50 Tarkine closer to being protected (a sea change in Tasmania ?)
49 Bring on the rubble industry (response to 47, short & sharp)
48 Nature tops GDP in value: study (the real cost of trashing our forests)
47 Clearing the land we love (Postively Orwellian; let's love our forests to death)
46 Time to let other options take root (Jill's response to 47, published below it)
45 Royalties fail to cover admin costs (an older letter - put some fat on the fire)
44 Timber is cheap as chips (questions the economic basis of logging/chipping)
43 Support the real growth industry (missed this one, plantation message & economics)
42 Chipping away at our profits (anti-woodchip, from a sawmiller !)
41 Union and greens unite
in forest (? well sort of . . .)
A long campaign to protect Tasmania's Tarkine wilderness region is close to its first win, with an official proposal to protect; half of the area's rainforest core in a new: 35,000-hectare national park. The recommendation suggests a radical change in direction by the Tasmanian Government. It rebuffs strong mining and logging interests, instead seeing tourism as the prime objective.
In a report obtained by The Age, Tasmania's Public Land Use Commission recognises outstanding natural values of the temperate rainforest on Savage River, in the island's north-west. The national park it proposes would protect about half of this forest, one of Australia's largest. The commissin rejects a proposal by the state's Forest an Forest industries Council for access to wood worth $646 million.
Instead it adopts an argument by the Government's tourism arm, Tourism Tasmania, that draws attention to World Heritage and National Estate values of the rainforest. It says that with mining in the region reducing, the forests hold potential for economic revitalisation through tourism. Under the commission's plan, part of the area would be reclaimed national park at First, and the rest protected under conservation area status, to join the park with the expiry of mineral exploration licences.
The recommendation was made in a 30 June report as part of the Regional Forest Agreement process. The Commonwealth and the state are finalising wood production and conservation areas for Tasmania for the country's first state wide forest agreement. Its signing is expected in a few weeks:
The state Government must still adopt the forest agreement recommendation for it to go ahead, but it reflects the new economic directions of the Premier, Mr Tony Bundle. The Tarkine area has about 330,000 hectares of high-value wilderness land, much of which is already on the register of the National Estate. Green groups have been campaigning for nearly six years to obtain World Heritage listing for the area.
David Frazer (The Age, 14/7) assures us that only "one third of one
per cent" of Victoria's forests are available for logging each year. That
works out at 10 per cent to be clearfelled in this generation (30 years)
- not allowing for continued acceleration of the work to beat the vile
greenies. Nor should we forget that the main target is tall old-growth,
including areas of unique scientific interest and harboring endangered
species, such as Goolengook.If forced to choose, I would prefer that we
should create jobs by clearfelling 10 per cent of our best heritage buildings
and selling the rubble.
The biggest business in the world, by far, is nature, says a team of scientists who have valued soil, forests, marshes, oceans and wild creatures as providing business services worth $US33 trillion ($A42.6 Trillion) a year to mankind.
By contrast, they point out, global gross national product is only %US8 trillion a year. The calculation, published today in the science journal Nature, is part of a new attempt to calculate the value of the remaining wilderness.
It tries to assess how much mankind would have to pay for "ecosystem services" - the air-conditioning provided by wild plants, and the free pollination of crops by birds and Insects, and the recycling of nutrients by the oceans. The purpose of the research is to persuade people that "the wild" is worth more as it is than cleared. - Guardian
The Age (article) 14/7/97
Natural beauty is treasured by us all. We have different preferences in theatre, art and architecture but very few would not treasure the splendour of trees and forests. Despite the fact that most of us live in urban environments with paved streets and high-rise buildings where trees and gardens are pruned, replanted and replaced to order, we find photographs of a recently cleared forest coupe alien to the eye.
This is simply because only one third of one per cent of Victorian forests are available for timber production each year. The myth that once a forest is cut the ecosystem is destroyed forever has become central in the war of words on the environment. It is simply untrue. Forests have recovered from fire, ice, wind, disease and human disturbance, adapting to their changing environment. Forest industries clearly understand their future lies in management practices that ensure that the resource is not only sustainable but that the forest is improved.
