Lyndon Schneiders
In the wake of the Federal Court’s recent decision on native forestry, Lyndon Schneiders (executive director of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation) tells us the Albanese government has recognised the need for a new native forestry approach. So too has the forestry industry. Source: The Australian
No sector can expect to do things the way they have always been done. Least not the forestry sector. That’s why I accepted Agriculture Minister Murray Watt’s invitation to join union leader Michael O’Connor as co-chairs of his Strategic Forestry and Renewables Partnership.
The partnership – among other things – will provide advice on the best way to secure the forest resources we need while also enhancing conservation and carbon values in the native estate.
Anthony Albanese and his ministers understand that closing-down our sustainable native forestry sector is a recipe for higher consumer prices and more timber imports from countries that do not enforce Australia’s high environmental standards and practices. Responding to the Federal Court’s decision, NSW Premier Chris Minns also acknowledged both our domestic resource needs and growing import-dependence.
Schneiders celebrates the unfortunate decisions in Victoria and Western Australia to shut down native forestry. Victoria is now importing its wood from Tasmania and Brazil and in WA the government departments are rushing to secure all the native product they can for their construction needs before the policy is implemented. They need it for important infrastructure including bridges and power poles.
Schneiders talks about the importance of our plantation estate. The industry values it too. But due to high land prices, the plantation estate is not keeping pace with demand.
The Albanese government is attempting to turn that around by providing planting grants and access to carbon credits.
But even if successful, hardwoods take between 40 to 80 years to grow. And in a welcome move, at COP28 the Australian government signed up to the Greening Construction Coalition to increase timber in the built environment due to its ability to decarbonise the hard to abate construction sector. The fact is Australia – and the world – will need more timber products not less.
Australia now imports more than $6 billion worth of forest products. The window frames, floorboards, back decks and staircases in our homes are typically made from hard woods, most of which comes from our native estate.
The industry has access to just 4% of the native estate and takes around four in every ten thousand trees using sustainable practices. Every tree harvested is replaced with a younger tree which in turn absorbs more carbon than the older tree it replaces. The carbon stored in the harvested tree is transferred permanently to the built environment.
Schneiders mischievously claims our native product goes to low-value products like “firewood, woodchips, landscaping and transportation pallets”. That’s the pallets that deliver our food and drinks to the supermarkets and bottle shops.
But all of the products that Schneiders dismisses have value. Native hardwoods are manufactured into high value products. It makes no sense to do otherwise. But trees don’t grow perfect shape and there will always be offcuts. It’s a positive thing we turn them into things that have value.
Schneiders was keen to repeat his assertion that the legal challenge was initiated by “community conservationists”. But we all know that while their name is on the application, it’s the activist machine that runs these cases. A machine typically funded by high wealth individuals in search of relevance and represented in court by a partly government-funded Environmental Defenders Office. It’s like Legal Aid for Greenies.
In an attempt to put a positive spin on their loss, the activists made much of Her Honour’s conclusion that the future of native forestry was a matter for politicians, not the legal process. Yet our elected leaders in Canberra and Sydney have made their support for the sector clear.
Thirty years ago, the politicians created the Regional Forest Agreements to put an end to the “forestry wars” by striking the right balance between conservation and our resource needs. The National Forestry Statement is due for a fine tune no doubt, but that’s not what the activists want. They want to kill yet another of our important sovereign capabilities.
Joel Fitzgibbon is chair of the Australian Forest Products Association.
