The Senate Inquiry into Australia’s animal extinction crisis today heard testimony that Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews acknowledged the need to protect the highest conservation value forests, but buckled under pressure from VicForests, the state-owned logging company, to allow these forest areas to be logged.

A leaked study by University of Canberra academics for the Forest & Wood Products Australia (FWPA) shows two thirds of Australians, including those in rural and regional areas, want an end to native forest logging.

“It’s clear that a huge majority of Australians know that logging of native forests must end,” said Senator Janet Rice, Australian Greens spokesperson for forests.

“The Labor and Liberal parties are the only thing standing in the way of protecting our native forests.”

The Greens will call for a senate inquiry into destructive native forest logging and deforestation, the failed laws that allow it to happen in Australia, and how to ensure a sustainable future for our forests and the communities that rely on them.

The Greens have condemned Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Premier Daniel Andrews signing off on two year extensions of three of the state's Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) for the East Gippsland, Central Highlands and North East Regions.

RFAs give loggers guaranteed supplies of timber from our forests and exempts them from federal environmental laws. This extension preserves the status quo and does nothing to protect forests from destructive logging.

Quotes attributable to Samantha Dunn MLC: