The debate between the sawlog industry and environmentalists looks set to re-ignite over recommendations in a NSW upper house inquiry released last week. Sources: The Northern Star, ABC News, The Sydney Morning Herald
The inquiry, dominated by the Shooters Party and the Nationals recommended logging in some national parks to maintain valuable sawlog production.
The Greens say native forest logging in the region cost taxpayers more than $1.6 million last year.
New South Wales Greens MP David Shoebridge said similar operations across the state incurred losses totalling almost $8 million. He says in contrast plantation forestry made a profit of $32 million.
Forests NSW, which pays a dividend to the state government, was corporatised in January with the aim of stemming the losses from the native forestry operations, which are being cross-subsidised by profitable plantation logging.
Plantation profits reached $32 million in the 2011/12 financial year but the dividend paid to the government was cut in half by the loss in the native forests division.
Logging in Forestry Corporation’s central region native forests near Wauchope lost $2.36 million in 2012.
The western region near Dubbo lost $3 million, the north-east region forest near Coffs Harbour lost $1.63 million, while the south-east region near Batemans Bay lost $931,700.
A Forestry Corporation spokeswoman told the Sydney Morning Herald that if logging in native forests was stopped taxpayers would have to foot the bill for the management of land.
Managing director of Hurford Hardwood, Andrew Hurford, said that Shoebridge’s comments needed to be put into context.
“Forestry NSW manages an enormous area relative to what is being harvested each year. National parks lose more money than forests but we don’t point that out,” he said.
“Forests NSW manages for a range of outcomes – they have to maintain biodiversity and public expectations.”
He said the future of the industry relied on plantations, but it also needed native forests for quality timber.
Overseas competition, particularly from Vietnam, where eucalypt plantations thrive, has cruelled the Australian woodchip industry.
For exposed timber, such as floorboards and cabinetry, there is no substitute for native forests, “as long as they are managed sustainably”.
North East Forests Alliance’s Dailan Pugh said he feared a backlash against the creation of national parks and flora reserves now that quality timber was growing more scarce in state forests.
He said the NSW reserve system before NEFA’s protests in the 1990s was the poorest in the country particularly on the North Coast.
The national reserve criteria, finalised by the Howard Government in 1997, has yet to be met despite the introduction of numerous new national parks, Pugh said.
“The real issue is that the regional forest agreement of 1998 overcommitted sawlog production and the time is fast approaching when the industry will hit a cliff.”
He said the necessary reduction in sawlog availability after 2023 will see at least a 40% drop in production from state-managed native forests.
