Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Today I launched the forest pledge. The forest pledge is a promise by signatories to do what they can to help end native logging in this country. When I talk about native logging, I'm talking about industrial-scale native logging of our public native forests. We're in the middle of an extinction crisis, an environmental crisis and a climate crisis. Australia leads the world when it comes to mammal extinctions. We are responsible for 35 per cent of all mammal extinctions in the modern era. The last Australia state of the environment report made for harrowing reading. We have 19 ecosystems on the brink of failure, and then we have the climate crisis. This year has been the hottest year on record, and we now know that getting to net zero by 2050 is probably not going to be nearly enough. We need to act and we need to act now. In this context, continuing to log our beautiful native forests is simply madness; it's morally wrong.

The native forest logging pledge is supported by 36 environmental and civil organisations, including WWF, the Climate Council, the Public Health Association and Blueprint Institute. It is also supported by 29 scientists, experts and academics, and, importantly, it is supported by former politicians and senior politicians, such as Bob Debus, Geoff Gallop and others. (Time expired)

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