Sustainable Timbers Tasmania (ex-Forestry Tasmania) released their 2016/17 Annual report today.
Whilst the report shows that Sustainable Timber Tasmania’s professional foresters and managers are improving the organisation’s bottom line, of significant concern is the ongoing reduction in special timber availability from this GBE.
Andrew Denman of the Tasmanian Special Timbers Alliance (TSTA) said;
“Since 2011, the annual supply of special timbers from Sustainable Timbers Tasmania (Forestry Tasmania) has been unreliable and problematic resulting in industry uncertainty and significant price increases.”
“The 2016/17 annual report shows a year on year reduction in special timber supply of 25 percent. This reduction has occurred despite STT being paid nearly $3M to “identify, manage and harvest” special timbers over the past three years. The supply problem is even worse when viewed on a species by species level. For example, the 2016/17 harvesting activities could not even supply enough boat grade celery top pine to build a medium-sized vessel. This artificial restriction of supply threatens the viability of Tasmania’s world-renowned boat building sector and subsequently, Tasmania’s largest tourism event, the Australian Wooden Boat Festival.”
“For some years now there has been substantial unmet demand for special timbers, and unless remedied, this situation will continue to damage special timbers related businesses throughout Tasmania. Accordingly, TSTA calls on the government to urgently implement the recently released Special Timbers Management Plan so that supply and confidence can be restored to the sector.”
Additional background information the Tasmanian Special Timbers Sector is available at: www.livingwoodtasmania.org.au
Andrew Denman of the Tasmanian Special Timbers Alliance (TSTA)
