In fact, the amount of timber harvested for firewood in Australia is double our current export of eucalypt woodchips. Thousands of people collect their wood from roadsides, stock routes, private property and reserves, the majority of them in metropolitan areas. In addition, in its present form the commercial wood merchants industry is unsustainable taking much more wood than is replaced and silently destroying remnant vegetation and wildlife. Firewood merchants obtain their preferred timber species, such as red gum and box, from distant sources and often transport the wood 400 kilometres or more.
Remnant woodlands are some of the most threatened ecosystems in Australia.
The continued and unsustainable removal of firewood from woodlands is likely to have long term detrimental effects on biodiversity. The removal of live and dead trees for firewood, notably box, ironbark and mallee species, reduces the diversity of tree species as well as the variety of sizes and ages. The decline and loss of woodland birds in south eastern Australia has been linked to the collection of firewood. Previous research has also found reduced invertebrate diversity in areas with fewer fallen timber or standing dead trees. The impacts of firewood harvesting also often lead to further loss of vegetation cover in Australia's rural areas and exacerbate broad scale environmental problems such as dryland salinity.