The article published in the Age and Sydney Morning Herald on 15 March once again highlights how activist networking paints native forest harvesting as THE threat to the sustainability of NSW native forests.
Like many reports advocating for the closure of the native forest industry, the article contains a mix of academic opinion, anti-native forest harvesting rhetoric from a green politician, creative accounting, words to trigger outrage, such as “woodchip exports,” opinions from an activist non-government organisation, that monetises the outrage to generate more outrage and a reporter to join the dots.
The two reporters reference a paper comparing the value of alternative uses of native forests in Southern NSW, by ANU law professor Andrew Macintosh and Frontier Economics, which was released on 30 November 2021.
The reporters’ state: “A recent study found stopping native forestry in the state’s south could produce a net economic benefit of about $60 million…”
What the news report does not tell us is that this alleged benefit is accumulated over the next 30 years, delivering about $2 million a year to NSW.
The reporters also fail to tell us the 30-year graphical analysis on page 28 of the Macintosh report shows the cost to the state’s economy ranges from $90 to $100 million each year. This analysis ignores multiplier effects, so the stated cost (economic loss) is very conservative.
Figure 6 of the report shows the annual “benefit” of avoided harvesting and processing costs is around $80 million, carbon savings of around $20 million and revenue from a mountain biking development offset the $100 million cost of closing the industry, with a surplus averaging $2.3 million per year.
The harvesting and processing costs are actually paid by timber processing businesses, so including this “avoided cost” as a “benefit” would seem to be economically illogical.
There is no legal basis to monetise the alleged carbon savings and if that were to change none of the trading benefits will flow to socially and economically impacted regional NSW communities.
The Macintosh report overlooks the increase in forest management costs that would be incurred by the agency handed responsibility for management of the affected state forests.
The cost of managing the 415,000 hectares of forests would potentially cost NSW taxpayers up to $20 million per annum.
The reporters claim “The nett cost of destroying more than 13,500 hectares of red gum, iron-bark and cypress trees – largely for woodchip exports and firewood – was $ 6million…”
This emotional play is so focussed on demonising the export woodchip market, that the reporters have overlooked the fact that red gum, ironbark and cypress trees have not been chipped for export from NSW. High density and low fibre yield of these native forest species are two of the reasons they are not part of the NSW export woodchip trade.
The apparent demonising of the domestic firewood market by the reporters fails to recognise that many people in rural areas do not have ready access to non-renewable natural gas supplies for heating. Many firewood consumers are also not financially well off and cannot afford the cost of coal generated electricity to heat their homes.
Comments made by Greens politician David Shoebridge are no more than a rerun of denigrating comments he has made for more than a decade, against the use of a small proportion of the NSW public forest estate each year, for timber production.
With 23 staff members listed on their website, the final word in the report is left to the NSW Nature Conservation Council (NCC) chief executive Chris Gambian who said “there was no rational economic argument to prop up the industry…”
At 5.51pm on 15 March, the NCC emailed members and supporters to advise them that: “NCC members started an official parliamentary petition to end native forest logging. If this petition gets 20,000 signatures it will trigger a formal parliamentary debate. By reaching this milestone, we will test the politicians on whether they will protect native forests in the lead up to the state election.”
Among other matters, the NCC claims “Public native forest logging is pushing iconic species like the koala, swift parrot and greater glider towards extinction.”
The disastrous 2019-20 fire season resulted in more than 5.3 million hectares of predominantly native vegetation being burnt in NSW. The burnt area including 79% of the Greater Blue Mountain World Heritage Area. The human death toll was 26 and Professor Dickman has estimated the animal (birds, mammals and reptiles) death toll to be more than 800 million.
Given the concern the NCC claims to have for iconic species including koalas, swift parrots and greater gliders, what have the NCC representatives on the BFCC done to ensure the committee placed an adequate focus on bush fire mitigation works at a landscape level over the past 17 years? Has the NCC delivered any advice to the committee that made a material difference to the fire extent of high intensity bushfires in 2019-20?
What does the cessation of native forest harvesting do to address the risk of high intensity bushfires devastating the 80% of available public land in NSW that Is already in the conservation reserve system?
Peter Rutherford is Secretary of the South East Timber Association
