• With more than 75% of Australia’s old forests locked up in reserves, state governments want an even bigger slice of the resource cake, as Jim Bowden reported on August 6, 2007.
“The natives are restless,” snorted Sergeant Archibald Cutter in the Kipling line from Gunga Din as he buttoned his tunic for battle against the Thuggee rebels on India’s western frontier.
In a similar context, there is conflict simmering among the ‘natives’ of the southwest forest frontier of Western Australia – the hardwood natives of jarrah, karri and mari have been squirreled away block by block, year after year into nature habitats by the state government. The battle lines have been drawn.
And the government’s lips are buttoned like Cutter’s uniform – at least for the time being – on answers to a stalemate that is virtually starving sawmillers of mature, millable wood and driving them to ruin.
In February 2001, the WA state government locked up the old-growth forests and threw away the key, and so began a process of creating two new conservation areas and 30 new national parks, including the 12 new parks promised under the Western Australian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA).
Since then, with the RFA agreements in tatters, the government has manacled thousands more hectares of forest for preservation and left sawmillers with a pittance.
Bob Pearce, executive director of the Forest Industries Federation of Western Australia (FIFWA), says all the parameters were set out in the the government’s Forest Management Plan (FMP) 2004-2013.
The plan, which came into effect on January 1, 2004, provides for increased protection of forest values and better forest management in the state’s southwest. There are chapters in the plan on biological diversity, productive capacity, ecosystem health and vitality, soil and water, global carbon cycles, natural and cultural heritage, socio-economic benefits and plan implementation.
On paper, the annual volume of first and second grade jarrah sawlogs has been greatly reduced, from 490,000 cub m from 1 million ha of state forest under the previous FMP to 131,000 cub m from 700,000 ha under the 2004-2013 plan.
Also, the volume of first and second grade karri has been reduced to 50,000 cub m and prime grade marri to about 12,000 cub m, although, a substantial proportion of lower grade wood is available.
“Before 2003, and under the old RFA, we were allowed 289,000 cub m of jarrah and about 170,000 cub m of karri,” Bob Pearce said.
“But the state has been unable to deliver on the reduce volumes offered in the FMP, and only once in four years did it reach the allocation of 131,000 cub m of jarrah.”
Mr Pearce said it appeared to be a delivery problem; the management of forest operations was not delivering the volume or the quality that industry believed it would receive under the FMP.
“A lot of the timber coming in is not a viable milling proposition,” he said.
The region has five large and eight smaller sawmills and a scattering of ‘fringe’ millers. Gunns Ltd has the biggest cut with about 70,000 cub m of jarrah and some mari.
Whittakers Timber Products is next with 23,000 cub m of jarrah, 9000 cub m of karri and 5000 cub m of mari.
“They have taken away the useful wood and left us with the useless,” says Tish Campbell, Western Australian state manager for Timber Communities Australia (TCA).
“Getting the resource out from what is left is the big problem,” she says. “Most of it is ‘unsawable’ and the millers can’t make any money from it.
“It’s the interminable waiting that’s so stressful – waiting to see which way the government jumps on this as it tries to come up with solutions. We need greater certainty of supply, but we don’t expect any decisions before the end of September.”
Ms Campbell added: “The government has put too much good, mature timber into reserves. The way the FMP works, all the big trees are reserved for habitat and the young trees are not up to scratch.”
Bob Pearce said industry had presented options to the Government and it was working down the road to find a solution.
“We just have to wait for them to make up their minds,” he said.
Trish Campbell told us: “The government has the strong hand in this. It’s a waiting game – the quiet before the storm.”
Western Australia’s public native forests are managed by the Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM) for many diverse values, including nature conservation, tourism and recreation, water catchment protection and timber production.
The overall concern about the FMP is the extreme complexity of the proposed operations, which will make implementation, monitoring and enforcement difficult.
An appendix sets out amendments to current jarrah (Eucalyptus marginatta), karri (E. diversicolor) and wandoo (E. redunca) silvicultural guidelines. It says logging under the shelter wood prescription, or establishment of regeneration (clear felling with seed trees), which is the most frequently used method of logging jarrah, is to be intensified by a third or more, with the basal area of retained trees reduced from 15 sq m per hectare to 8-10 sq m per hectare.
Adding to the industry’s woes – and impacting on any future FMP decisions by the government – are the demands made by the Western Australian Forest Alliance (WAFA), made up of environmental activist groups concerned about what they describe as the destruction of old growth forests in the southwest.
The alliance has sought additional measures for biodiversity protection of fauna habitat zones, the retention of some balga grass trees (Xanthorrhoe spp) in jarrah coupes and increased protection for soil and understorey species and aquatic ecosystems. It has also described the FMP as “unreasonable if the community has to wait another 10 years before many other conservation reserves, approved in previous FMPs – some as long ago as 1987 – are finally gazetted”.
WAFA believes that despite some concessions to biodiversity protection, state forests available for logging will be exploited relentlessly and unsustainably for another 10 years.
Meanwhile, the Victorian timber industry and the communities its supports are making a fresh stand against a scheme by the Victorian Environment Assessment Council (VEAC) to ‘lock up’ river red gums along the Murray River.
“After 10 years of drought and hard times, communities in the red gum region have had their hearts ripped out by the VEAC draft proposals released in July,” TCA Victorian state manager Scott Gentle said.
“At least 80 direct jobs in the timber industry are on the chopping block. Add a multiplier of a least five and you end up with 400 families that will be adversely affected,” Mr Gentle said.
“These recommendations failed to weigh up the balance between environment and communities.”
He said VEAC chairman Duncan Malcolm had openly stated that the need for biodiversity was more important than the communities that existed on the red gum forests.
“This flies in the face of all forest decisions over the past 20 years, including the United Nations forum on forests, the Rio Summit, that recognised that the needs of forest communities should be equal to that of biodiversity,” Mr Gentle emphasised.
He said the red gums basically covered an area from Wangaratta up to Mildura in northern Victoria “and the VEAC wants more than 13,000 ha of this in national park.”
According to Duncan Malcolm, the health of the red tum forests along the Murray is far worse than expected. He claims significant areas of riverine forests are severely stressed, threatening nearly 400 plant and animal species.
“Interestingly, the state government has committed to upgrading the Mildura-Melbourne line and has agreed to source most of the rail sleepers from red gum forests,” Mr Gentle said. “How it will do this from such a reduced area is anyone’s guess.”
Members of the public have until September 21 to provide a submission on the VEAC draft proposals.
The forest industry is pinning some hopes on John Brumby, who was elected Victorian Premier on the shock retirement in July of Steve Bracks, 52, after eight years as Labor leader.
Mr Brumby, the former Treasurer, also held the regional and rural development portfolio, and is considered very close to and understanding of forest resource issues. He has retained Joe Helper as Minister for Agriculture (responsible for forestry) in the new Cabinet.
VicForests has also moved to “get close”’ to the resource, opening regional offices in the Central Highlands and Gippsland.
On the federal scene, Opposition environment spokesman Peter Garrett has set a target for Australia of 60% on the reservation of old growth forests as part of his policy leading up to the federal election this year.
“But this target has already been over-achieved in all states,” the chief executive of Tree Plantations Australia Allan Hansard said.
“We have 74%t of old growth forests in reserve.”
Hansard said the old growth target had been achieved in each state after more than a decade of intense restructure of the native forest industry under the RFA and other policies such as the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement.
“For example, 80% of Tasmania’s old growth forests and 100% of old growth in Western Australia are in reserves. And we have just been through another summer that has yet again seen catastrophic losses of biodiversity in national parks through wildfires,” Hansard added.