Taking Timber Production Out Of The Woods
The Age
Friday June 1, 2007
FARM foresters in Victoria have united in a bid to boost private forestry's role in Australian timber production.
Eleven private forestry groups have banded together to push the state and federal governments to develop a long-term strategy for the farm forestry sector.The groups decided on an action plan after holding a meeting at the University of Melbourne's school of forestry in Creswick.Group spokesman and convener Andrew Lang said private farm forestry had the potential to dramatically expand to help fill the gap in timber production left by drastic cuts in native forest sawlog allocations.More than 800 private operators in 12 farm forestry groups have 10,000 hectares of hardwood and softwood wood lots, with much of the hardwood plantings of more than 5000 hectares managed for sawlog production.Mr Lang, a Western District farm forester and member of the State Government's Sustainable Timber Industry Council, said this area of forest was equal to 500,000 tonnes of hardwood sawlogs."In addition to these groups, more than 200 presently unaffiliated growers have about 2000 to 3000 hectares of plantings," he said.Mr Lang said the sector had the expertise, land and willingness to greatly expand these plantings. "An expansion of 100,000 hectares of strategically sited farm wood lots would be quite feasible," he said.This would use less than 2 per cent of the more suitable arable land and have little impact on run-off and ground water.However, it would have "a significant impact on salinity, habitat, farm productivity and regional economics".Mr Lang said over 30 years, farm forestry areas could be extended to even 500,000 hectares. "This area of perhaps 5 per cent of arable land would be largely in the lower rainfall areas (400 to 700 millimetres)," he said. "Environmental benefits, farm productivity and carbon sequestration impacts would be enormous."However, Mr Lang said new farm forestry plantings were at their lowest level for many years. "Extension officer numbers have almost halved since 2002, and government support for the sector is similarly reduced," he said.The Creswick meeting resolved to work with Australian Forest Growers to lobby the Victorian and federal governments on farm forestry, and to develop a broader economic analysis of the sector.This would put a value on environmental benefits, biomass, carbon sequestration, farm productivity, regional economic benefits and the contribution to timber production.The groups are also looking for a long-term commitment to fund research and grower groups to ensure there is no loss of accumulated expertise, progress and long-term data.Those at the Creswick meeting included agroforestry groups from the Otways, Wimmera, South West and Gippsland, and forestry groups from the north-east, Shepparton, Ballarat and the Box-Ironbark region.The meeting was KEY POINTS ? Private forestry groups are pushing for a long-term strategy for the farm forestry sector.? They say private farm forestry has the potential to fill the gap in timber production.LINK? www.afg.asn.au
© 2007 The Age