Save native forests!
By Graham Matthews On December 1, the federal government released final details of the forest areas to be protected by the Deferred Forest Assessment (DFA) process. The package, supposedly the culmination of months of "scientific deliberation" and public consultation to determine which areas should be assigned to creating a world-class forest reserve system, has all the hallmarks of a clever pre-election balancing act. While it is being sold by the federal ALP as a "win-win solution", in fact the package guarantees the continued existence of an unsustainable woodchip industry in native forests, and facilitates the forestry corporations' project of restructuring the industry to shed more jobs. From an environmental point of view, the package represents little progress. "The bottom line is that the [federal] government has failed to protect the forests", Sid Walker, executive officer of the NSW Nature Conservation Council told
Green Left Weekly. He said the government's final draft of areas to be given interim protection fails to protect the most ecologically important forests — the very areas which should be the basis of any genuine reserve system. "They've allowed the forestry commission to pick first, and called the rest DFAs", Walker said. The only areas added to the list for protection in NSW were "the bulk of the pine plantations east of the ranges", along with areas logged only months ago, he said. The Whian Whian state forest near Murwillumbah in northern NSW, which contains at least 23 endangered plants and at least one endangered animal, have been excluded from protection. Elsewhere, CSR's new plantation-based mill and particle board plant at Bombala will have to be shut down because the pine plantations it relies on were included for protection! The federal government's decision represents "non-legislated resource security guarantees" for the timber industry, WA Greens Senator Christabel Chamarette told
Green Left. Chamarette criticised the Prime Minister's statement, "The Future of Our Forests", which claims to set a course for sustainable growth in the native forest industry. "The whole use of the word sustainable has been coopted by them", Chamarette said. "We can't have a 'sustainable industry' while increasing destruction [of the forests]." Released along with the final DFA maps were the woodchip export quotas for 1996. While formally reducing export quotas by 0.8 million tonnes (11%), this decrease still allows the industry to harvest 5.25 million tonnes in 1996, the same amount as in 1995, and more than in 1994. At the same time, all federal government controls on the export of woodchips from plantations have been removed. This will encourage the timber industry to use hardwood plantations for woodchips and may threaten the long-term viability of the saw-log industry. As a contribution to "value adding" to forest products, the federal government also decided to include the "granting of authority to construct a bleach-based pulp mill for Tasmania", Chamarette said. If and when the state governments sign the Regional Forest Agreements and complete the DFA process, the power to determine woodchip export quotas will devolve to the states. This, according to Chamarette, is the federal government "washing its hands". While the small reduction in woodchip quotas announced was a victory for the environment movement which ran a campaign over 1994/1995 against the quota increase, it has largely been a pyrrhic one. Only a small amount of high conservation forest has been set aside for protection, and much may be lost to the woodchip industry. National conservation groups, while critical of the government's decision, were still considering their next moves. However, local environment groups in south east of NSW are taking action to protect what remains of old-growth forest. While expressing their general support for the package, the timber corporations' National Association of Forest Industries has made it clear that they plan to use the small cut in the woodchip export quotas as a convenient excuse to continue their drive to restructure the industry and shed more jobs. Executive director of NAFI, Robert Bain, was quick to announce on December 1 that "cutting [the woodchip export quota of] Harris Daishowa [by 20%] will mean a 30% cut in jobs in the East Gippsland area". But the number of jobs in the timber industry has already been cut by 40% over the last 25 years. Over the same period, timber extracted from forests increased by 40%. These job losses have clearly not been the result of areas of forest being reserved from logging. Rather they have largely been the consequence of the restructuring of woodchipping from a labour-intensive to a capital-intensive industry. Today, woodchipping accounts for 74% of Australia's forest product export earnings, uses 45% of native forest timber, and employs less than 2% of the timber work force (around 800 jobs nationally). A woodchipping-driven restructuring of the industry is what is costing jobs, not the reservation of forests areas for protection. As part of the package, the federal government has also allocated $107 million for "industry adjustment" (including retrenchment "assistance" for workers affected by the rescheduling of logging areas; relocation and retraining of workers; road construction in new logging areas; and as yet undefined "business assistance"). In addition to the $38 million grant for "industry development", this represents another huge government subsidy for the timber corporations. A major contribution to the timber corporations' increasing — and in some cases, record — profits in recent years has been the enormous government subsidies to the industry. According to a 1992 study by the Economic Planning and Advisory Council, Australian taxpayers have already subsidised the timber industry to the tune of $5 billion over the last 70 years. It is yet to be seen exactly how much of these funds will go to improve the employment chances of those timber workers who are laid off as a result of the government package. They must be protected, and the companies — not other workers — should pay. To increase the level of public subsidisation of the massively destructive timber companies illustrates, yet again, the federal ALP's willingness to put their corporate mates' profits ahead of the environment.