The forestry industry has accused the state government of failing to meet its commitments to timber supply and backed the recommendation of a parliamentary inquiry that national parks be opened up for logging. Source: Sydney Morning Herald
But conservation groups have slammed the recommendation as ”completely ludicrous”.
The draft report of a parliamentary committee chaired by Shooters and Fishers Party MP Robert Brown said the state government should consider the move to ensure the viability of the industry.
It recommends consideration of ”tenure swap”, whereby sections of national parks would be opened for logging and state forests, which are already subject to logging in NSW, would be reserved in return.
The committee also recommends a moratorium on the declaration of new national parks while an independent review is held into the management of public lands in NSW.
Environment Minister Robyn Parker said the government did not support commercial logging in national parks and had ”no plans” to introduce it.
”We’re not interested in commercial logging of our national parks,” said Premier Barry O’Farrell.
But Greens MP Cate Faehrmann, a committee member, said the government could not be trusted after it broke a promise to not allow hunting in national parks.
Conservation groups issued a statement condemning the inquiry’s recommendations and calling on O’Farrell to reject them.
”The idea that you could swap diverse, old-growth forests in national parks for over exploited patches of state forest, as this report recommends, is completely ludicrous,” said Wilderness Society NSW campaigns manager Belinda Fairbrother.
However, NSW Forest Products Association executive director Russell Ainley said successive state governments had failed to meet guarantees about supply.
He said in 1998 the government legislated to guarantee 269,000 cubic metres of large saw logs would be made available each year, but since 2003 only 160,000 cubic metres had been delivered annually.
Ainley said a tenure swap might be ”one way” to achieve the targets. ”Failure to deliver will end up in jobs being lost in country towns and rural communities,” he said.
Had the targets been met ”the industry would be in a much better state to cope with the current economy”, he said.
The timber industry employs about 21,000 people in NSW, including about 3000 in milling, Ainley said.
