Draft Timber Strategy a missed opportunity

The Wilderness Society (Victoria) Inc
Media Release
9 April 2009

The Wilderness Society today described the Brumby government’s unveiling of the their Draft Timber Industry Strategy as missing the opportunity to create innovative green jobs, secure the logging industry’s future in plantations and taking decisive action on climate change.

“We welcome a new timber industry strategy because what’s currently happening in our forests is not good for Victoria,” said The Wilderness Society’s Victorian Forest Campaigner Luke Chamberlain.  “The current state of play where native forests are used as for woodchips, and investment in plantation jobs has been undermined by subsidised pricing of native forests is not smart for regional communities, not smart for jobs, not smart for climate change and not smart for our future.”

“There are some encouraging signs in the Draft Strategy of a logging industry recognizing the need to embrace a different future, but this is undermined by misdirecting more public funds into propping up a struggling, inefficient woodchipping industry in old growth forests which continues to lose jobs and contribute significantly to climate change,” Mr Chamberlain said.
   
“It is welcome to see the Draft Strategy recognises the role of Victoria’s native forest as substantial carbon banks, and that they may be more valuable left standing than logged.  But this is threatened by a the plan to hand out 20 year contracts and establish a polluting industry for woodchips, in building forest furnaces which will add significantly to Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions.”

“If this industry locks in burning native forest for power and 20 year woodchip contracts, it will undermine efforts to restructure the industry to become climate positive, innovative and job creating.  The burning of native forests for power was prohibited by the previous Victorian Premier, Steve Bracks.  This must be reiterated by Premier Brumby as part of his climate action plan.”

“It appears the experiment to set up VicForests in 2004 as a government business enterprise to increase innovation, competitiveness and a financial return to taxpayers has failed.  Having shown that it is unable to compete with the plantation sector or deliver a dividend back to the Victorian taxpayer, this plan proposes a dangerous retreat back to locking in long term contracts.”

The plan should include:

1.    The protection of old growth forests as carbon stocks and prohibition of burning native forests for power to consolidate Premier Brumby’s climate change action plan;
2.    Protection of water catchments to guarantee Victoria’s water security;
3.    Transition of native forest woodchipping into Victoria’s massive plantations resource and help the private sector invest in innovation and green jobs in the emerging wood based panels industry, which are the growth industries into Asian markets;
4.    Securing wood supply for sawmills from plantation wood and non high conservation value forests, including investing in new mill technologies and support for hardwood plantations for sawn timber

“We call on the Brumby government to show decisive leadership by going further with this Timber Industry Strategy.  It must reset the trajectory of Victoria’s old and wasteful logging industry, and replace it with plan to build a vibrant, innovative and sustainable wood products industry which creates green jobs, reduces climate change and protects water catchment areas.”

To view the Brumby Government's Draft Timber Industry Strategy, please click here.