More than 300 Labor branches have backed a push by the party’s environmental arm for the Albanese government to fund an expanded, publicly owned plantation industry to ensure the country gets the timber it needs and end native forest logging.
A report by the Labor Environment Action Network (Lean), the ALP’s largest internal lobby group, calls for the party’s national conference next month to support an industry policy focused on restoring native forests. It says they have greater value if treated as a carbon and biodiversity sink than if logged to produce mainly low-value products such as woodchips, pallets and power poles.
