By Brian Mitchell MP, Federal Member for Lyons

TASMANIA’S FORESTRY

industry treads widely and lightly. Unfortunately, that’s not the picture that protesters paint. In the north-west coupe that is the centre of protest action right now, just 60 trees from 25,000 are being selected for harvesting. That’s like selecting people from one street out of the municipality of Meander Valley, plus the nearby towns of Longford and Perth. It’s hardly the wanton destruction that organisations like the Bob Brown Foundation would have us believe. Furthermore, the harvested timber will be used in highvalue products – just the sort of industry the protesters have previously told us they support.

Unfortunately, they keep changing the goalposts of what they consider acceptable. From Tasmanian forestry we get beautiful crafts and products, structural timbers and veneers, paper and fuel. Harvested timber is a carbon sink, as are the replacement trees to be harvested in years to come. Sustainable forestry is a climate change action ally, not enemy. Tasmanian forestry can and should also be a tourism drawcard, just as our hydro-electric scheme, dairy, distilling, fishing and berry industries have proven to be. Forestry and tourism can and should be complementary. The other major benefit of a well-resourced timber industry is its ability to fight bushfires. Whether by fuel reduction, the creation of well-maintained tracks that act as firebreaks and access trails, or employment of expert personnel and equipment, foresters are renowned worldwide for their firefighting ability. Did you know the 2019 bushfires in Tasmania, impacting 200,000 hectares including 40,000 ha of timber production land, were our state’s biggest since 1967? Despite our best efforts we haven’t figured out a way to stop dry lightning strikes – there were more than 2500 in January last year, but the preparation, planning and hard work of responding fire agencies and volunteers resulted in there being no fatalities. It was a marvellous effort. However, as we’ve seen with the mainland we must prepare for the reality of a hotter and drier and more extreme climate: more than 30 people dead, a staggering 11 million hectares burned to a cinder – equivalent to nearly 100 years’ of Tasmanian timber production - and an horrendous, incalculable loss of wildlife and livestock. Facts and figures often fly about in the forestry debate, but here are some to remember:

• Tasmania’s land mass is about 6.8 million hectares, of which 3.4 million is forest;
• 52% of Tasmania’s 3.4 million hectares of forest is protected in reserves, including 85% of Tasmania’s old growth;
• more than 90% of Tasmania’s forest is native forest, with the balance in plantations; •
Tasmania’s plantation forest is mostly in private ownership and comprises 76% hardwood and 24% softwood;
• the Tasmanian Parliament has set aside 812,000 hectares of public land as Permanent Timber Production Zone Land, with another 1 million ha of forest on private land potentially available for harvest;
• Sustainable Timbers Tasmania is legally required by the Tasmanian Parliament to make available from Permanent Production Zone land at least 137,000 cubic metres of high-quality eucalypt sawlogs and veneer logs every year in order to fulfil contractual obligations;
• forestry supports 3000 wellpaid jobs (82% full time) in regional Tasmania and contributes $1.3 billion to the state economy. So, Tasmania’s forestry industry is permanently locked out of half the state and where it does operate, it employs world’s best practice. In fact, harvested coupes are regrown to such a high standard that protestors demand they be regarded as high-conservation value! Tasmania’s forestry sector is certainly miles ahead of Asia and South America, where football fields of forest are being bulldozed and burned every hour to make way for palm oil plantations and cattle grazing. Overseas is where the real fight for forest conservation and biodiversity is, but instead we see constant protests in Tasmania, including in coupes that have been negotiated with conservationists as production areas. Tasmanians are quite rightly sick of it.