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Discussion Paper on Sustainable Forestry

Tim Thorne - Now We the People (Tas.)

It is now a few months since we circulated our position paper on sustainable forestry and some of its content has been overtaken by events. What is more, there isn’t time to discuss the whole issue in detail today, so I shall just present some ideas which I believe are relevant.

My starting point is the need for increased employment, sustainable practices, transparency of decision making and decentralisation of control. Until about 40 years ago Tasmania had a strong, healthy, economically viable and ecologically sustainable timber industry that employed thousands. Since then the timber industry has become primarily a woodchip industry, which has led to at least three undesirable outcomes.

Clear-felling has destroyed thousands of hectares of native forest, which has not been replicated in the reafforestation process, leading to habitat loss and the destruction of ecosystems, including degradation of water supply.
Numbers of people employed, especially in felling and sawmilling, have fallen ever since the introduction of woodchipping. In the first five years (1971-76) the figures went from 172.5 cubic metres of timber per job to 351.3 cubic metres. As the years roll on it has become worse. Twenty years ago there were 11,200 jobs, including in small businesses such as family sawmills and specialist timber craftspeople. Today that figure is 5,000 and falling. In 1994-5, every hectare clear-felled created 1.3 forestry jobs; in 2003-4 it was 0.35 jobs. Today it is more like 0.2.
Proposals to address the vital need for value-adding have been limited to the production of paper pulp rather than the much higher value and environmentally friendly processing of timber for more durable products.

I believe that the problems and the solutions I am presenting here go beyond the vexed question of Gunns’ proposed pulp mill, I am more interested in the longer term, although I note in passing that the number of jobs envisaged at the mill if it does get to operating stage is considerably less than the number of jobs shed by Gunns in the process of ‘streamlining’ their company in preparation for the mill.

In today’s world, where it is vital to take carbon emissions into account, we should look at the uses to which our trees are ultimately put. Eighty per cent of the world’s paper and cardboard products release their carbon into the environment within three years of manufacture, either by burning or by rotting as landfill. Timber products have a much longer life.

Any attempt to reconcile the production of woodchips with the stopping of all logging in our native forests is, to my mind, stupidly naive. I believe that the so-called ‘principles of agreement’ between some sections of the logging industry and some environmental groups is doomed to fail, and I hope it does, but in saying that, I believe that the status quo cannot be maintained either.

Such a move can only result in more Eucalyptus nitens plantations, with all that that entails: the loss of even more than the current figure of 1800 jobs in agriculture through farms being turned over to plantations; the loss of whole rural communities; the reduction in land values; the removal of land from local government planning control; the heavy take-up of groundwater, leaving less of this precious commodity for agricultural and domestic use; the need for taxpayer subsidies through MIS schemes (which hasn’t been enough to prevent five of Australia’s major tree plantation enterprises from going broke); the use of poisons to control pests and weeds (including some which are banned in most countries); I could go on.

What we are proposing is a new model for forestry in Tasmania. There are plenty of models operating elsewhere in the world which could be drawn on and adapted to our conditions. Whatever model is arrived at should be the result of extensive genuine consultation with the communities concerned, with advice from relevant independent experts, and after an open, transparent process of negotiation. Such a model should include the following, or, at the least, exclude any of them only after careful consideration:

The phasing out of those plantations which are only of use for pulp from woodchips
Selective logging in native forests rather than clear-felling
Where feasible, the restoration of plantation land to either agricultural use or mixed species forest
The production of biochar by pyrolysis from forest waste, rather than burning off
An approach to the Federal Government for funding to research alternative sources for paper production (eg banana waste, wheat straw, hemp);
Managed preservation of some iconic old-growth forests (eg Upper Florentine, Tarkine)
Decentralisation of decision making and planning control, including the breaking-up of Forestry Tasmania into a number of localised forestry management bodies, working closely with Local Government
Removal of the exemption of forestry activities from State and Local Government planning regulations
Recognition of the value of minor species for craft use and of the leatherwood honey industry
Adoption of the principles of Community Forestry with a triple bottom line (economic, ecological and social)
The recognition of the economic value of carbon stored in our trees
Annual measurement and reporting of water uptake and outflow from forestry production areas
Banning the use of triazines, 1080 and similar toxic chemicals in forestry areas.

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