Left – Right) Parliamentary Friends of Forest & Timber Industry Co-Chair Tony Perrett, Member for Gympie, HIA QLD Executive Director, Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries, Mark Furner, Timber Queensland CEO Mick Stephens, Parliamentary Friends of Forest & Timber Industry Co-Chair Member for Maryborough Bruce Saunders celebrate the launch of the Queensland Parliament’s “live” tree.
This Christmas the smell of a fresh pine tree in the Parliamentary Annexe is a daily reminder for staff and visitors of the environmental and economic benefits Queensland’s forest and timber industry grows and manufactures. Source: Timberbiz
Curtis Pitt, Speaker of the Queensland Parliament, together with Mark Furner, Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries and Bruce Saunders, Member for Maryborough, were joined by Tony Perrett, Member for Gympie, and other members of Queensland’s Parliamentary Friends of the Forest and Timber Industry network to celebrate the arrival of the real Christmas tree.
Timber Queensland’s Strategic Relations and Communications Manager Clarissa Brandt said the locally grown live pine tree represents the millions of trees that are regrown each year in Queensland’s commercial plantations and forests.
“Each year more than eight million trees are re-planted, continuing the sustainable cycle of grow, build, plant, repeat,” said Clarissa Brandt.
“Forests and timber are the ultimate renewables: gifts that keep on giving us house frames, furniture, power poles, fences, floors and plenty more,” she said.
“These same forest and harvested wood products deliver environmental gifts storing carbon emissions in soils, trees and products and reducing emissions further by replacing the use of steel and concrete that have high fossil fuel inputs.”
“This December our Parliamentarians are celebrating not only a traditional Christmas tree, but also showing their support for the 25,000 Queenslanders whose jobs are generated from the $3.8 billion forest and timber industry supply chain.”
