Sign this petition to add your name to the following joint submission to the Forestry Stewardship Council:

We strongly support the FSC Draft Interpretation.

Mountain Ash plantations in the Strzelecki Ranges of South Gippsland should not be replanted with invasive pine trees.

We call on the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to stand strong on the Draft Interpretation and to confirm for all stakeholders, that regeneration to ‘pre-harvest’ condition means to replace ‘native species’ with ‘native species', not exotic species such as Pinus Radiata.

This is important for our ongoing support for, and trust in, the FSC Scheme in Australia.

Replacing Mountain Ash with Pine trees would have significant negative biodiversity impacts and would not return plantations to their 'pre-harvest' condition.

The FSC standard requires harvested sites to be regenerated to their ‘pre-harvest’ condition.  In the case of a native species plantation, the only ecologically sound way to regenerate to ‘pre-harvest’ condition is to replace ‘native species’ with ‘native species’.

Pinus radiata, is an exotic species and therefore, by definition, could not be used as a regeneration species to recover the overall ‘pre harvest’ condition of a native species plantation in Australia.  

We expect FSC certified products to come from sources that do not degrade forests, and not from native species plantations that have been logged and replaced with exotic species such as invasive Pinus radiata.

[for more information go to: https://gippslandforestguardians.org.au