summers of 1993-94 (25 per cent), 1997-98 (13 per cent), 2001-02 (25 per cent), 2002-03 (19 per cent) and 2006-07 (10 per cent). Is that how sustainable conservation reserve management is being delivered in the iconic NSW parks and reserves network?

The NSW NP&WS September 2021 Zero Extinctions report states:

“Our protected areas provide a vital refuge for many of these threatened species.

In New South Wales (NSW), around 85 per cent of all species threatened with extinction are represented on the national park estate. Most are endemic to Australia or NSW – found nowhere else in the world.

However, even on the NSW national park estate, the future for these approximately 800 species is threatened by feral animals, weeds, altered fire regimes, the impact of climate change and other threats.

How does Professor Lindenmayer’s research mitigate the horrific impact of repeated high intensity megafires on flora and fauna in our parks and reserves and on adjoining lands?

Questions about what we should do instead.

• How does thinning and harvesting of forests on less than ten per cent of the total public land estate actually increase landscape-wide fire risks, if the biggest single ignition point megafire in history, started in and mostly burnt national parks and other conservation reserves?
• Given the potential permanent loss of species such as alpine ash from national parks, thinning in national parks might be a mute point. How will any of the actions Professor Lindenmayer suggests actually mitigate the risk of high intensity megafire risk in our parks and reserves?
• All the available plantations are committed to existing markets. Plantation sawlog volumes are reducing due to the impacts of the 2019-20 megafires. Imports of hardwood timber and timber products from countries including Indonesia and Brazil, have increased since the closure of the Victorian and WA hardwood industries. Where is the plantation hardwood pole, pile, girder and sawlog resource that the current hardwood industry will transition to? Does shifting of the impacts of Australian hardwood consumption to potentially more vulnerable forests elsewhere in the world pass the moral, ethical and carbon miles test?
• There has been a history of, at times, delayed initial responses to fires starting in remotes areas due to lack of aircraft, lack of responders, no night firefighting because of safety concerns, locked gates, fallen trees and washed-out/overgrown fire trails, among things. Can Professor Lindenmayer tell us how using advanced drone technology and early-response systems will actually make a diference in the real world?
• Does Professor Lindenmayer have any animal welfare or concerns for threatened species living in remote areas or is a 3 billion, plus or minus, fauna death toll an acceptable price to pay for the implementation of his research findings?

SETA: More details on the issues raised and other matters that Professor Lindenmayer’s research does not seem to adequately address, can be found at the links below:
https://southeasttimberassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Does-Logging-Cause-or-Exacerbate-Bushfires-26Aug2021.pdf
https://southeasttimberassociation.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/To-Burn-or-Not-to-Burn-Nov2021.pdf

Story series (in order of publication): 
Debunking false claims about bushfire risk and native logging in Australia; 
Logging does indeed increase fire risks!: David Lindenmayer; 
An alternative perspective to David Lindenmayer: South East Timber Association; 
Logging and bushfire risk: Robert Onfray responds to David Lindenmayer;
Bushfire risk and native forest logging: David Lindenmayer responds to South East Timber Association;
Fire severity is always greater in areas that have been logged: David Lindenmayer responds to Robert Onfray;
David Lindenmayer ignores core points and key questions: Robert Onfray’s further response;
Megafires thrive on high per hectare fine fuel loads across the forest landscape, regardless of land tenure: SETA’s further response to David Lindenmayer;
Robert Onfray’s response misses core scientific realities – logging makes forests more flammable for many decades: David Lindenmayer;
SETA’s claims ignore established science and economic realities: David Lindenmayer

This debate is drawing to a close. Australian Rural & Regional News intends to ask a few questions of each of the participants with a view to rounding out the debate.