VicForests CEO Monique Dawson has hit back at criticism which has questioned the economic viability of VicForests’ business model. She was commenting on an article in the Weekly Times written by Warburton Environment president Nic Fox and a VicForests logging contractor Jason McKinnell which claimed that the economic viability of native logging is ‘a myth’. Source: Timberbiz
They claimed that native logging contracting businesses and native sawlog mill workers were being sold a lie: that an endless “magic pudding” of forest is forever economically viable to log and makes their jobs secure.
They claimed that “the truth is the native sawlog timber, which used to be economically viable to log, is gone after decades of logging and two megafires”.
Ms Dawson, in a letter of reply to the Weekly Times, said there are many claims made in the article that were not true.
“It is an absolute irrefutable fact that the cumulative effect of legal action is the key reason we are not meeting supply targets,” she wrote.
“This is because these legal actions specifically target planned coupes, including coupes where harvesting has commenced or is about to start.
“This should be appreciated by anyone who works in our industry.”
Ms Dawson said that the total impact of the 10 legal proceedings brought upon by opponents of sustainable native timber harvesting is over two million m3 of timber. This impact is almost two times the loss of supply due to the 2019-20 bushfires.
“One of the opponents involved in constraining our business operations is Warburton Environment Inc, the organisation run by one of the co-authors of this piece,” Ms Dawson wrote.
She denied the claim that VicForests made $38m less from log sales than it spent getting the logs and that most became woodchips.
“It did not cost us more to produce the timber than what we sold it for,” she wrote.
“In fact, we made a gross profit on harvesting. Our financial statements include all activities — including services we provide to government that are separate to the timber harvesting business as well as technical accounting adjustments.
“Our revenue was also significantly impacted by the direct costs of litigation ($5m in 2020-21 alone) with indirect costs of litigation including stand down payments, loss of high-quality coupes, wasted roading and coupe preparation work far exceeding this. The costs include the litigation brought by one of the co-authors of this article and payments made to the other co-author.”
Ms Dawson also denied claims that VicForests loss was equal to paying “380 nurses, teachers, police or firefighters for towns like Mansfield, Warburton, Healesville, Powelltown, Orbost, Bairnsdale and Mallacoota”.
“There is no relationship between the revenue of VicForests and allocation of funding by the State Government to key public service roles,” she said.
“VicForests, its contractors and its customers make a contribution to the Victorian economy of around $500m per year — supporting 4000 jobs.
“The involvement of a member of our industry in this reporting is deeply disappointing, but we acknowledge that this is not a reflection on the industry.”
