File photo of a man riding a windsurfer on a lake located on the outskirts of Hobart, in Tasmania December 21, 2012. 
 
 SYDNEY The Australian government ended its push to log World Heritage-listed forests on the southern island state of Tasmania on Sunday, after the United Nations cultural agency UNESCO issued a report calling for the area to remain protected from logging. 
 
 Australia's government in 2014 sought unsuccessfully to have parts of the Tasmanian wilderness, some one million hectares (2.47 million acres) or a fifth of the island, removed from UNESCO's World Heritage listing to enable logging. 
 
 A United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation report issued on Saturday said the whole area "should be off-limits to commercial logging in its entirety" and that it "does not consider a World Heritage property recognized for its outstanding cultural and natural values the place to experiment with commercial logging of any kind". 
 
 On Sunday both Australia's national and Tasmanian state governments adhered to the UNESCO request. 
 
 "We accept the recommendation ... that special species timber harvesting should not be allowed anywhere in the world heritage area," Tasmania's environment minister Matthew Groom said in a joint statement with national environment minister Greg Hunt. 
 
 The statement said no commercial forestry will be permitted in the World Heritage-listed area. 
 
 The Tasmanian forest, added to the World Heritage list in 1982, "constitutes one of the last expanses of temperate rainforest in the world", according to UNESCO. 
 
 Conservation groups welcomed the UNESCO report and government commitment not to log the Tasmanian wilderness. 
 
 (Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Michael Perry) ||||| Image caption Conservation groups have welcomed the decision 
 
 The Australian and Tasmanian authorities are abandoning their bid to have logging permitted in the Tasmanian Wilderness, a World Heritage site. 
 
 The decision comes after a report by the UN cultural agency Unesco said the area "should be off-limits to commercial logging in its entirety". 
 
 The Tasmanian Wilderness covers about a fifth of the island and is one of the world's last big temperate forests. 
 
 Conservation groups have welcomed the Unesco report and the logging decision. 
 
 In 2014 the Australian government asked the agency to revoke the special status of the forest to open up parts of it to logging in order to boost the island's economy, where unemployment is above the national average. 
 
 But the move - by the government of former PM Tony Abbott - attracted much opposition from environmental groups. 
 
 The Unesco report released on Saturday said the organisation "does not consider a World Heritage property recognised for its outstanding cultural and natural values the place to experiment with commercial logging of any kind". 
 
 The Tasmanian Wilderness is home to ancient forests, some of the tallest flowering plants in the world and is a stronghold for several animals that are either extinct or threatened on Australia's mainland. 
 
 Both the Australian federal and the Tasmanian state government have said they will abide by that recommendation. ||||| Tasmanian Wilderness 
 
 In a region that has been subjected to severe glaciation, these parks and reserves, with their steep gorges, covering an area of over 1 million ha, constitute one of the last expanses of temperate rainforest in the world. Remains found in limestone caves attest to the human occupation of the area for more than 20,000 years. 
 
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– Australia's plan to log "one of the last expanses of temperate rainforest in the world" has fizzled to the acclaim of conservationists the world over. Two years after requesting that logging be allowed in parts of the Tasmanian Wilderness to boost the local economy, the country received a recommendation from UN cultural agency UNESCO on Saturday. The agency says it "does not consider a World Heritage property recognized for its outstanding cultural and natural values the place to experiment with commercial logging" and the area—which covers 1 million hectares, or about 20% of Tasmania, per the BBC and Reuters—"should be off-limits to commercial logging in its entirety." UNESCO also calls for a "master plan" for tourism activities, noting Australia's hopes of allowing cruise ships, planes, and helicopters to land on the island "created room for interpretation and even suspicions," per the Guardian. "The decision of the United Nations to prohibit limited special species harvesting in the Tasmanian Wilderness world heritage area is very disappointing," says the Tasmanian minister for forestry. "However, it would be grossly irresponsible for any government to defy such a ruling, and we will abide by it." The BBC reports the World Heritage site is home to extinct and threatened animals, ancient trees, and "some of the tallest flowering plants in the world."