Vote Native Forests

for Koalas and climate

This NSW state election, we need to vote for the people who will protect native forests. Join our people powered movement to end native forest logging in NSW, forever.

If we don’t protect Australia’s remaining native forests;

Koalas and other endangered and vulnerable species will go extinct
We will lose our carbon-storehouse – a critical tool in repairing our broken climate
We will suffer worsening bushfire and drought

Together, we have an opportunity to put native forests on the agenda at the NSW State Election.

From northern NSW to the Far South Coast, native forests are under immense threat from industrial scale logging.

Forestry Corporation NSW is pillaging beautiful ecosystems, turning habitat-rich, carbon-dense forests into piles of woodchips and cheap, throwaway timber products

Native forests are critical for repairing our broken climate. Native forests alone can sequester carbon on the scale needed to mitigate the worst of the climate catastrophe. Australia’s mature native forests are some of the most carbon dense in the world, holding hundreds of years' worth of sequestered carbon.

Worse still, when mature native forests are logged, it releases around 15 megatons of carbon emission on average per year. If Australia were to cease logging native forests tomorrow, the avoided emissions alone would make a huge contribution towards reducing our annual emissions.

An intact mature forest is more resistant to the impacts of a deteriorating climate. More water is retained in the soil and in the forest floor, which assists forests to become drought resistant and decreases their flammability. By contrast, a recently logged forest with small saplings and regrowth is significantly drier, with higher fuel loads and more flammable conditions for bushfires.

The science is simple – logging forests contributes to the climate crisis while leaving forests standing helps to fight it.

Over the past four years, NSW taxpayers have forked out $107.7m for Forestry Corporation to decimate our native forests - for destruction of habitat, the loss of critical carbon sinks and the degradation of our soil, waterways, and ecosystems. This money could, and should, be spent on things like education, healthcare or rewilding our lost forest habitat, increasing our resilience to the climate and biodiversity crises.

Logging native forests makes no sense, ecologically, or economically. New South Wales native forests are worth more than woodchips. 

Globally, we are witnessing the sixth mass extinction event on Earth.

In NSW, our unique and iconic Koala is on a tragic pathway to extinction by 2050, unless the incessant logging and fragmentation of their forest home is stopped. Within the last decade, the Koala has moved from ‘vulnerable’ to ‘endangered’ due to the loss of habitat. Of all the contributors toward habitat loss, native forest logging is the worst offender.

When forests are logged, Koalas lose their habitat, their feed trees, their ability to migrate and breed with other Koala colonies, and they become more vulnerable to events like drought, bushfire or disease.

And it is not just the Koala that suffers. Other species like the Greater Glider, the Yellow-bellied Glider, the Swift Parrot, the Gang-Gang Cockatoo and the Little-John’s Tree Frog are all listed as either vulnerable or endangered due to the relentless loss of forest habitat from logging.

We are in a biodiversity crisis and all these species are on the brink. We must end native forest logging in New South Wales if we are to change the story on Australia’s appalling record for native species extinction – the worst in the world for the loss of mammal species.

This election, we need to vote for candidates who will protect native forests.

We are calling on the NSW State Election Candidates to endorse:

  • Ending all native forest logging in New South Wales immediately.
  • Protecting all remaining koala habitat
  • Endorsing the Great Koala National Park on the Mid North Coast,
  • Adopting the 42 recommendations from the 2019 parliamentary enquiry into koala population and habitat.

This election, vote for native forests.

Take Action

Sign the native forest declaration

Over the past three years, we have been collecting the support of thousands of Australians for our Native Forest Declaration.

At election time, we’ve been using this declaration to show our candidates just how many Australians love and care for native forests and want to see them protected – for wildlife, biodiversity and climate.  
 
We have a goal – to reach 75,000 signatures on the Native Forest Declaration before the 25 March election. We want to be able to show candidates that their constituents want to see native forests protected, with the numbers to prove it. 

We’re calling for letterboxing volunteers to join us in leafletting our key electorates over the final few weeks before election day.

If we’re going to see an end to native forest logging in NSW during the next term of Government, we’re going to need on the ground support from people living in the critical electorates that will make or break this election.

We’re calling for letterboxing volunteers to join us in leafletting our key electorates over the final few weeks before election day.

We’ll be holding an informal campaign info session on Thursday the 2nd of March in Surry Hills. Drop in between 5 to 6.30 upstairs at the Shakespeare Hotel, 200 Devonshire St to collect your leaflets – or we can organise to post them to you instead.

After you have received your leaflets, you can either distribute the leaflets in your own time, or you can join us on one of our group efforts on the following weekends:

When: 19 Mar, 2023. 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Where: Pitt St Uniting Church (264 Pitt St, Sydney)
Speakers: Keynote speaker Dr Bob Brown with MC Wendy Harmer.

Native forests are in urgent need of protection. Each year, the continual loss of native forests is killing wildlife, amplifying the biodiversity crisis, exacerbating the climate crisis, and reducing our ability to mitigate the impacts of bushfire.

It’s time for our candidates to step up and make a commitment towards ending native forest logging in NSW.

We have invited candidates for the 2023 NSW State Election to join us one week out from polling day, to make a pre-election commitment towards protecting NSW’s native forests – to end native forest logging if they are elected as a member of government.

We are giving our candidates one key opportunity to take a stand against loss of native forests to logging and commit that to action for the future of Planet Earth. Please bring your forest protest signs and banners for a group photo at the end.

Every Friday, from now until the election, we have a team of Community Activists getting active to raise the profile of native forests in New South Wales.

#Fridays4Forests is a combined effort with our friends at North-East Forest Alliance and Forest Ecology Alliance. No matter where you live, you can help us build a massive presence statewide each week.

You can take action with us every Friday either by joining our Social Media Blitz team, or by holding a Honk-A-Thon in a busy street in your community during peak hour.

We’ll provide you with all the tools, information and support you need to pull these off locally.

Supporter Ask(Required)

With under a month to go til the State Election, we’re eager to see our yard signs out and about across NSW.

This election, we’re calling on the NSW Candidates to end native forest logging and protect native forests across the state.

You can help us by joining our movement and ordering your yard sign to show your candidates how much you care about the forests.

Once you have received your yard sign, make sure to grab a photo and post to your social media, tagging @BobBrownFoundation and #VoteNativeForestsNSW
Order now

We know that our strongest tool in the fight to protect native forests is you – empowered citizens who are connected and trusted in your communities, taking action together.

To reach our goal of 75,000 signatures, we’re going to need your help. We want to see our Vote Native Forests image plastered all over Sydney and regional New South Wales with thousands of people receiving, scanning and signing our Native Forest Declaration postcards, posters and yard signs.

There are so many ways you can help us get the message out. Please sign up for one of the fantastic actions below, and our campaigners will be in touch with you very soon.

One of the most powerful ways we can get the message to our candidates this state election is by speaking with them directly. 

In the final weeks of the election campaign, we’re going to need volunteers from across New South Wales to reach out to their candidates – by phone, social media and public meetings – to tell them just how many people in their electorate want to see native forests protected. 
 
If you’d like to sign up to be one of our Community Forest Advocates, delivering our message to your candidates during February and March, please fill out the form below and we’ll contact you soon!

Supporter Ask(Required)