Victoria has magnificent native forests. Because they are valuable to us all in so many ways, their management by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment is carefully planned and controlled to achieve a balanced outcome.
East Gippsland is a case in point. The recently signed Regional Forest Agreement, the first to be completed in Australia, is underpinned by independent scientific assessment which builds on about 25 years of reports and studies on land and forest use in the region. It should give the community confidence that the State and Federal Governments have achieved a balanced outcome in East Gippsland.
Because of these studies large national parks in East Gippsland have been established and substantial reductions in log allocations and restructuring of the timber industry has occurred since the late 1980s. East Gippsland Is the most forested region In Victoria - retaining - about 93 per cent of pre-European forest cover most of which is on public land. More than 90 per cent of the area of high-quality wilderness is protected in reserves. Only 13 per cent of old-growth forest is available for timber production and then only on an 80 to 100 year rotation.
The agreement adds substantial areas of the Goolengook forest to the dedicated reserve system, providing additional protection for significant areas of rainforest and old growth, including key habitat for endangered species. Those areas not considered necessary for reservation have been made available for controlled timber production.
The economic fabric of East Gippsland has largely been constructed around the timber industry which is responsible for up to 40 per cent of local employment. Assertions that the timber industry is woodchipping valuable Iogs are ridiculous. It should be recognised that the conversion of logs to sawn timber produces residues. Criticising sawmillers for creating jobs by exporting woodchips from sawmill residues when the alternative is burning is illogical. Australia is one of the small number of countries capable of increasing sustainable harvesting levels from responsibly managed forests and plantations. Sustained yield strategies in our native forests ensuring ongoing supplies of hardwood.
Our plantations provide increasing supplies of softwood. By combining the competitive strengths of our timbers, Australia has the potential to lessen its dependence on imported forest products and become a net exporter at a time when global shortages are emerging. Australia now runs a current account deficit of $2 billion in forest products by importing from countries whose forest management and environmental controls are generally inferior to ours. This is costly to our economy and the global environment.
The completion of Regional Forest Agreements presents an opportunity to move on to more pressing environmental priorities and to focus on the very exciting, environmentally sound growth opportunities available to Australia on markets for wood products - from plantations and the areas of native forest identified as available for timber production.
We do not live in a utopia, where can ignore the commodity values of our forests while using the products from someone else's forest. We must make balanced decisions that take into account not only scientific opinion on specific values but also the socio-economic importance of using natural resources. We also have to consider the impact of resource allocation decisions. The existing reserve system and the relative contribution of forestry and other land uses on conserving Australia's biodiversity must also be considered. We are not apart from nature, we are part of it. We both use and conserve natural resources. There are no easy answers, only intelligent choices
The Age (article) 14/7/97
The romantic image of a timber cutter with an axe over his shoulder in the bush quietly working in the bush is no longer appropriate. Powerful chainsaws and 40-tonne bulldozers are now the tools of the industry. This relatively new method of logging and its associations with woodchipping is extremely controversial.
Many groups, as the Wilderness Society, believe there is no longer any place for native forest logging. Just as whaling is a socially unacceptable way to provide jobs and just as there are alternatives to whale oil, there are alternatives to the felling the leviathans of our ancient forests.
East Gippsland is the latest battlefield in this decades-long conflict of environment versus jobs. The forestry section of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union appears to be wading into the debate using jobs as their battle flag. But it was the union that fought for the lifting of restrictions on export woodchipping, which could new see 10 million tonnes being sold offshore. Considering it takes seven seconds for a log to disappear into the bowels of a chipper, this will clearly cause a further loss of jobs.
The nationally significant rainforest area of Goolengook being clearfelled in East Gippsland is estimated to yield 75 per cent woodchips. It will provide five jobs for about four weeks.
During the past month more than 100 people have been arrested protesting peacefully against the destruction of Goolengook's forests. Neither rain, mud for fines of more than $1000 are a deterrent. How can we solve this perpetual battle and create secure employment and harmony in our rural communities?
