About the AFWI Centres Seminar Series
This joint seminar series brings together the three Australian Forest and Wood Innovations (AFWI) Research Centres:
- AFWI Centre for Sustainable Futures (University of the Sunshine Coast)
- AFWI Centre for Climate-Smart Forestry (University of Melbourne)
- AFWI Centre for Sustainable Resource and Product Solutions (University of Tasmania)
The series aims to provide timely and relevant insights into pressing issues facing Australia’s forestry sector through presentations from leading researchers and industry experts.
We hope you can join us for this first seminar in the series.
When: Wednesday 10 June 2026, 12:30pm-1:30pm AEST
REGISTER NOW >
Seminar #1 Topic:
The Conservation Paradox: Reduced Native Forest Harvest Policy in Australia Drives Leakage to Illegal Harvesting Hotspots
Presenter:
Dr Tyron Venn, Senior Research Fellow in Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, University of Queensland
Description of webinar:
While reducing native forest timber harvesting is a key domestic strategy for climate risk mitigation and biodiversity conservation, it can inadvertently trigger market leakage – displacing environmental impacts to other jurisdictions. This paper presents the first multi-decade ex-post analysis of international timber harvest leakage, focusing on the impacts of progressive closure of Australia’s public native forest estate between 1996 and 2023. Analysis with a Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and the Global Illegal Logging and Associated Trade (ILAT) Risk Tool identified reduced domestic native forest harvesting as a structural driver of Australia’s growing import dependency, with timber harvest leakage at 81.3%. Critically, 86.8% of the displaced demand was met by nations with elevated-risk profiles for illegality, particularly in Southeast Asia and the Congo Basin. In 2022-23, Australians consumed twice as much imported elevated-risk timber than was produced from domestic public and private native forests. These findings demonstrate that while reducing native forest harvesting may have social support in high-income countries, it may have counterproductive consequences for carbon and biodiversity at regional and global scales.
Presenter bio:
Dr Tyron Venn is a natural resource economist and forester at The University of Queensland with 25 years of research experience focussed on the design and evaluation of natural resource management and policy. This requires quantification of complex and sometimes perverse domestic and international socio-economic, carbon and biodiversity trade-offs (including leakages) associated with well-intentioned policy. His research is highly interdisciplinary, including ecologists, agricultural scientists, engineers and social scientists, and he collaborates with industry, government and research institutions. Specific research contexts have included silvopastoral systems, forest and wood product value chains, Australian Indigenous agribusiness, wildfire risk mitigation and invasive species management.
