New analysis strengthens the argument that selective logging of speciality timber in Tasmania’s World Heritage Area is necessary to meet the demand from craft industries, including boat builders, the State Government said. Source: ABC News
Forestry Tasmania has advised the Government that areas previously set aside for specialty species logging would deliver only 40% of the volumes of blackwood, celery top pine, myrtle and sassafras expected.
Resources Minister Paul Harriss said he would present the new analysis to the World Heritage committee delegation during its visit in November in a bid to reverse opposition to logging inside forests added to Tasmania’s World Heritage Wilderness Area in 2013.
Mr Harriss said Forestry Tasmania’s analysis showed Tasmania’s boatbuilding industry would be at risk without access to specialty species growing in those protected forests.
“What we are talking here is ensuring the survival of Tasmania’s highly valued craft and boat building sectors and this is the sensible position that we will discuss with the World Heritage advisory body when they visit later in the year,” he said.
The Ministerial Advisory Council on Forestry is preparing a new specialty timbers management plan after the Government tore up the Tasmanian Forests Agreement struck by the previous government.
Mr Harriss told Parliament any harvesting in the World Heritage Area would be at a low level.
The Wilderness Society said Mr Harriss should accept the World Heritage committee’s previous ruling condemning logging inside Tasmania’s World Heritage area and move on.
“The best way to meet UNESCO’s request is to upgrade reserve status of land inside the World Heritage Area to national park or equivalent,” spokesman Vica Bailey said.
Mr Bailey said the specialty timber sector could not expect historical levels of supply to continue.
“As the specialty timber sector has traditionally been a by-product of clear-felling and woodchipping of vast areas of old-growth and rainforest, a model that glutted the market with heavily subsidised wood, there was never any expectation that historical levels of supply could, would or should continue,” he said.
