The Victorian Government said changes to native timber harvesting laws will support industry but anti-forestry campaigners say they are a backwards step. Source: ABC News
Changes to the Sustainable Forest Timber Acts passed the state’s Upper House and will allow the timber management body VicForests to offer long-term contracts of up to 20 years to companies logging native forests.
The Upper House MP for Eastern Victoria, Phillip Davis, said the changes offer security and will encourage investment in timber industries.
“That’s got to be on a long-term, sustainable basis,” he said.
He said there would not be adverse environmental impacts because they do not allow companies to log additional areas of forest.
“There is no additional allocation of forest resource,” he said.
However, Amelia Young of the Wilderness Society disagrees.
“Incredibly regressive. They take us into an era of ongoing woodchipping of our native forests,” she said.
She says native forests are dwindling and the resource will not be there in 20 years.
“There’s been decades and decades now of over-logging,” she said.
Young said the industry should be focusing on plantations, not native forests, as a long-term source of timber.
