Tiptoeing through the trees

STEVE Whiteley is a very astute media performer.

When asked today (Wednesday) on The Country Hour if the new 100,000ha Special Timber Zones would be logged under FSC rules, he tiptoed – successfully – around the question. I was reminded of Jack Davey’s radio show of yonks ago, “Twenty Questions” (?) in which the contestant had to hold a conversation with Davey for one minute – without saying “yes” or “no” – to win a prize.

S. Whiteley did say the letters F, S, and C, (consecutively) but only in the context that FT is looking at FSC to see if it was compatible with AFS (I can tell him, even from my rudimentary knowledge, it isn’t).

According to Mr. Whiteley, (the man in charge when El Grande was killed) there are three objectives to the new strategy:

1. To maintain a sustainable resource ( I presume he knows what that means, because in the context of his past statements, I don’t. In the December 1999 issue of FT’s in-house publication Tasforests, (“Calculating the sustainable yield of Tasmania’s State forests”) he wrote (inter alia):

“A forest must be growing. This means replacing mature and over-mature forests, which show no net growth, with actively growing forests”.

Does his announcement today mean the end of clear felling of rain forests?

2. Maximise value (i.e. get more out of a coupe than wood chips)

3. Promote Tasmania’s special species timbers to the world (Sounds good.
I’ve got quite a few tonnes of salvaged celery top pine stockpiled waiting for the market glut – caused by clearfelling so much rain forest – to dissipate & the price to improve)

He says 2,000 people depend on the supply of specialty timbers, (and of course I believe him, since I have no alternative figure to quote), and this new initiative comes from the recent survey & plan which saw the introduction of a Chain of Custody system.

I must admit to being puzzled, though. Is the 100,000ha in addition to the existing STMUs (Special Timber Management Units) set up under the RFA, those god-forsaken coupes the woodchippers didn’t want, or is it just a rebranding?

Apparently there are maps on the FT website, but I haven’t bothered to look. They will have to be just a tad better than the A4 sized maps of Tasmania TWFF was offered some years ago when we asked for an audit of the (then) STMUs.

The new project apparently includes retraining of log classification officers. This is good, and might increase the range and quantity of special timbers available. As an example, Island Specialty Timbers (an FT subsidiary) is currently offering by public tender 17 special species logs, two of which are birds eye eucalypt. Well done IST!

On the other hand, the retraining might mean a larger percentage of special species timbers being salvaged and not burned, resulting in a continued glut, the forest industry’s equivalent of the fisher’s by-catch.

Such is life in Tasmania.

(Hmmm… is there an election on, by any chance?)

JV

Picture: Rob Blakers