The State of the Forests

Eastern Australia is one of 11 global fronts identified as hotspots for deforestation, and Australia is the only advaced economy on that dubious shortlist (Cox 2021). The timber industry, and land clearing generally, is one of the leading contributors to CO2 emissions in the country. Intact, primary forests are important stores for vast wells of carbon, “breathing” it in and storing it in both their woody biomass and in the humus layers surrounding their root systems. When disturbed, as in the case of intensive timber harvesting practices, this soil carbon is released into the atmosphere. In Victoria, over 16,000ha of primary forest was harvested between 2010-18, however not without great conflict (Australian Government 2020). Protests occur at nearly all timber harvest coupes throughout the state, halting work and resulting in arrests, fines and even prison sentences. For the protestors, the conflict aims to air the grievances of a population who has few avenues to change the logging practices that destroy carbon sinks (Mackey et al 2008), destroy habitat of critically endangered wildlife, disturb the state’s water security (Taylor et al 2018) and often do so to create nothing more than cartridge paper. This resistance is directed at the $23bn timber and woodproducts industry, which in Australia employs 99,400 people, 5,200 of whom work directly in forestry and logging. This industry includes the pulp mills reducing montane ash forest to paper, but also includes the new generation sawmillers and regenerative foresters attempting to find a viable future for the industry (Australian Industry and Skills Commission, 2020).

But there is slower, quieter resistance too. Researchers are mobilised throughout Victoria’s forests, working for universities, NGOs, activist networks and as independent citizen scientists. These experts play a crucial role in communicating to the public the consequence of its relationship with native forest ecologies. Research-based activism produces a resilient rhizome of resistance to the extractive economy. Through grants and funding that is secured over numerous years, forest research projects can conduct longitudinal studies to assess the decline of biodiversity from a far greater range of scales than can be protected with in-person protests. Some researchers, like David Lindenmayer, have been studying patches of forest for over 30 years. The quantities of data begin to tell stories that can catalyse enormous changes. The mapping on the facing page was widely distributed throughout Australian media in 2021 after scientists collated years of research to urge protection of 19 ecosystems facing collapse. But here lies a difficult link - with 86% of Australia’s popuation dwelling in urban centres, engagement with these ecosystems, let alone engagement with the troubling findings of environmental research, is decreasing. How do those protecting the forest navigate the attention economy to secure enough momentum that they mobilise the public to demand protection of endangered ecosystems? DEFINITIONS

Citizen Science

Voluntary public collaboration with scientific research, aiming to develop knowledge and engage communities in the scientific process.

Landscape Architecture has a strong theoretical foundation in addressing the extractive history of capitalist societies; however as an industry, it has found few meaningful footholds in tackling the ongoing extraction industries from which it benefits. Billy Fleming takes claims that the industry has become self-important, writing: “It’s never been obvious to me that landscape architecture belongs at the center of today’s social movements, and it troubles me that so many colleagues make that claim, effectively erasing the work of community organizers and activists, not to mention the tangible support from allies in fields like sociology, law, and science who work for systemic change. Like the other design professions, landscape architecture as practiced today is a largely apolitical affair, organized around relationships with clients and projects, mainly serving the interests of an economic elite.” (Fleming, 2019). But that is a bold oversimplification. The participation in public space projects is inherently political. The milieu of stakeholders, zoning and power dynamics is what has brought landscape architecture so far from its gardening origins. The current state of the forests is in flux. Its future narrative is anthropogenic and for designers to engage in this fraught landscape, we need to be engaged in its politics.