By Wendy Robertson
Of 900,000 hectares of forest in East Gippsland, 500,000 have never been logged. About half of the unlogged area is old growth forest. These forests contain trees that are 300-400 years old. The average mature trees are 200 years old. It took thousands of years to form the ecosystem in which these trees can grow.
The Victorian government is developing a forest management plan for East Gippsland which will specify how much old growth forest will be put into "special protection zones". A tug-of-war is going on about what gets into these zones.
Louise Matthiesson of Friends of the Earth Forest Network told Green Left Weekly that she is sceptical of government talk of "representative reserves" for the old growth forests.
"The whole of East Gippsland is a good representative, because if you look at it nationally, we have only got 3% of our old growth left. That is why the line that we are taking is: no more old growth logging."
FoE says that there is room for a sustainable, sensitive small scale timber industry based on regrowth native forests.
"One of the things that we are trying to do is point out that woodchipping especially and clear-felling — the current shape of the timber industry — are not sustainable and not economically viable", says Matthiesson.
"So it is not good for timber workers. They are cutting too much too fast, wasting too much, and are going into irreplaceable forests that are very important for the local environment.
"They clear-fell areas of up to 40 hectares. They can do three of these adjacent to each other in any one year, so it can be up to 120 ha with filter strips in the middle. They leave about five habitat trees per hectare. Then they put through what they call a regeneration burn, which often kills most of the habitat trees.
"We are talking about forests with a very high conservation value, stuff that has never been touched. There are known endangered species habitats, pristine stream catchments, designated sites of significance, rainforest sites of significance, and they are clear-felling them. This year they intend to clear-fell 7000 hectares, and 96% of that is mature and mostly old growth."
Matthiesson says East Gippsland is "unique in terms of how much knowledge there is about the importance of the area. It has incredibly high rates of bio-diversity. You have warm and cool temperate rainforests, underneath huge eucalyptus forests. It covers 4% of the state and supports 200 rare or endangered species of animals and plants."
Recent studies in East Gippsland and in the Thompson River area show the role of old growth forest in water production. "Old growth forests act like a big sponge", Matthiesson explains. "In time of drought the forests let water out slowly, and in times of flood they store it. So they regulate water flows in streams.
"They also act as a giant filters: you get much cleaner water coming through forests than you would through unforested land or even through regrowth. Regrowth does not have the developed root systems and the same capacity to store, regulate and filter water."
The Victorian government has contracts to supply 174,000 cubic metres of sawlogs from East Gippsland a year and twice that quantity of "residual" logs, which generally go into woodchips. About 77% of all the timber out of old growth East Gippsland forests ends up as woodchips. This doesn't count what is left on the ground.
In April the Kennett government issued licences to Harris Daishowa (which owns a big woodchip mill in Eden, NSW) and Midways, a company in Geelong. They both export woodchips to Japan.
"Harris Daishowa has been operating in Eden since the 1970s and they have done over most of the south-east forests. They been the main culprit responsible for destroying large tracts of wilderness in the south-east of NSW.
"They have now been given a licence to take 20,000 tonnes of timber from East Gippsland. Currently their export licences don't allow them to take whole logs out of Victoria." But those licences are due to be renewed in December, and Harris Daishowa is pushing for that restriction to be dropped.
When an area is clear-felled, only a small percentage of the trees are good for sawlogs. The government says that Harris Daishowa is just picking up what otherwise would be left on the ground.
Matthiesson disagrees. She says that woodchipping of old growth timber actually underpins the whole industry.
"When the state government calculated how much timber they could supply, they included all the national estate forests and all old growth forests outside national parks. They assumed that all of the forest would give them 40 cubic metres of timber per hectare, that they would get 100% regeneration rates and that there would be no bush fires. In fact they are getting 80% regeneration failure rates in the mountain areas in East Gippsland.
"They are having to go into forests which can produce only 20 cubic metres of sawlogs per hectare. Allowing Daishowa to export woodchips makes it economically possible for them to go in and log these sort of areas.
"The contracts are the key to it all. As long as they keep trying to supply an unsustainable amount of timber, we are going to keep seeing old growth forests getting trashed."
Last December all state governments except Tasmania signed the National Forest Policy statement, which says that until assessments are completed, forest management agencies will avoid activities that may significantly affect old growth or wilderness forests which are likely to be of high conservation value.
Large tracts have been identified in East Gippsland as having high conservation values, but the Kennett government is still clear-felling them, contrary to this policy.
"They are going to say that most of it is in national parks and that is enough", says Matthiesson, "when actually only 52% of the old growth is in national parks. That does not take into account the different forest types. If you are on about protecting ecosystems, preserving genetic diversity, you need to preserve all of the different types of forests so that you have the spread of habitats."
The government claims that it doesn't log rainforests, but its definition of rainforest excludes any that has emergent eucalyptus. A rainforest may be hundreds of years old, but if it has eucalyptus growing through the canopy, then it is not a rainforest. They want the eucalyptus, not the rainforest timber anyway, according to FoE.
"They also know that they are cutting a lot more than they can sustain, but they don't really care because they know that there is not going to be a market in 15 years. They think they might as well get it out now while they can still sell it.
"The same with the woodchips. Old growth trees do not produce quality woodchips. In the future they won't be able to sell these lower quality woodchips, and it won't be economically viable to harvest any areas that aren't producing large numbers of sawlogs."
The state government "is subsidising loggers in East Gippsland", Matthiesson points out. "They lost $13.2 million last year, $10.48 million the year before from all state timber harvesting operations. The East Gippsland region makes the greatest loss — $3.7 million — despite producing the most timber in the state. The government pays for all the infrastructure.
"They are replanting areas that are not growing properly. They are blaming wallabies for eating the seedlings. So now they want to use 1080, a noxious poison, to kill the wallabies."
The focus of Victorian environmentalists this summer will be woodchipping and old growth forest logging in East Gippsland, says FoE. Other groups involved in this campaign are the Wilderness Society, Concerned Residents of East Gippsland and Environmental Youth Alliance. The campaign will be calling for:
- an end to logging of old-growth forests;
- recognition of the rights of traditional Aboriginal owners;
- reduction of unsustainable timber yields;
- an end to clear-felling and export woodchipping;
- thorough accounting to reflect the full costs of timber harvesting on publicly owned land.
There will be a forest festival on November 26-29 and an "urban reach-out". The campaign will be launched at Goomberah, in the heart of the forest. This will launch direct action trying to stop the logging in some areas. There will also be protests at some of the mills in the woodchipping areas.