With a month to go before the Federal Election the Australian Forest Contractors Association has released its platform of policies and initiatives for a secure future for specialist forest operations for plantation and native forest estates. Source: Timberbiz
Forest services businesses are an essential link to the forest products value chain. The entire sector relies on safe, sustainable and viable businesses operations and practices within forest areas and to safely transport logs, wood fibre and biomass to mills, ports and other processors, AFCA Chief Executive Officer Tim Lester said.
“Active forest management is the key to long term forest health, and it includes sustainable harvesting of native timber with continuing strong environmental and regulatory protections,” Mr Lester said.
“The vast majority of Australia’s public native forest estate is already protected for conservation. Our management of native regrowth production forests is so good after a short time they are almost indistinguishable from other areas.
“The World Bank says that every dollar generated by forest industries multiplies two and a half times through the economy. Forest operations are high quality, extremely skilled and specialist jobs located in rural and regional areas which support thousands of families, hundreds of small businesses and many, many communities.
“Growing forests are also proven as an extremely effective carbon sink. In fact, government figures show that in the 20 years to 2021 native production regrowth forests captured an additional 120 million tonnes of carbon while forests managed for conservation emitted more than 250 million tonnes.
“Whether for plantations or native forests, securing the future of our specialist forest operations businesses and workforce is a win-win for carbon, communities and the economy,” Mr Lester said.
