Claims that sustainable native timber harvesting is “an economic basket case” that degrades native forests and drives “numerous species towards extinction” are emotive and baseless. That is, according to Steve Dobbyns, Executive Officer for Forest and Wood Communities Australia.
Mr Dobbyns responded to a request for information by Wood Central after Dr Ken Henry, chair of the Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation, claimed that the $29 million lost from Forestry Corporation’s Hardwood Division “confirms 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.”
“When compared to the billions that it costs to manage the State’s 7.5 million hectares of National Parks, the $29M “loss” last year to provide similar sustainable native forest services for our State forests is a far cheaper form of public land management, whilst also supporting a $2.9B regional industry that employs 8900 people in NSW alone.”
Steve Dobbyns, Executive Officer for Forest and Wood Communities Australia
Mr Dobbyns said that against a background of an orchestrated campaign of continual illegal, unsafe workplace invasions, regulatory changes and repeated lawfare in the courts, “NEFA (North East Forest Alliance) and a cabal of activist groups were able to disrupt legal and internationally certified sustainable harvesting operations to the extent that Forestry Corporation was simply unable to pay a dividend.”
He said that emotive claims that our native forests are being degraded and species driven to extinction ignore facts and science: “Of the public native forests in NSW, 88% is already managed for conservation, and only 12% is available for timber harvesting. Those operations are spread spatially and over time. On average, just six trees in 10,000 are harvested yearly and then regenerated (a condition of the Coastal IFOA).”
“However, even within the areas to be harvested, extensive seasonal surveys are undertaken to determine what flora and fauna species are present or likely to occur. Operations are planned to minimise any impacts on those species. Species conservation requires management at the landscape scale, not the micro or individual scale. The more diverse the environment, from old growth to young regenerating trees, the greater the benefits for the widest range of plant and animal species. Timber harvesting by nature provides biodiversity by creating a mosaic of stand structures, age classes, and feed sources whilst maintaining tree species composition.”
“The science, rather than NEFA’s opinions, shows that koalas in our State forests are doing quite well. NPWS drone surveys within the GKNP assessment area alone “estimate the koala population in the 176,000 ha assessment area is 12,111 koalas, with a 95% confidence interval of 10,311 to 14,541 koalas” (Sharpe, 2024), with koalas appearing to prefer coastal State forests, particularly near existing plantations.”
According to Mr Dobbyns, the work supports previous work by Dr Brad Law, whose 7-year study, which included the drought and subsequent Black Summer fires, found koala populations stable and a weak positive relationship with increasing extent of medium-intensity harvesting 16-30 years previously. “The latest figures from the CSIRO’s National Koala Monitoring Program also show significantly more koalas using expert data rather than expert opinions.”
- To learn more about environmental groups’ concerns about the financial viability of Forestry Corporation of NSW’s Hardwood Division, click here for Wood Central’s special feature from earlier today.
