Timber

The Victorian Ministry for Agriculture has responded to a community-led petition by confirming that specialty timber from State forests is exempted from the 10 year phase out of native timber harvesting in Victorian public forests contained in the Victorian Forestry Plan ... James Kidman from Otway Tonewoods gave Australian Rural & Regional News some background on the 61-page petition he prepared and the Victorian Minister's confirmation of the exemption.

What a stuff up! The Solomon Islands entering a security agreement with the Chinese Government has all the ring of the fiasco of the signing of the Darwin Port agreement with a Chinese company with very close ties to the Chinese Government. The pattern for both agreements from an Australia point of view is remarkable similar, probably best called the ‘do nothing syndrome’.

The NSW Government is introducing new Farm Forestry Codes of Practice that will ensure long-term sustainability for the industry and provide robust environmental protections across the NSW private forestry estate. The new Codes, which come into effect on Monday, 2 May 2022, are the result of a rigorous review of Farm Forestry in NSW as well as advice from the Natural Resource Commission.

Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries Jonno Duniam said the Farm Forestry: Growing Together strategy recognises the opportunities presented by farm forestry for both farmers and Australia’s forest industries. "We're seeing an increasing demand for timber products, as well as the development of new carbon markets that reward farmers for planting trees,” Assistant Minister Duniam said.

A man as been fined $15,000 by the Cooktown Magistrates Court over the felling of 113 old-growth trees in the Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park. In 2020, a timber export company entered into an agreement to log Cooktown Ironwood trees (erythrophleum chlorostachys) on two Cape York stations that border the national park.

International Day of Forests 2022 – “Forests and sustainable production and consumption” ... “Forests are one of Australia’s greatest natural assets, and Australia has the first-class forest management skills, experience and people needed to manage our forests. However, as a nation, we must do more. We need to manage this precious resource actively and adaptively across all land tenures including National Parks, State forests and private land to achieve best outcomes now, and into the future" : Bob Gordon Forestry Australia President.

Peter Rutherford. The article published in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on 15 March once again highlights how activist networking paints native forest harvesting as THE threat to the sustainability of NSW native forests. Like many reports advocating for the closure of the native forest industry, the article contains a mix of academic opinion, anti-native forest harvesting rhetoric from a green politician, creative accounting, words to trigger outrage, such as "woodchip exports," and opinions from an activist non-government organisation, that monetise the outrage to generate more outrage and a reporter to join the dots.

Narranders High School 2021 HSC Industrial Technology and Design and Technology students Amelia Gillespie and Lauren Wickes have won accolades for their work in the Student Category Maker of the Year awards presented by Carbatec.

Forestry Australia considers that active management, including timber production, is vital to the sustainability of native forests and provides many benefits to Australian society. Forestry Australia advocates for ongoing research on timber harvesting in native forests to support this capability in Australia.

WA Minister for Forestry Dave Kelly has announced that implementation of the packages for native forestry workers to assist them to transition to a new industry before native forest logging ends in Western Australia in 2024 has commenced.

There are approximately 7.5 million hectares of forest in Victoria, and 94 per cent of Victoria’s native forests are in protected areas that cannot be harvested or are unsuitable. Of this amount, VicForests has access to 417,000 hectares and we only harvest 2500-3000 hectares annually. This is nominally equivalent to 0.04% of all forested areas ... Thorough preparation is undertaken prior to harvesting, and VicForests puts special protections in place for priority habitat and species of concern if found in coupes.

The timber mill at Wyan has been sold. The Tarmac Sawmilling site on Tenterfield Rd went into liquidation last July and recently sold. The Tarmac Sawmilling Pty Ltd parent company is in South Australia and a staff member there said the mill was forced to close after the 2019 bushfires.

“This is the largest direct investment of any Australian Government in plantation establishment for more than 30 years. We want to partner with NSW to grow this renewable, sustainable industry so that it can continue to create jobs in Cowper and deliver quality, Australian-made products to markets": Federal Member for Cowper Pat Conaghan

WA Forestry Minister Dave Kelly has launched the Farm Forestry Assist program for 2022, supporting farmers and other landowners wishing to plant pine trees on their land. Established in 2018, successful applicants receive free high-quality radiata pine seedlings from the Forest Products Commission's West Manjimup Nursery to establish 20 to 50 hectare pine plantations on their properties.

Two localities in the Shire of Gingin have been added to the list of restricted movement zones to contain the spread of European house borer, which is a serious pest of pinewood.

East Gippsland in the far SE corner of Australia, has long been seen as the stronghold of many natural values including old growth and rainforests and remarkable wildlife species that evolved with and still depend on these healthy, intact habitats.

The adorable Greater Glider is in trouble. It is threatened by fire and logging and its population has crashed by over 80% this century ... VicForests – a logging company owned by the government – wants to clear much of what’s left of the Greater Glider’s habitat.

Patricia Gill. Osborne Road residents Denise and William Legge stayed put on Saturday believing their farm was ‘in a reasonably defensible position’. This did not stop the couple from experiencing fire raging on all sides of their property that day but with the help of five heavy-duty fire brigade appliances their home and sheds were saved.

Forest & Wood Communities Australia is calling on the Andrews Government to close the loophole in the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004 (Vic) which has enabled activist vigilantes to devastate the livelihoods of regional Victorians. FWCA answers some further questions from ARR.News.

As I have consistently said, science, facts and non-emotive debate are what is needed when it comes to making the big decisions about the future of our primary industries – or indeed any public policy decision. Unfortunately the same view is clearly not held by anti-forestry ideologues, including those Labor governments in both Victoria and Western Australia who have decided to shut down their sustainable forest industries without any discernible evidence to do so.

Forestry Australia is calling on the Western Australian Government to release scientific evidence in justification of its decision to end native forest harvesting. Forestry Australia President Bob Gordon said the association was concerned the decision to end native harvesting was not based on science, demonstrated poor understanding of WA’s world-class forest management practices and would result in increased imports of wood products from countries with lower management standards.

Jack Bradshaw. Exposing the hypocrisy of the WA government in banning sustainable timber harvesting in native forest but supporting the strip mining of the same forest.