Supporters of logging Goolengook say Orbost would die if native forests were protected. However, other towns in which similar deaths were predicted are now thriving. Fraser Island, Strahan near the Franklin River and the mill towns of Tumut and Nimmitabel in NSW have all made the transition. In the Gippsland region, the logging industry has an annual turnover $53 million. This accounts for less than 13 per cent of the region's income. Tourism alone accounts for $134 million and is a rapidly growing industry, with about 2.5 indirect jobs created for every one directly involved in tourism.
In comparison, the logging of native forests is in decline, with four mills having recently closed in East Gippsland. It creates fewer flow-on jobs and a large proportion of the profits are creamed off by sections of the industry not based in the region, including those that export woodchips.
Tourism is a healthy, growing and clean industry, but we can hardly expect a burly logger to sell his chainsaw, don an apron and serve Devonshire teas. This is where the logging industry and governments must seize opportunities that are staring them in the face. Logs and woodchips are trucked directly across the border from East Gippsland to the export woodchip mill in Eden, NSW. Therefore, it would be viable to truck logs in the opposite direction from the 32,000 hectares of pine plantations over the border around Bombala in NSW. Pine now provides two-thirds of Australia's timber products; this is where the jobs are.
The building industry is rapidly shifting to pine. Even if conservationists never said boo again, this expanding market would continue to cause the native forest logging industry to decline and shed jobs. Plantations are not only a more forest friendly means of producing timber, it is the clear direction the market is headed. To encourage value adding, the Labor Government granted 15-year licences to mills In East Gippsland in 1988. But the logging industry has simply invested in bigger and better woodchipping facilities. Woodchipping is devouring not only our forests at an increased rate, but jobs as well. Over the past 20 years we have seen a 240 per cent increase in woodchipping and a 40 per cent drop in jobs in the industry.
The East Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement has provided no solutions - it has escalated the conflict. Dividing East Gippsland's forests for the next 20 years between clearfell and conservation zones has added 0.2 per cent of forests to conservation reserves. Hardly the "balance" we are told we now have. Every forested region in Australia is undergoing the same process and the outcome is likely to bring an Australia-wide escalation of conflict in the forest. The Goolengook blockade is just the beginning of a national revolt.
While employment is a main argument used by the industry to continue native-forest logging there are clearly other agendas. The supply of woodchips to the overseas market is the main one. But the industry requires high levels of subsidisation. The financial assistance mostly benefits the export woodchip sector. The industry has admitted that 80-90 per cent of logs to come out of East Gippsland's forests are woodchipped. The return of 20 cents a tonne would barely pay for the department's latest name change.
If a government is truly concerned about jobs in rural areas and about making logging industries pay their way, our Conservation Minister, Mrs Marie Tehan, should be looking at viable alternatives to logging native forests. Helping mills to retool in order to process pine logs must be a wiser use of taxpayers' money. Boosting the growing tourism industry would be another positive step. Closing the Albany whaling station in Western Australia was a controversial move 20 years ago, but we wonder now why it didn't happen sooner. Just as a forest with a diversity of species is a healthy forest, so too is a town with a diverse economic base.
The Government has subsidised logging operations in three areas of the state over the past two years, according to an auditor-general's report. The Department of Natural Resources and Environment was accumulating costs by allowing the removal of trees from hardwood forests in three forest management areas, because royalties from logs failed to cover administration costs, according to the report on ministerial portfolios, released yesterday. Furthermore, two other forest management areas were making only a marginal profit.
The news has angered conservationists, who believe that the Government's forest management is captive to the logging industry. According to a 1995 report by the former La Trobe University Professor Andrew Dragun, the forest service underestimated the cost of logging and directly subsidised logging by about $50 million a year.
