Family-owned sawmills dotted through Western Australia’s south-west were promised a future ahead of a state ban on native forestry. They now claim the transition has been bungled and warn of flow-on effects of a hardwood supply shortage.

Slated to save hundreds of thousands of hectares of jarrah and karri forests, the 2021 announcement by then-premier Mark McGowan of a ban on native forestry was lauded by environmentalists and will come into effect on New Year’s Day.