With falling international demand for native forest woodchips forcing weeks-long closures of chip mills, many timber contractors and workers across Tasmania are facing uncertainty and increasing hardship.
Our Common Ground spokesperson, Simon Branigan said: “The growing downturn in the industry shows clearly that cutting more native forests is not creating more jobs”.
“The signing of the Regional Forests Agreement in 1996 saw significant increases in the logging of native forests. It did not lead to an increase in secure timber jobs — in fact job numbers have been steadily falling in recent years.
“This clearly isn’t good in the long-term for either workers or forests. That’s why Our Common Ground is calling for an end to old fights, and a start for new solutions.”
“Our Common Ground believes that we can learn from the examples of places such as Queensland and New Zealand on how to build a sustainable, vibrant timber industry that both creates jobs and protects native forests,” added Mr Branigan.
Mr Branigan argues that “As the industry crisis deepens, now is the time to make capital improvements to Tasmania’s mills and bring them into the 21st Century, just like the Commonwealth invested in making hybrid cars in Australia.”
“Tasmania can do better than wood chipping our native timbers and the uncertain timber jobs that go with it. It can create more timber jobs by investing and diversifying in a range of plantation timber products. “
Simon Branigan, Our Common Ground