If the social costs of logging were taken into account, the annual subsidy could be about $385 million, Professor Dragun concluded. The Wilderness Society's Victorian campaign coordinator, Ms Kate Kennedy, called on the Conservation Minister, Mrs Marie Tehan, to establish an independent inquiry into logging subsidies, to follow up on the auditor-general's report. "The woodchip-driven industry has enjoyed subsidies for too long and Minister Tehan must take immediate action," Ms Kennedy said. "It is ludicrous that each Victorian pays in excess of $12 per year to destroy our native forests. The community has had enough."
When asked how many forest management areas were in Victoria, or which areas were affected, the Environment Department would only respond that forest operations were making an overall profit. "In 1994-951 DNRE forestry operations in the state showed a profit of $4.22 million and in 1995-96 a profit of $7.3 million. Projected returns for the current financial year suggest further improvements in profit as management reforms take full effect," a spokeswoman said. Profit-making areas exceeded loss-making areas, which would be the target for improvement, the spokeswoman said.
The term "cheap as chips" is given new meaning by John Hermans' (26/6) evidence that the Department for Natural Resources and Environment really is selling off logs for woodchipping at such low prices. No one seems prepared to deny the basic truths that the native timber logging industry is in a depressed and declining state and that revenues for logs are less than the price incurred by the state to produce them. What is baffling is why the industry continues to have Government support despite the increasing economic, environmental and social benefits that would be gained from phasing out the logging of native forests.
* The current ubsidy expended by the department on commercial forestry would no longer be a drain on the state's Budget
* Victoria's threatened species would be given greater chance of survival and expansion
* A switch to already existing plantation timber reserves would increase potential for employment in both production and processing
* Income from tourism and recreation Could be increased by protecting the remaining old-growth forests
Where is the logic behind this industry gaining such privileged support? It's time for a real consideration of the issues. Then maybe we can begin to see the wood for the trees.:
Wendy Logan (18/6) hits the nail on the head when she highlights the reduction in jobs created by the logging industry. Since export woodchipping began, there has been a 40 per cent increase in timber felled and a 40 per cent decline in jobs in the native forest logging industry. Export woodchipping accounts for a mere 2 per cent of direct jobs in the timber industry.
Meanwhile the plantation timber industry supports around 30,000 jobs in Australia -- 90 per cent in manufacturing (1995 figures). This represents a secure future for all employed in the timber industry. Australia has a stockpile of almost 90,000 hectares of plantations ready to be used.
Why does the timber industry allow the Government to keep subsidising the plunder of our native forests, when greater employment and economic returns could be had from making the switch? They'd get more than their jobs worth!
As a small-scale salvage logger and sawmiller in East Gippsland, I am appalled by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment's misleading statements. Logging in East Gippsland is unarguably woodchip-driven.
We are told the logging of the controversial Goolengook forest is purely a sawlog operation. However, department figures estimate it will have 2500 cubic metres of sawlogs pulled out, next to 8000 cubic metres of woodchip logs.
Many local sawmills are currently having a hard time selling their sawn timber. Economic pressure can force millers to chip sawlogs and get $70 a tonne for them as woodchips for export - especially when they cost as low as $4 a tonne to buy from the Government.
Through a senior forester, I am told the Government is selling woodchip logs for between 20 cents and $1 a tonne to the mills. The declining market for sawn hardwood timber, coupled with the ridiculously low price for both saw and chip logs, sets up the perfect climate for a major increase in woodchipping.
Mr Kennett is committed to selling our resources for the highest return,
yet this is not happening in our forests. The department is unable to ensure
sawlogs are not woodchipped. The only solution is to source sawlogs from
the vast areas of mature plantations. This would stop the dominance of
woodchipping over genuine saw milling and the export of public forests
as a cheap commodity.
Making an unlikely alliance yesterday, the Wilderness Society said it would support the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union in its moves to get compensation for loggers financially hit by the three-week blockade of Goolengook forest. The union's forestry division assistant national secretary, Mr Michael O'Connor, has foreshadowed a claim against employers for loggers' loss of income due to the dispute. A spokeswoman for the society, Ms Kate Kennedy, said union moves for compensation would have its support.