The cost of managing NSW’s native hardwood forests has more than doubled over the past 12 months, with NSW taxpayers footing a $29 million bill to manage millions of hectares of Coastal Blackbutt, Spotted Gum, Sydney Blue Gum, Stringybark, Silvertop Ash, and Ironbark.
That is according to the 2024 Forestry Corporation Annual Report, released by the Forestry Corporation of NSW on Friday, which revealed that the Hardwood Forests Division lost $29 million for 2023-24 (with native forestry losing more than $15 million alone).
“These results confirm what we’ve long known – native forest logging is an economic and environmental failure that survives only by reaching deep into the pocket of taxpayers,” according to Dr Ken Henry, chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation. “Most taxpayers would be appalled to learn that they paid $29 million last year for the privilege of destroying native forests and endangering koalas and gliders.”
“As well as running at a loss, FCNSW has been ordered to pay almost $500,000 in fines and legal costs over the past five years – mostly for damage to threatened habitat and endangered ecological communities,” said Steve Ryan, head of the forests campaign for the Nature Conservation Council. “The continued public subsidisation of Forestry Corporation NSW’s native hardwood division is destructive and wasteful.”
According to Dr Henry, who in 2010 spearheaded then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Future Tax System Review, dubbed the Henry Tax Review, the loss highlights the importance of transitioning from native to plantation forestry: “We need to confront reality and establish a proper plan that fosters sustainable plantation timber and forest management jobs. With foresight, we can protect and restore our native forests while building strong and dependable jobs for regional communities.”
Dr Henry’s concerns come after an Ernst + Young Report last year revealed that NSW’s hardwood industry contributed $2.9 billion in revenue, added $1.1 billion to NSW’s gross domestic product, and employed almost 9000 people.
In response to concerns over the industry’s economic viability, Maree McCaskill, the CEO of Timber NSW, which represents the interests of the state’s hardwood supply chain, said: “We need to set out the facts. Hardwood timber is a sustainable, renewable and essential input into the construction, agriculture, mining, and energy sectors.”
“The NSW timber industry is, in fact, a significant and growing part of the state’s economy and has had this central role in our regional communities for more than a century,” Ms McCaskill said before adding that the report showed that northeast NSW supplied two-thirds of the state’s nation-building hardwood timber.
- To learn more about the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation’s concerns over NSW’s native hardwood industry, click here for the organisation’s formal response.
