Rainforest logging cost of production greater than ‘capacity to pay’

Hodgman: rule out taxpayer subsidy for logging in conservation reserves

Premier Will Hodgman’s draft plan to log oldgrowth and rainforests within Tasmania’s Reserve Estate demonstrates that a sawmill’s ‘capacity to pay’ for logs is likely to be less than the real cost of producing those logs, prompting calls for Premier Hodgman to rule out subsidising rainforest logging.

‘While logging ancient rainforest trees from listed conservation reserves is a bad branding and marketing strategy in the first place, this plan demonstrates that whatever timber sales can be made will be overwhelmed by today’s cost of production’, said Vica Bayley, spokesperson for the Wilderness Society.

‘Premier Hodgman has made a big deal about funding nurses, teachers and police instead of the logging industry. We support that sentiment and call on him to rule out providing a taxpayer subsidy for rainforest logging.

The draft Special Species Management Plan is out for public comment until August 28th.

Its supporting documents discuss an ‘inferred log value’, an assessment of a sawmill’s ‘capacity to pay’ based on a range of factors, including ‘sawn timber sales prices’.[1] Given the historic subsidisation of special species timbers by virtue of being a by-product of eucalypt logging, the cost of production of logging in reserves will outstrip inferred log value.

‘Premier Hodgman’s plan foreshadows a real gap between log prices and cost of production and has absolutely no detail on how a business likely to make a loss from logging public forests, pays for those logs in the first place.

‘Is Premier Hodgman planning on giving the rainforest logs from Tasmania’s reserves away for free?

‘We call on Premier Hodgman to rule out subsidising logging for special species timber and provide detail on the royalty or other arrangements he proposes for access to logging publicly-owned reserves.’

The Wilderness Society has prepared a public submission page here: https://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/rainforest-reserves-too-special-log

[1] http://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/132382/SST_Final_report_Market_demand_analysis_11_Nov_2015.PDF (page vi)
Vica Bayley, Tasmanian Campaign Manager, The Wilderness Society (Tasmania) Inc.