Nitens solution welcome, Hodgman should reconsider FT plantation sale for native forest logging subsidy
The confirmation today that a solution has finally been found for how to process and market nitens plantation logs into construction and appearance grade sawn timber is welcome, and should prompt a rethink of the Hodgman Government’s plans to flog-off Forestry Tasmania’s (FT) nitens plantation estate to subsidise ongoing native forest logging.
Government are in the final stages of privatising a 29,000 ha public plantation asset, established at great taxpayer and environmental expense, to subsidise Forestry Tasmania by paying down debt and propping up cash flow while it continues with loss-making native forest logging. See the FT prospectus here.
‘A technological fix to the challenge of sawing and selling plantation grown nitens timber should prompt a rethink of the Government’s plan to privatise FT’s plantation estate in a fire-sale, simply to subsidise ongoing unprofitable native forest logging,’ said Vica Bayley.
‘Retaining these plantations and using them to drive the long-overdue transition away from native forest logging is now the most logical thing to do.
‘Plantations are currently the most profitable sector of the timber industry, with overall growth in timber exports and logging activity largely attributable to the plantation sector. Flogging-off plantations when they’re a demonstrable part of the future is desperate and short sighted.’
The Wilderness Society called on Mr Hodgman to reconsider the plantation sell-off, saying pulp plantations should remain in public hands so as to maintain Government control of the resource and ensure it is made available to Tasmanian-based business.
‘When compared to provoking a long conflict by reversing high conservation value forest reserves to allow logging, using the nitens plantations as part of the solution makes sense.
‘While the Wilderness Society welcomes efforts to process plantations into sawn products, the previous behaviour and self-inflicted business failures of Australian Sustainable Hardwoods means that extremely robust due diligence needs to be undertaken by any party seeking to enter commercial arrangements with the company. The company has left an environmental and community mess in Victoria that needs to be taken into account.’
Vica Bayley, Tasmanian Campaign Manager, The Wilderness Society (Tasmania) Inc.
