Native Forest - the sustainable alternative

By Managing Director Bob Gordon

Foresters are entitled to a modest chuckle when they come across earnest young protesters perched dangerously atop timber tripods beseeching all to protect what they think is a stand of old growth forest.


The mistake is understandable. Naturally regrown native forest, cared for and tended by foresters over many decades can, and does, look as if it has never been touched by human hand.

However, push aside the lush undergrowth and soon the evidence becomes clear. A stump carrying the foothold wedges cut into its side to support the loggers of yesteryear is revealed.

The fact that it is so easy to mistake forests logged 60, 70 and 80 years ago as old growth bears testament to the skill of foresters and the resilience of nature.

When such a mistake is made, it surely is the ultimate accolade for the foresters who have cared for these forests over the intervening decades.

It is time for the community to reconsider its attitude to sustainable native forest harvesting.

Only a mix of plantation and native forest can meet the world’s timber needs.
Plantations are better for bank balances, but native forest harvesting is better for the environment.

Consider this! Regrowth native forests are chemical free, they provide habitat for wildlife, they store more carbon for longer and they maintain biodiversity.

When an area of forest is harvested, seeds from the trees are collected. When the timbers are removed, the debris is set alight, the seeds are re-sown in the ash bed and a vibrant healthy forest springs to life.

As the trees grow, the understorey species establish and the wildlife begins to move back in to take advantage of a new abundant food source.

This process mimic nature. No herbicides, pesticides, fertilisers or 1080 animal poison is used.

However, the quantity of timber sourced from native forests is limited. To be sustainable, the amount of timber harvested must be less than the forest growth rate.

In Tasmania, less than one per cent of the State forest is harvested annually. As a result, Forestry Tasmania can confidently predict forest cover will grow over the next 90 years and the percentage of mature aged eucalypt forest (over 110 years of age) will be roughly the same as it is today.

In time, timbers from native forests will become the eco-premium product, but there will not be enough to meet the world’s needs. That’s why plantations are important.

Although, plantations can’t match native forests in environmental performance, they are far more efficient. Plantation trees grow four to five times faster, deliver greater yield and are easier and cheaper to harvest because the trees are planted in straight lines.

As a result of the higher yield and because pulp mills prefer young wood, plantation pulp wood fetches much higher prices that native forest pulp wood. The fact that it is possible to make more pulp for paper from plantation than native forest wood means the former is worth more to processors.

And for investors, the higher growth rates mean plantations can be harvested after 25 years rather than 90 years for native forests, meaning dollars in the pocket sooner.

If Forestry Tasmania was driven purely by profit, more areas of State forests would have been converted to plantation. In terms of bang for buck, plantations are better for the bottom line.

However, we are stewards of the forest, with a responsibility to hand on to the next generation a forest in even better shape than we inherited. Accordingly FT discontinued the conversion of native forests to plantations at the end of 2006.

It is time to dispel the major myths. Not one extra tree will be harvested from native forest if the proposed Tasmanian pulp mill goes ahead. FT harvests native forest to produce 300,000 cubic metres of sawlog each year. Pulpwood is a by-product.

Around 2.8 million cubic metres of pulpwood is available from State forests each year. About half will go to the pulp mill and the rest will supply existing customers and meet emerging opportunities.

The last tree is not being cut down in Tasmania. Over the next 90 years, the amount of forest cover will increase, not decrease.

The major threats to the wedge tailed eagle are electrocution on power lines, shooting and trapping – incidents that occur outside the forest. Before any area of State forest is logged, FT conducts aerial and ground searches for eagle nests. Reserves that are a minimum of ten hectares are placed around any eagle nests that are found.

While environmental groups like to focus on the one per cent of State forest that is harvested, it’s easy to forget that 47 per cent of all Tasmanian native forests are in conservation reserves and unavailable for logging.

In the heat of election campaigning, facts can get lost. In the meantime, please appreciate the irony of the young protesters seeking to protect regrowth forest, nurtured by the very people they oppose – Tasmanian foresters.

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