I have seen these photos of forests cleared, with logs everywhere and looking more like the surface of the moon than the centre of a native forest.
If you were making a policy based on what gets clicked on Facebook, you would support banning native timber harvesting, too. It is a good thing we don’t; you can’t measure good policy based on how many likes it gets.
That’s why banning native timber forestry makes no sense to me. You can’t just jump into a blanket ban like this. If you want to improve forestry standards, that is a conversation worth having—but you have to have that conversation with the industry, not just your social media feed.
Banning native timber harvesting is the same as saying that this industry cannot be regulated. You are saying there is no way to balance the environmental impacts with the economic benefits, and that’s not just true.
Of course, native forestry needs to be regulated properly; nobody would tell you otherwise. You can’t have cowboys cutting down whatever they want, wherever they want.
But there’s a better way to do this, which keeps those jobs in regional Tasmania and keeps that money in people’s pockets. Native forestry has a role, and it has to be recognised. When it’s regulated well, it is a sustainable, renewable industry.
The cowboys of years past are out. They’re gone. The native forestry sector these days is nothing like what it used to be, but its reputation is still based on what it was 30 years ago. That is when we saw real damage, real deforestation.
Today’s industry is about ensuring that forestry’s footprint is sustainable and renewable. That means we are getting the jobs, salaries, and products the forestry sector is making.
That might not mean much in Canberra or Melbourne, but it is a big deal in regional Tasmania.
We don’t get much of a look in up here, which is why you end up with dumb bans like this one.
