Australian Rural & Regional News invited and has received a response to this article from Minister Jarvis: Sawlogs for firewood – Minister Jarvis responds

Gavin Butcher

The WA Government’s new forestry policy is unravelling. The responsible Minister, Jackie Jarvis, has started to panic, reportedly* ordering 120,000 tonnes of firewood to be produced, and in the process is sacrificing supplies to sawmills. The result is that high quality sawlogs are being set aside for firewood instead of being manufactured for furniture and flooring. This is at odds with the high standards claimed by the current Minister’s predecessor when punishing a Nannup sawmiller for failing to process sawlogs in Western Australia.

To meet the Minister’s target, the Forest Products Commission (FPC) is now cranking up firewood production, building stockpiles at Deanmill, Diamond Mill, Harvey and Myalup. Harvesting will need to double. Last year only 59,000 tonnes were delivered to firewood merchants. To achieve this, sawlog deliveries are being abandoned, with sawmillers being told to not expect any more logs, despite promises from the Premier to honour contracts.

The denial of sawmiller rights has seen good quality logs being sold as firewood. An inspection of firewood logs by respected forester and principal of JC Forestry, John Clarke, confirmed that  downgrading is occurring. He reports seeing sawlogs among delivered firewood logs  and sawlogs among logs cut for firewood in the forest.

“Downgrading of logs is against all the principles of sound forest management” said Mr Clarke.

Misuse of sawlogs offended the previous Minister, Dave Kelly, who in 2019 took a contract off a Nannup sawmiller for failing to process 100 tonnes of logs in WA. (ABC 31/10/2019). He stated “We expect everybody in the industry to play by the rules … we are about protecting the WA timber industry and local jobs.”

It seems Minister Jarvis is operating to a lower set of standards, as the contracts of local processors are ignored and furniture makers are abandoned well before the end of the current forest plan.

“Wasting a valuable asset like jarrah is a serious failure and should carry a sanction as occurred with the Nannup sawmill,” said Mr Clarke.

This is just the latest in a stream of failings in the new policy, including:

• the cost of the logging ban has ballooned from the announced $50 million to more than $200 million
• WA running out of firewood in 2022 leaving many out in the cold
• Logging contractors leaving the industry early due to a lack of information about their future
• No results from extensive ecological thinning trials
• No prescription for ecological thinning
• The timing of the new forest plan thrown into doubt with the EPA still deliberating on the untested ecological thinning plan
• The lack of scientific evidence to support claims that:
  • the forests have stopped growing
  • timber harvesting harms biodiversity
  • timber harvesting reduces forest carbon stocks
• The uncertainty of future karri supply to pine processors exacerbating pine resource shortfalls

After two years of turmoil it’s time for Minister Jarvis to set the course for the timber industry’s future and provide some certainty for workers and businesses.

Gavin Butcher is a former director of the WA Forest Products Commission.

* The Ministerial order for firewood is being reported within the industry, though no official order has been published.

Australian Rural & Regional News invited and has received a response to this article from Minister Jarvis: Sawlogs for firewood – Minister Jarvis responds