Due more to the courts than politicians, native forest logging may be nearing an end. Recent court judgements in Victorian Supreme and and Federal courts don’t augur well for the logging industry. Sue Arnold reports.

Legal battles waged by Victorian grassroots conservation organisations have brought the Precautionary Principle (PP) out of the political closet. It is a principle that has long been ignored by governments as it gets in the way of forestry and development projects.

Put simply, the PP means that if logging is likely to cause serious or irreversible harm then it should not happen. Any harvest planning has to take the PP into account. They haven’t to date but the courts are forcing their hand, at least in Victoria, and federally, if not in NSW as yet.