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Call to end native forest logging rejected

Posted on February 3, 2009, 9:09am

The Federal Government has rejected calls by a leading academic to give priority to plantations for hardwood exports, rather than allow continuing harvests from native bushland to dominate the market.

Dr Judith Ajani, a postdoctoral fellow at Canberra’s Australian National University, told The Border Watch last week the economic downturn would hit exports hard.

She said native forests continued to account for the majority of woodchip exports and plantations would face marketing problems after expansions based on tax incentives, rather than market realities.

Commonwealth action to focus on plantation chips, rather than product from native forests, could help overcome the problem, according to Dr Ajani.

But a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry said yesterday the Australian Government did not regulate commercial timber harvesting.

“These are commercial decisions made by the industry, who are best placed to assess their long-term plans and programs,” she said.

“The commercial use of native forests for export products is governed by Regional Forest Agreements — these agreements, which were established after comprehensive regional assessments, ensure public native forests are managed sustainably, and that both the conservation and commercial values of forests are protected.”

The spokesperson said ABARE statistics showed 51pc of woodchip exports were from native forests.

Timbercorp forestry general manager Tim Browning said this figure was not a problem and wood fibre production still needed to be boosted overall to meet consumption.

He said native woodchip shipments were a by-product of important solid timber harvesting.

“It would be counter productive to rein in native chipping — there is not enough wood fibre now for the immense consumption of paper and to stop production out of our native forests we would then only go to the third world for resources,” he said.

“It is better to use our’s sustainably — I’d rather have Australian hardwood floors or building supports than imported rainforest timber from Indonesia.”

But Member for Barker Patrick Secker said there was no doubt the forest industry would be impacted upon by the economic downturn.

He said there was a rapidly-expanding timber industry in the Mount Gambier region, with the biggest bluegum plantations in South Australia straddling the Victorian border, where more than 120,000 hectares had been planted.

Mr Secker said 2.8m tonnes of bluegum woodchips was expected to be produced in the Green Triangle annually, creating up to 1000 jobs over five years.

“Aside from employment and economic advantages, forestry is also rewarding because growing plantation trees is a sustainable industry, given that South Australia didn’t have a large native forest estate to start with,” he said.

Mr Secker said it made sense to focus on plantations and protect native forests, but Labor was unlikely to be able to move away from bushland logging.

“Industry associations, such as the National Association of Forest Industries, and trade unions, such as the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union, who are intent on continuing native forest logging, are highly powerful elements in the union-dominated Rudd Government,” he said.

JASON WALLACE

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