Josh Meadows' concern about Australia flooding the market for woodchips (7/11) is misplaced and needs to be put in perspective.
In 1995, the previous Government licensed the export of 6.05 million tonnes of hardwood woodchips The current Government has licensed the export of 6.25 million tonnes in 1997. This hardly constitutes a major increase.
In the short term, Australian companies might find it difficult to market all of the licensed volume. This is due mainly to the current cyclical downturn in the international pulp and paper industry.
The difficulty has been exacerbated by the confusion caused by the previous Government's mishandling of 1996 woodchip export Iicences. Overseas importers sought more reliable supplies from other source. Australia's share of Japanese hardwood woodchip exports has slipped from 60 per cent in 1985 to 27 percent in 1995 while the United States, Chile and South Africa have increased market share. Exportable material has been burnt or left on the forest floor.
Australia has a trade deficit in forest products of $2 billion per annum. In the absence of adequate domestic processing capacity it makes no economic sense to waste sawmill and logging residues when export markets are available. Those residues are sourced from 30 per cent of Australia's native forests available for harvesting and regeneration under practices described by experts as among the best in the world.