Economy
Business as usual for Ta Ann
Ta Ann is part of the Southwood complex
The veneer producer Ta Ann Tasmania says it is business as usual, despite the Upper House delaying the implementation of the forest peace deal.
The Malaysian-owned company had warned it would leave the state if the agreement did not become law.
The enacting legislation has since been referred to a Parliamentary committee and the inquiry is expected to take at least three months.
Ta Ann will extend its Christmas shutdown period by four weeks at its Smithton and Huon mills while inquiry investigates the peace deal.
The company’s more than 100 employees will be forced to take paid leave and maintenance and training programs will be brought forward.
The State Government is playing its part by charging the company less for power at its mill in the Huon Valley.
Also, penalties will be scrapped for not using all of the wood under its supply contract with Forestry Tasmania.
Its executive director Evan Rolley says the delay is “devastating”.
“This will cost the company many thousands of dollars many hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said.
“We lost further market in Tokyo as a consequence of these delays.”
Mr Rolley rejects suggestions the company has lost face over the threat to leave the state.
“It really is, in my mind, an extraordinary demonstration of just how much the various supporters, suppliers, contractors and so on want the company to stay and they’ve found a way, they’ve found a way to help us and in return the company is helping to make it happen,” he said.
• Jan Davis’ Tasmanian Country column today
As my dear nanna would say, “I think everybody should take a Bex and have a good lie down.”
After the heat of battle in the Legislative Council last week, people are beginning to comprehend the wisdom of the course Upper House MPs adopted with the Tasmanian forests agreement legislation.
Not all people, of course. Bob Brown and Environment Minister Tony Burke now wave in our faces an apparent January 31 deadline on nominating a 123,650 ha extension to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Where did that come from? The agreement says a mid-year nomination, although I would have thought we, the people, should be masters of that.
Sawmiller Glenn Britton, who is chair of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, one of the signatories to the agreement, was reported this week (Advocate, December 17) as saying that the government was deluding itself to think it could rush the enabling legislation through before Christmas.
“To be perfectly honest, the government has been pretty naive to think that it could pass legislation one day and get the Legislative Council to pass it the next day,” he was quoted as saying.
“The Legislative Council is a house of review, that’s its role, whether you agree with some of the decisions it makes or not is another thing, but it’s a house of review.
“This has been two-and-a-half, three years in the making. So if another three months is going to bugger it, it was never going to stand the test of time,” he said.
How true.
What does the TFGA want out of the agreement?
The best way for me to answer that is to draw the analogy between what we do with our land and what we want the custodians of the Tasmanian landscape to do with theirs.
Farmers manage their land for a variety of purposes – cropping, grazing, kitchen gardens, farm building infrastructure, irrigation, internal roads, forest shelter, tree and native grassland reserves, and fire, pest and weed prevention.
Farmers have an imperative to care for their land and pass it on in better shape than when they received it. That is true conservation. It is maintenance and improvement of the local landscape from all perspectives.
The duty of the farmer is no different to the duty we all have as a community to the overall landscape. We are thus supportive of a triple bottom line approach to sustainable management of the landscape. However, a triple bottom line approach needs all three areas covered: environmental, social and economic. Farmers liken a situation that focuses on one aspect to the exclusion of others to a dairy stool – without all three legs equally balanced, there will be an inevitable disaster.
We are supportive of the environmental outcomes the forests agreement would seek to embrace, but it still lacks any social and economic analysis. Without these, it is doomed to fall over.
Having said that, let’s put it aside for the moment, and concentrate on the environmental outcomes of the agreement.
I won’t bore readers by repeating the scale of private forests in the state but, suffice to say, Tasmanian farmers have, in many cases, generations of experience in sustainably managing forests, particularly managing them to protect them from destructive hot summer wildfires and in maintaining and enhancing the biodiversity within them.
With the public land that is the subject of the forests agreement, we understand the dimension of the reserves that the ENGOs seek. However, the maps that show us where each of the proposed forests is to be found are yet to be made publicly available.
Nor has anyone been able to explain to us what the actual conservation outcomes arising from the claim are expected to be. What are the environmental gains that Tasmania will make from this additional 504,000 ha?
Or is it that we will have simply increased the amount of reserved land in this state by 504,000 ha? That is a mathematical outcome; it is not an environmental outcome.
Is the existing reserved forest estate improved or endangered by the increase? No-one has yet given us an answer.
Farmers are required to provide significant eco-systems services for free to the community; and we are under increasing pressures to measure and account for changes in the environment. Surely it is not unreasonable to expect public land managers to meet the same standards as our farmers do.
Tasmanians deserve to know what the expected environmental outcomes are of reserving another 504,000 ha of public land, so that these can be monitored and we can judge for ourselves the value we’ve received from this further lock-up.
If we knew the answers to these questions, then we could contribute to the discussion. We have all the practical and scientific experience of our farmer members that we can bring to bear, if only we knew what the aim was.
