The federal government is delaying the publication of completed research it funded on Australia’s risky timber imports, findings that the industry claims sink the carbon method that pays states to end native forest harvesting for good. That is according to Maree McCaskill, CEO of Timber NSW, who said on Friday the project finished months ago and remains with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, awaiting approval.
Wood Central understands the government is holding the research back, with the findings to be applied to Australia’s trade with China and the Improved Native Forest Management method (otherwise known as the INFM), which the Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Josh Wilson, signed on 25 June. Undertaken by University of Queensland forest economist Dr Tyron Venn, the work is the Commonwealth’s own, part-funded through the North East NSW Forestry Hub, on behalf of some of the 11 federal Regional Forestry Hubs.
According to McCaskill, the research and claims undermine the case for the method NSW relies on to fund the 176,000-hectare Great Koala National Park. “Politics and the flow of dollars to NSW trumping proper independent, clear science,” McCaskill said, before arguing a strategy is in play to provide some clear air between Minister Wilson’s decision to approve the INFM (announced during the Socceroos’ second World Cup game) and the release of research that raises some serious questions about its basis.
McCaskill claims the department has reviewed Dr Venn’s work more thoroughly than any other research it has handled, with findings that reach the China trade and expose how little has been spent tracking illegal wood imports. The research even recommends allocating more funding to DAFF for resource tracking and surveillance. Testing has already found half of Australia’s imported timber failing traceability checks, with close to a third of its solid wood imports entering the country through China.
It comes as Forestry Australia found on Friday the method could over-credit by 40 to 100 per cent, meaning 11 million of the 22 million credits NSW has promoted may carry no climate benefit at all. “There are fundamental problems with this Method,” Michelle Freeman, President of Forestry Australia, said of the maths her association found is built to issue more credits than the climate benefit achieved, days after a five-page letter recorded the approval committee’s own doubts about the method it cleared.
Dr Venn has already aired the findings in front of the department, appearing as one of the headline speakers at the Commonwealth’s 11-hub round table in Newcastle in early July, with data showing two cubic metres of elevated-risk timber used in Australia for every one cut from its own native forests.
“Imports make up 46 per cent of timber traded in Australia,” Dr Venn also told the Primex Forest Industries Dinner in May, a share that stood at just 24 per cent in 1996. Across the same three decades, the native harvest fell 75 per cent, with half of those imports now coming from countries rated high-risk for illegal harvesting, deforestation, and degradation.
His earlier numbers put the displacement in hectares, with Australian policy removing 36,000 hectares of certified native forest from harvest each year, while more than 46,000 hectares of high-risk tropical forests are cut to replace the wood. Much of that timber routes through China, traced back to PNG, the Solomon Islands, Russia, and Southeast Asia.
Under the method, the Commonwealth and heavy polluters bound by the Safeguard Mechanism buy the credits NSW earns for ending harvesting, with independent analysis finding the state stands to earn $300 million while policing private native forestry, which could erode its own credits.
The credits are still a promise, but the job losses have started, with Forestry Corporation of NSW preparing to cut 32 roles tied to the park and Pentarch Forestry shedding a further 25 at its Herons Creek mill at the start of July. “Frank and fearless advice is what has been sacrificed,” McCaskill said, with public servants now working to spare their masters backlash or embarrassment, while commentary with little scientific weight muddies the public debate.
Any release would now enter a live trade fight, with importers last month rejecting claims that Chinese-made LVL sold in Australia contains sanctioned Russian fibre and ministers from 21 Pacific Rim economies, China among them, signing a Shenzhen pledge against illegal timber in late July. The Senate votes on the method’s future on 18 August, and, according to McCaskill, the research testing it is completed, Commonwealth-funded, and still unreleased 37 days after Wilson signed the method into law.
