A South Australian community has packed a local meeting to keep up the pressure on the State Government over the future of its local forestry industry following devastating bushfires. Source: ABC News
Forests Minister Leon Bignell travelled to Jamestown in the mid north of the state to talk to representatives from the timber and tourism industries, as well as the local council.
About 200 people attended the community meeting to hear what the State Government had planned for the region’s future.
Mr Bignell said he did not share the same view as Mr Coleman and believed local forests could make a return.
“But we know that whatever happens in the future isn’t going to be the same as the past,” he said.
“Even if were were to go out tomorrow and replant every acre of these forests, what if there’s a bushfire in three or four or five years time?” he said.
“We’re back to square one.
“We need a diversified economy for this region and we need people in the local areas to come up with good ideas the Government can get in and support.”
Locals were angry Forestry SA had decided to abandon the plantations and wanted the State Government to understand the full effect not replanting would have on the community.
Luke Morgan, who owned a sawmill with his family at Wirrabara, said not replanting would have a disastrous impact. He said there was a lot of work to do.
“The sooner we get the work done the better for everyone,” Mr Morgan said. “Every year we wait is another year lost, so we need to keep moving and getting this happening quickly.”
Council said cutting the forestry industry would be the death-knell for the community and tourism pursuits would not fill that gap alone It was not known when a decision would be made.
A bushfire at Bangor early this year burnt 90% of the Wirrabara Forest in the southern Flinders Ranges, just a year after a fire in the Bundaleer Forest wiped out 30% of pine plantations there.
At a cost of $7 million, Forestry SA announced recently it would not be feasible to replant the region’s pine plantations, particularly when they were unlikely to be profitable for decades as the trees grow to maturity.
Jerome Coleman from Forestry SA said a tree planted in the mid-north took 50 years to grow.
“If we grow the same tree down in the Green Triangle [in south-east SA], it takes 30 years,” he said. “It’s just not possible.”
