• Private forest development committees have contributed significantly to plantation development in Australia. A sudden cut-throat decision by the Rudd Labor government could send many of them to the wall, as JIM BOWDEN reported in June 2008.
The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry (DAFF) delivered a letter on June 23 to 19 private forestry development committees (PFDCs) giving seven days’ notice of funding removal.
“The decision is tragic enough, but to give us seven days before they pull the rug is pathetic,” said John Macgregor-Skinner, Executive Officer of NSW Northern Rivers Private Forestry.
“Ten of 16 actions driving the nation’s 2020 Vision strategy [to treble the area of commercial tree crops to around 3 million ha by 2020] are related to private forestry. Who’s going to drive this vision now?” Macgregor-Skinner asks.
In a letter to industry, DAFF said the PFDC program “had not been approved for critical funding” in advance of a new $2.25 billion government initiative on environmental management.
DAFF continued: “The PDFCs can, if they wished, apply for funding under the new grants scheme, Caring for our Country.“
“We apologise that notification of the outcome of the funding situation has come with such short notice before the existing funding expires. DAFF said it did everything in its power to push the decision process along and to support the bid for funding.”
“While it may be of little comfort to you, there are many other bodies and programs previously funded by the Natural Heritage Trust that are in the same position as the PFDCs.”
Until the sudden withdrawal of funding, PFDCs received annual cash payments of about $150,000 a year, a 50-50 commitment by federal and state governments.
“This ‘seed’ funding has now been blown away and without this core support, private forest associations that have been developing industry since 1997 and have established a massive skills-based network will be eroded,” Gympie (Qld) forest consultant and former PFDC executive Ken Matthews said.
He said the decision would have a ripple effect for many years to come.
“These funds were a leverage to apply for additional support from other regional groups such as catchment management authorities (CMAs).”
“The payments played an incredibly important role for non-profit organisations, allowing them to approach other funding sources as an industry development association on the basis they had ‘in-kind’ backing from both federal and state governments.”
Mr Matthews said it should be remembered that there had been zero forestry extension work provided by state agencies in Queensland over the past five years.
“There has been no support for management investment schemes, plantation establishment, resource inventory and assessment, development of logistics management or for unity in what is a very fragmented industry. Once the PFDCs are gone, there will be no private forestry.”
Chair of Private Forests South Queensland, Dr Gary Bacon, said the group had used annual federal and state funding [$75,000 each] to leverage seven external funds to maintain operations.
Dr Bacon said some of these ‘extras’ had come from regional natural resource management bodies, which themselves were facing a 40% reduction in core dollars.
“Other funding has come from corporations and farmers who contract us to scope and manage their forest estates. This means we can continue as an entity, but there will be others who will quickly wilt without government sustenance.”
Dr Bacon said his real despair was that no government agency in Queensland supported private forestry, despite there now being five discrete agencies that purported to manage some aspect of forestry.
Roger Underwood, deputy chair of the Avongro PFDC in Western Australia, said the group had long promoted tree farming and sustainable management of private forests in the Avon wheat belt region.
“We’ve also had a significant association with PFDCs in the state’s southwest and Great Southern region over the years, and both have done a magnificent job,” he said.
“We still have a little bit of state funding up our sleeves, but, basically, we’re stuffed and will probably fold. The real tragedy of all this is that we were the only quasi-government or at least government-funded body left in this region who were truly in favour of commercial forestry operations, including biofuels, as opposed to all the soft stuff related to biodiversity, which is money straight down the drain.”
“I cannot see anyone taking our place, especially as we are not supported by the Greens who may soon be calling the shots in the Senate and in the Upper House in Western Australia.”
John Macgregor-Skinner said sections of the government had been “drawing a long bow” for some time, claiming they could not relate forestry to climate change.
“There are people in Canberra who still equate forestry with land clearing, which is a nonsense,” he said. “If we’re talking climate change, then trees are the greatest sinks we’ve got. All PFDCs are doing is encouraging people to grow trees.”
He referred to a recent URS Forestry report to DAFF that has given a favourable review of PFDCs.
The report said the majority of PFDCs had identified carbon sequestration and carbon markets as a significant future opportunity for private forestry, indicating that that the development of the carbon industry would focus on PFDC activities in the future.
The report said PFDCs, particularly Private Forests South Queensland [with a private native forest resource exceeding 1.2 million hectares], contributed to important environmental outcomes.
“They have gained the awareness and support of natural resource management (NRM) groups and regional landholders by running capacity building programs and providing range of services.”
Available Bureau of Rural Science statistics show that of Australia’s 165 million ha of forests, 42 million hectares are under freehold tenure, and about 66 million ha are under leasehold.
More than 39 million ha, or 24% of Australia’s forests, are in private ownership, and 76 million ha, or 46%, are managed under leasehold arrangements. These forests are defined as areas dominated by woody vegetation with a potential canopy cover of more than 20% and a potential height greater than 2 m.
These forests are an important source of timber in many regions and provide other goods and services, including grazing, honey, water, biodiversity conservation and carbon storage.
Important private commercial native forests occur in Queensland, NSW, and Tasmania, with small areas in Victoria and Western Australia. South Australia and the Northern Territory have considerable areas of private forests, but only a small portion is considered to have any commercial worth.
In southeast Queensland, about 60% of the hardwood sawmilling industry’s requirements are currently sourced from private native forests.
The importance of private native forests as a source of timber supply has increased significantly over recent years as government decisions, through Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) and other processes, have reduced access to the Crown native forest resource.
Following the completion of the three RFAs in NSW by 2001, 3.8 million ha constituted the Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative (CAR) reserve system over public land within these RFA areas.
Since this time, the state has transferred further public timber production forests into conservation reserves, including 65,000 hectares on the north coast, 13,000 hectares on the south coast, and 348,000 hectares in the Brigalow bioregion.
Timber sourced from private land has become vital for the survival of timber communities, particularly smaller sawmills without access to public forests.
In some of the forestry regions in NSW, more than 50% of native forest timber supply for industry comes from private land. For example, on the North Coast, 66% of hardwood sawmills are entirely dependent on private property logs.
A final slant on the issue comes from a retired forester who wishes to be unnamed:
“Actually, I am not too surprised at the move on PFDCs as I know there have been rumblings in DAFF for some time (at least the last two years) over the effectiveness of some of them.”
“This may have been the Trojan horse the government was looking for to kill off the entire scheme. Their at-best ambivalent attitude to MIS [management investment schemes] probably did not help the PFDC cause.”
“One can only hope that the new Country Open Grants scheme provides at least an equivalent opportunity for commonwealth funding. The problem is that the former arrangement provided leverage of state government funds, and the states will now have an excuse to follow suit.”
“Also, will those PFDCs that are viable be able to carry on during the hiatus while the new grants scheme gets into gear? Is there also a message here about the forthcoming carbon trading scheme?”
“The MISs are probably big enough to look after themselves, although they are still in the government’s sights. A big shake-up around the corner for private forestry in all its forms is certain.”
“We have gone a long way downhill since the halcyon days of the forestry giants. I guess we all will have to shoulder some of the responsibility for that, but our society has developed some alarming lemming-like characteristics over the last couple of decades.”
Editor’s note: In the 2008–09 Budget, the Rudd government cut $63.4 million over four years from the CSIRO, forcing the closure of two laboratories and the loss of 100 jobs. It also cut $20 million from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
