Sustained unsustainability? An evaluation of evidence for a history of overcutting in the jarrah forests of Western Australia and its consequences for fauna conservation

It seems to the Inquiry that for much of its history the native forest sawn timber industry has been in disequilibrium with the supply of its raw material. In most years there seem to have been too many mills for the timber on offer. Milling capacity has almost always been greater than the supply of logs to the mills. Individual mills dependent on native forest, and the groups of such mills that go to make up ‘timber towns’, can survive only if the forest within their radius of extraction is managed on a sustained-yield basis. So far as the Inquiry is aware, this has never happened in Australia. Resource Assessment Commission Draft Report (1991, p. l)