Jess Beckerling is Campaign Director of the West Australian Forest Alliance (WAFA), and much more besides. She’s a highly respected figure here in the southern reaches of Western Australia, by both those who would traditionally have prioritised conservation, and those who might not have. I spoke with Jess back in July last year for the Clean State podcast, a spin-off series from The RegenNarration specific to WA. At the time, WAFA was seizing the opportunity it sensed to finally end native forest logging in WA. With the comprehensive and poetically conceived Forests for Life Plan in hand, WAFA has been showing how we can stop bleeding finances, forests, farmlands and communities, and back in the growing suite of ecologically and economically beneficial industries. Come September, the WA government agreed – and in an Australian first announced the end of native forest logging in this state.

So we kick off the podcast for the new year with this massive story. You’ll hear the last 15 minutes or so of my conversation with Jess, which closes with a few bonus minutes that just couldn’t fit in Clean State’s cut. Then I’ve patched in Jess’s media statement from Parliament House on the dramatic day of the government’s announcement (a few minutes long), along with some of her comments to the journo’s present.

More on Jess: Jess lives in the forests on the South Coast of WA. She first became involved in forest conservation in 1997 when she joined the Giblett forest blockade near Pemberton. Jess lived in forest blockade camps for 3 years, winning the State Government's Youth Leadership Award in recognition of her commitment to the maintenance of nonviolence in the camps. Jess has been the convener of WAFA since 2011 and was awarded the Conservation Council's Bessie Rischbieth award in 2015. Late last year, she was recognised as the Environmentalist of the Year by the Bob Brown Foundation.

This conversation was recorded online with Jess speaking from her office in the south coast town of Denmark on 13 July 2021 (Australian time).

The media statement was recorded outside Parliament House in Perth by Clean State WA on 8 September 2021.

Title slide: Jess Beckerling (supplied).

Music:
A Forests Dream, by Cloudjumper, sourced from the Free Music Archive.

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