Report shows Victoria’s unique native forestry industry cannot be replaced by plantation resources

ANY ATTEMPT to reduce native forestry in Victoria would threaten $150 million in East Gippsland economic activity and endanger thousands of jobs. This is the dire warning from the Victorian Association of Forest Industries.
VAFI CEO Lisa Marty said this fact had been highlighted in a report that showed Victoria’s unique native forestry industry could not be replaced by plantation resources.
The Review of Issues affecting the Transition of Victoria’s Hardwood Processing Industry from Native Forest to Plantations was carried out by specialist group Poyry Management Consulting.
The report, undertaken for VicForests and Australian Paper, examined the proposition made in a National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR) Report ― commissioned by conservation groups ― of transitioning from timber production in public native forests to native forest plantations in Western Victoria.
“Both the native forest and plantation industries are important to Victoria,” Marty said.
“What this report shows is that we cannot meet all of our timber needs through plantations and a strategy to do that would simply cause large job and income losses across Gippsland without any sound economic, social or environmental basis.
“Native forests and plantations are complimentary and provide different products and benefits for Victoria. The NIEIR report does not properly recognise the different properties of native forest and plantation timbers.
“The economic, logistical and social costs of a transition from native forest to plantation are also underestimated.
“This report showed sawn timber to be used for appearance grade products cannot be sourced in commercial quantities from the current Green Triangle plantations, which are managed for short‐rotation wood for pulp and paper.
“This different management scheme gives these plantation timbers different densities and dimensions than timber from native forests.”
The Poyry report stated:
• The availability of plantation pulpwood in Western Victoria is expected to decline by up to half in 2020, after a peak of four million m3 per year in 2015;
• The cost of transporting pulpwood from the Green Triangle to Eastern Victoria was significantly underestimated in the NIEIR report, and is not economically viable;
• Carbon credits claimed in the NIEIR report to offset transport costs will not be applicable or available;
• A large plantation‐based sawmill in the West would also face economic viability and technical challenges, all of which were underestimated by the NIEIR report; and
• Such a plan was found to also endanger sawmills in Eastern Victoria and the communities that rely upon them for income.
“Timber production in Victoria’s public native forests is highly regulated and well managed,” Marty said.
“It operates on a small footprint, harvesting and regenerating 0.07% of the forest estate each year.
“From these operations thousands of jobs are created and a vibrant, disproportionately rural manufacturing industry provides Victorian’s with locally made and carbon friendly furniture, floorboards and building materials.
“We support a diversified and growing forestry industry utilising sustainably managed native forests and plantations, and the local manufacturing sector these enable.”