Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, this week I had the honour of sponsoring an e‑petition on behalf of my constituent Stella Rodriguez on the incredibly important subject of protecting Tasmania’s forests. I have had the privilege of meeting with countless members of my electorate who are appalled at this government’s plan to open 40,000 hectares of native forest to logging. People who have never been involved in an environmental campaign in their life are attending public meetings and forest open days and signing petitions to ensure these forests are protected from destructive forestry practices.
Protecting forest is extremely important to protect biodiversity, maintain ecological function and sequester carbon, but protecting forests is also critically important to human health and wellbeing. What this government has never been able to understand is that forests have far more value to the community intact and standing than they could ever have as wood chips. I know this from personal experience with some of the children who I have cared for, who have asked to go out for a walk in Notley Fern Gorge because they needed it to be able to calm down. That is the power of forests.
As well as improving our overall wellbeing, students have shown that forest therapy can positively influence health indicators for people with anxiety, depression, stress and schizophrenia, and wilderness therapy and forest bathing is beneficial for children who have experienced trauma.
I saw the beneficial effects of nature connection and forest bathing firsthand when I ran my counselling practice. I used to run a regular walks called a ‘wander’ where we would go for a mindful walk in nature. I know that there were people who experienced the benefits of that and I definitely experienced the benefits of those walks myself when I led them.
Many of us have lived experience of the importance of nature for our mental health. We only need to look back on the COVID-19 pandemic and the crucial role that public parks, walking tracks and green spaces played in maintaining the mental health of people in lockdown. If being in forests improves our mental health, it is probably not surprising to hear that destroying forests decreases it. A study in the Journal of Climate Change and Health found that countries with a greater area covered by forests also had lower rates of mental health and substance abuse disorders, and that this relationship was maintained even when controlling for factors such as poverty, peace and urbanisation.
In a climate change biodiversity crisis, conserving our forests is one of the most important actions we can take to try to mitigate climate breakdown. Institutions such as the World Health Organisation, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the World Psychiatric Association have identified that climate change is increasingly having stronger and longer lasting impacts on people’s mental health and psychosocial wellbeing.
Deforestation, land use change, biodiversity loss, extinctions, ocean pollution, overfishing and repeated exposure to climate‑related disasters can increase stress, worsen existing mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, substance abuse and suicidal behaviour, strain social relationships and cause people to feel helplessness, fear and grief. The effect of the climate crisis on mental health has led to the creation of a suite of new terminology to describe a particular type of anxiety that is being overwhelmingly experienced by young people: climate change anxiety, solastalgia, eco anxiety, environmental distress, ecological grief and climate‑related psychological distress. There is a way to combat climate change anxiety: participating in positive climate action can increase well-being by providing people, particularly young people, with opportunities to actively engage with solutions and increase their feelings of individual power and capacity to change the situation.
For the communities across Tasmania that may be feeling disempowered and defeated by the latest Liberal assault on our precious forests, the Greens hear you and we are here to say you have the power. You can join one of the many community groups that are organising across the state in opposition to the Liberals’ plan: the Wilderness Society, Protect Our North West Forests, the Mount Arthur Community Protection Group and Protect the Panama to name but a few. You can tell this parliament directly that you do not support the logging of 40,000 hectares of future reserve forest by signing the petition currently available on the Parliament of Tasmania’s website. It is my great honour to sponsor it.
