Australia’s professional body for forest scientists, forest managers and forest growers, the Institute of Foresters of Australia and Australian Forest Growers has condemned the Andrews Government decision to end native forestry in Victoria as ‘short-sighted.’ Source: Timberbiz
At the very time that foresters and fire fighters are fighting horrendous fires along the east coast of Australia and warning of a devastating build-up of fuel in Australia’s forests the Andrews Government has decided to make things worse.
It is irresponsible to remove the forestry workforce and compound the loss by closing much of the road and track network used to combat fires.
“The Andrews Government ban is poor public policy with clearly predictable and undesirable outcomes,” Bob Gordon, Federal President of the IFA said.
“Daniel Andrews has lost perspective on environmental issues and is prepared to visit significant damage to rural and regional communities, especially in Gippsland, for no discernible gain to the environment.
“The claimed climate change benefits are indefensible because they ignore the science regarding proven atmospheric carbon sequestration from sustainable forestry and use of timber products to displace steel and concrete in buildings.
“Wood is the ultimate renewable and there is no short, medium or long-term benefit in forcing a largely rural industry to close that produces renewable products and climate-friendly building materials.
“In the absence of a domestic hardwood industry we will simply import more hardwood of questionable provenance from the Asia-Pacific region.”
