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National Parks make good economic sense

Southern Bell Frog - nationally threatened and endangered in NSW, this is one of Australia's largest frogs, growing up to 104mm in length. In NSW, it is centred around the Murray River region and has already dissapered from a number of sites along the Murrimbidgee. Photograph: D. Parker

The red gum timber industry, which focuses on low value products, is not the only industry that makes use of the forests. The forests already support a large tourism industry, which has the potential to grown if national parks are established – or to shrink, if not disappear, if the forests are destroyed.

The total annual tourism expenditure for the Murray and Riverina regions is already $797.5m, while Forestry operations within the River Red Gum Forests account for less than 5% of this figure. This corresponds with the findings of the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council, which showed that entire River Red Gum timber industry in Victorian represented only 0.56% of gross regional output

The timber industry, which has been described as ‘marginal’ (BIS Shrapnel 2001, p2) employs a significantly smaller number of people than the tourism industry, while destroying the resource that tourists come to enjoy. Converting the State Forests to National Parks would protect these values, while likely leading to a rise in tourist visits to the forests. Studies conducted for the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service have shown that, in comparable forests that have been converted to National Parks, the growth of tourism has been ‘rapid’. Within two years of the creation of Coolah Tops National Park, tourist visits to the area had doubled.

The river red gum Forests contain wetlands listed as internationally significant under the Ramsar convention - and form a cultural landscape of vast importance to the Indigenous nations of the area. Photograph: Allan Fox

The Forests are the property of the people of NSW and are currently managed by Forestry NSW (FNSW) on our behalf. Are FNSW effective managers of the forests? A study by Economists at Large in 2008 found that FNSW might actually be losing $150,000 each year and the Minster for Primary Industries has admitted that, across NSW, the native forests logging industry does operate at a loss.

Converting the forests to national parks makes good economic sense. It would provide for more jobs in the area, protect the resource that tourists come to visit and see an end to an industry that is costing the NSW public money.

Read the full report from Economists at Large here.

Replacing logging with National Parks will give these trees a future.

• Take Action today - Help protect NSW River Red Gum Forests >>