Conservation groups fighting to protect the region's public native forests, including the Wombat State Forest, the Otways and the Cobboboonee near Portland, have rejected as a sham the reserve system proposed in a Commonwealth-state consultation paper released last week.
The paper was released as part of the negotiations for a Commonwealth-state regional forest agreement that will remove limits on woodchip exports and set the terms for logging in public native forests for the next 20 years. The agreement is due to be signed by 31 March.
Dissatisfaction over the proposed reserves and timber job losses has added momentum to community calls to phase the industry into mixed species plantations for high-grade sawlog and low-grade woodchip timber.
The industry has indicated it may support "expanding the forest area" among other potential measures to save sawmill and logging jobs. Dozens of jobs are now on the line after the Department of Natural Resources and Environment reassessed the sustainability of its present harvesting rates.
The Victorian Association of Forest Industries' resources director, Mr Jon Drohan, said the Commonwealth and state had encouraged investment in new plant and equipment with a $26.7 million industry assistance package last year based on no job losses. He said restructuring assistance would now be necessary. "Government can't abrogate its responsibility, especially when much of the reduction is to do with a recalculation by the department," Mr Drohan said. "Having led people to invest and build their lives around a certain volume ... it would be morally wrong to dump them off to the side now and say bad luck."
About 100 sawmill and logging contractors lobs could be lost in the Daylesford-Woodend region after the department revealed a likely 3l per cent reduction in sawlog-grade timber from the Wombat and Enfield forests. The industry's shock deepened yesterday with, the announcement of a 37 per cent cut in the Otways.
However, while rural communities would bear the pain of job losses, the president of the Cobaw and Wombat Forest Action Group, Mr Marcus Ward, said the environment was hardly better off either as there would be little change in the area clearfelled or in woodchipping rates. Conservation and community groups that met at the weekend under the banner of the West Victorian Forest Protection Network say the areas proposed to be set aside from logging are too small and too fragmented.
A spokeswoman for the Environment and Conservation Minister, Ms Sherryl Garbutt, said the minister would not comment until submissions on the paper had been considered by an independent panel.