The Greens believe Tasmania’s sprawling hardwood plantation estate would be worth more if the trees were not used to feed a pulp mill. Source: 7News, Timberbiz
The party is calling for the wood to be turned into manufactured timber, which currently has to be imported from Europe, potentially creating thousands of jobs.
They also want another review of Tasmania’s 236,000-hectare hardwood plantation estate looking at alternative uses for the timber other than feeding a proposed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. It would cost taxpayers’ $350,000.
The Greens leader, Nick McKim, said Labor and the Liberals should be looking at other opportunities for plantation wood.
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) has welcomed the support of the Tasmanian Greens for cross-laminated timber construction, but expressed frustration at Greens Leader Nick McKim’s lack of support for a Tasmanian pulp mill.
The Greens have, finally, explicitly supported the processing of timber in Australia to create jobs and move construction into the 21st Century.
McKim has called for cross-laminated timber to be manufactured in Tasmania, saying that it is “very environmentally friendly, it’s very cost-competitive and, unfortunately at the moment, we’re importing these sorts of products from Europe.”
“Most of the timber plantations in Tasmania were planted to produce pulp logs in anticipation of a pulp-mill being established nearby,” said AFPA chief executive officer Ross Hampton.
“Limitations to the wood characteristics such as strength and elasticity make much of the Tasmanian hardwood plantation timber unsuitable for use in cross-laminated timber as used in modern multi-storey construction.
“AFPA would welcome the opportunity to brief the Tasmanian Greens on the economic and social benefits of a world-standard Tasmanian pulp-mill, as well as the potential to use plantation-grown sawlogs to locally produce cross laminated timber.
“The fact that the Greens claim that plantations would be worth more if used for purposes other than pulp shows a lack of understanding of the value proposition associated with forest products.
“In fact conversion from pulp-log through wood-chip, pulp and ultimately paper products, or indeed cellulose based products, offers the highest value use of plantation timbers.
Labor said the pulp mill is not the only project it is backing to create downstream processing jobs.
The Deputy Premier, Bryan Green, said Ta Ann’s new ply mill in Circular Head falls into this category but it needs Commonwealth funding.
The Opposition leader, Will Hodgman, said he believes a pulp mill is “truly central to unlocking the potential of our forest industry here in Tasmania.”
The Greens are also proposing Forestry Tasmania make available 42,000 hectares of pruned plantations to businesses keen on the research and development of plantation wood products.
