Environment: Content from Across the ABC


Date/Time 20 Apr 2014 12:00:50am
Tim Frazer

In my article, you will note that I am most critical of the fact that those opposed to timber production on conservation grounds studiously ignore or fail to ever acknowledge that timber production is a minor activity in terms of the proportion of forest area where it occurs.

I would contend that sort of avoidance of factual information about scale and extent has heavily skewed the conventional wisdom about logging and fostered the sort of concerns you are articulating about threatened species where there is an unwarranted belief that "the end is close", as you put it.

Across Victoria, the net harvestable area of public State forest is just 9% of the total area. That means, that the other 91% is effectively acting as a reposity for environmental values, including threatened species and their habitat.

In addition, harvested and regenerated forests are far from biological deserts as they regrow towards the next harvest 80 - 100 years into the future. Indeed, in East Gippsland, VicForests are now finding that endangered species like the Long-footed Potoroo are not uncommon in regrowth just a couple of years after logging.

This whole of landscape appreciation of the balance between forest conservation and use needs to be considered by those who find timber harvesting distasteful. Timber harvesting is in fact a very minor threat to forest ecology, particularly compared to severe bushfires of type we've seen in Victoria in 2003, 06 and 09.