• INVESTOR CONFIDENCE IN TASMANIA’S FORESTRY INDUSTRY
Welcome News for Christmas
Kim Booth MP
Greens Forestry Spokesperson
Friday, 21 December 2012
The Tasmanian Greens today said the announcement by New Forests Pty Limited (“New Forests”) of its successful tender for Gunns Ltds’ radiata pine sawmilling, sales and distribution business, including the Bell Bay and Tarpeena sawmill is good news and heralds a brighter future for Tasmania’s softwood sawmilling.
Greens Forestry spokesperson Kim Booth MP said that the decision by New Forests to invest in Tasmania’s forestry industry bodes well for our industry’s future and is great news for Christmas as the contract of sale will provide for continued employment and entitlements of the approximately 380 staff.
“New Forests has also announced that the business will be managed locally which will ensure that indirect jobs in Tasmania will be maintained,” said Mr Booth.
“New Forests have a different corporate culture than Gunns and are interested in a long term investment strategy rather than the slash, burn and pillage mentality displayed by Gunns.”
” Not only that, New Forests are using their own money rather than robbing the public purse like some of the mendicant beggars in the hardwood sector.”
“This is exactly the type of industry that Tasmania needs: one that adds value rather than taking away and I look forward to New Forests being part of Tasmania’s new forest industry.”
“Tasmanians want to move on from destructive native forest woodchipping and conflict. We want an industry that is ahead of the game, has differentiated products, understands the demands of the global market and is able to sell our forest products at a profit.”
• David Leigh’s, A Worm in the Apple, can now be watched on theage.tv, HERE
• Peg Putt: Markets need moratorium on logging proposed new reserves in Tasmania
21st December 2012
After deferral of legislation to enact the Tasmanian Forest Agreement and Ta Ann’s announcement of an extended shutdown and agreement with Forestry Tasmania over reducing log supply, it is now imperative that a renewed moratorium halts ongoing logging inside the proposed new reserves.
Markets For Change say that customer companies and consumers will want to know that they are no longer at risk of receiving wood products arising from logging the very areas agreed for protection under the forest agreement, as such product does not meet environmental expectations of the market.
Yet as many as 60 logging coupes are on a list for exemptions to a moratorium, which equates to business-as-usual logging of places the House of Assembly agreed should be protected.
“A comprehensive moratorium on logging the proposed new reserves should be agreed by governments to satisfy market requirements for environmentally acceptable supply and to ensure the integrity of those places is maintained whilst Parliamentary deliberations continue,” said Peg Putt CEO of Markets For Change.
“Ta Ann’s extended shutdown and reduction of supply from Forestry Tasmania provide the opportunity to reschedule out of the high conservation value forests immediately, something we believe is also in the interests of Ta Ann if they are to address the concerns of the market.”
“Previously the wood supply requirements of Ta Ann were used to justify scheduling logging operations inside contentious forests, under exemptions to a fully-fledged moratorium, but this should no longer be the case in light of new measures announced by Ta Ann.”
“A full moratorium this Christmas would be a positive all round,” Ms Putt concluded.
• Battle over Ta Ann mill costs
• Don Henry, Australian Conservation Foundation, Vica Bayley, the Wilderness Society: ENGOs welcome federal government and Ta Ann announcements
Environment groups have re-confirmed their support for the Tasmanian Forest Agreement and welcomed separate announcements yesterday by Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke and timber company Ta Ann Tasmania, in support of the agreement.
“ENGOs welcome Minister Burke’s continued support for the Tasmanian Forests Agreement, including an extended offer of funding support,” said Wilderness Society’s Tasmanian Campaign Manager Vica Bayley.
“ENGOs also note Ta Ann Tasmanian’s commitment to the agreement, including the company’s commitment to source future log supply from outside of the areas agreed by Signatories.”
The Australian Conservation Foundation, Environment Tasmania and The Wilderness Society will be contacting buyers of Tasmanian timber to affirm support for the agreement and the importance of conservation and industry outcomes being delivered in full.
“It’s crucial that markets for Tasmanian timber hear that the ENGOs are firmly committed to both the industry and conservation outcomes of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement,” said Don Henry, CEO of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
“ENGOs will provide progress updates to both domestic and international customers of Tasmanian timber, including Bunnings, K&D Warehouse, and Ta Ann’s Japanese customers.”
“We will re-iterate our request that buyers support the implementation of the agreement and do not make any decisions that would adversely impact Tasmanian suppliers and the prospects of the agreement being realised.”
• Wood Resource Quarterly: Global sawlog prices continued to drop
Global sawlog prices continued to drop in the 3Q/12, with prices in Europe falling more than 13% in 12 months, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly
Weaker lumber markets in Europe have reduced demand and prices for sawlogs on the continent this fall. Lower sawlog prices in both Europe and Latin America have resulted in an almost ten percent reduction in the Global Sawlog Price Index (GSPI) over the past 12 months, reports the Wood Resource Quarterly. Log prices in North America have been fairly stable during 2012.
The full article can be found here:
GTWMU_Global_sawlog_market_3Q_2012.pdf