Colin Murphy, the auditor-general of Western Australia, has called on the Forest Products Commission (FPC) to do more to track logs felled in south-west native forests.
In a report to the Australian parliament, Mr Murphy said that the FPC was not undertaking checks that would enable the tracking of individual logs to establish the rate of illegal logging and theft in the area.
The FPC currently uses a system based around delivery notes for truck loads of timber, but Mr Murphy has said that a system of tagging could be introduced by the organisation to help monitor timber supplies in the area.
In addition, Mr Murphy noted that the checking of deliveries in south-west native forests was below the regulatory 5% in 2006/07, with just 2.6% checked by the FPC during the period.
