Views And Perspectives: Why Does Australia Have 'Forest Wars'?

The governance of Australia’s forests has been highly contentious for 40 years, with many environmental conflicts between wood production and conservation that became known as ‘forest wars’. Although much has been written during and about them, relatively little has been written about why they continue and why apparent resolutions do not hold in Australia while they do in some other countries. This paper introduces a brief history of the Australian forests from European settlement to the onset of environmental conflicts in the 1970s, and a brief history of the conflicts over pine plantations, the export of woodchips, rainforests and wilderness. Ten historically contingent and interacting factors that underpin forest wars are discussed: forestry, ecology, time, landscape and the rural divide, class, tenure, economy, philosophy, presentation and process. This paper offers another way of looking at an enduring problem.