South Australia’s forest products industry wants 50 million new trees planted to ensure South Australians have access to cheap, environmentally efficient structural timber framing for decades to come. Source: Timberbiz
The peak body representing the entire forest products value chain in South Australian this week launched its State Election Policy Platform headlined by a call to stop the loss of the estate and for the State’s political parties to back a KPI to plant 50 million trees.
The South Australian State election will be held on 19 March 2022.
“South Australia’s forest products industry has underpinned the State’s growth since the 1800s but with a looming, long-term global fibre shortage, we need our political parties to sign up to a unity ticket of getting more trees in the ground to not just protect the 18,000 people directly and indirectly employed in the industry but also ensure future generations have access to cheap, affordable and green housing into the future, ” South Australian Forest Products Association CEO Nathan Paine said.
“Our election platform is about reinforcing the importance of the industry to South Australia and the community, to securing the long-term future of the industry in South Australia and the employment it provides and to supercharging a new domestic manufacturing wave to drive local job creation whilst creating a cleaner future for all through sequestering carbon.
“The global COVDI pandemic has shown us the fragility of global supply chains and the importance of ensuring sovereign capability in critical supply chains and fibre is one of those. As human beings we have some basic needs being food and shelter to survive and while Australia produces three to four times the food we need (and exports the rest), we no longer grow enough timber to house our future generations.”
Mr Paine said that in South Australia alone around 50,000 hectares of timber estate had been lost through discriminatory policies such as water, planning and infrastructure as well as bushfire.
“We are now five minutes to midnight and can wait no longer to get more trees in the ground to protect our fibre needs into the future,” he said.
“Our policy platform identifies the problems facing the industry and sets out clear and tangible solutions that can be delivered to ensure the long-term growth of the industry into the future and we look to working across the chamber to secure broad bipartisan support for our solutions,” Mr Paine said.
