By Lisa Macdonald
SYDNEY — The new Labor government announced its forests industry reform plan for NSW on June 13. A central plank of the ALP's state election campaign in March, the plan has been cautiously welcomed by the peak environment bodies and the forestry industry and unions.
The plan includes a nine-month assessment of forest values throughout the state, to begin this month. At the end of the assessment, old-growth forests judged to be of high conservation value will be protected by a moratorium.
Logging will be stopped in all wilderness areas and several old growth forests during the assessment process. This will begin within three months, with logging accelerated in regrowth forests to compensate.
The assessment is accompanied by cuts in sawlog quotas by 30% in most areas and 40% in the south-east forests from July 1, 1996. This will result in a reduction in output from NSW of about 300,000 cubic metres per year and a loss in government revenue of approximately $10 million. The loss will be partly offset by a rise in the price of sawlogs from $35 to $50 per cubic metre to start next month.
The government has also agreed to spend $47 million to double the area of land under hardwood plantation by 1988 and to restructure timber supply agreements to ensure that these include financial commitments to add value to timber taken from NSW forests.
The announcement also includes a one-year moratorium on logging in forests in areas nominated for the promised 24 new national parks in NSW, while park boundaries are defined. The initial planning boundaries for the first four of these parks have been announced; they incorporate areas in the Richmond Ranges, Hervey Ranges, Coolah Tops and Tuross.
The plan represents a partial victory in the environment movement's campaign to protect old-growth forests and force a change to sustainable forestry practices in the state. Dailan Pugh from the North East Forest Alliance commented on June 13 that the announcement "means that the areas targeted by the previous government will be much safer. Bob Carr has started to deliver his pre-election promises."
Commenting on the pricing reforms, Peter Wright from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) added: "We should soon see logging companies paying more for the environmental and production costs which, until now, have been borne by the taxpayer and the environment".
However, the plan does contain some major problems for conservationists and timber workers alike.
As well as failing to protect either forests on private lands or those currently being logged west of the Great Divide during the assessment process, the plan does not address the most rapacious section of the timber industry — woodchipping.
The reduction in quotas applies only to sawlogs, thereby leaving all woodchipping operations intact. This means, for example, that 90% of the timber felled in south-east NSW, that taken by woodchipping giant Harris Daishowa, will continue unabated.
South East Forest Alliance spokesperson Noel Plumb points out that the proposed 40% cut in sawlog quotas in the south-east forests "actually means that there is only a 4% reduction in the timber taken from these forests".
He added, "The government also announced that it would stop logging in all old-growth forests within three months. However, it has since advised the Alliance that this does not apply in the south-east over a large area where old growth stands have been left in logged compartments for a later cutting cycle. State Forests has claimed that only 3% of remaining production forests in the south-east is old growth."
The plan also fails to address the problem of the 1993 timber supply agreements between the state government and Boral and Daishowa, which commit State Forests to supply these multinationals with timber for 20 years. The Carr government has previously announced that it considers these agreements to be legally binding, thereby putting enormous pressure on regrowth forests if logging in all old growth and wilderness areas is actually halted pending regional assessment.
Timber corporations have obtained the government's agreement to hold an inquiry into timber allocations and pricing by the Government Pricing Tribunal.
They are also signalling that they intend to bypass the effect of the new quotas in NSW by transferring their operations to the East Gippsland forests in Victoria. There, under the Kennett government's East Gippsland Forest Management Plan released last month, they will have free rein to extract unlimited quantities of timber.
Industry profits are far more secure than jobs as a result of this plan. While trade union leaders have given it their stamp of approval, many questions relating to workers' rights remain unanswered.
The government admits, for example, that it has no idea how many jobs the plan will cost. Claims by the Liberal opposition that 7000 jobs will go have been denied by the government. But even if only half that number of workers are affected, the $60 million promised for a retraining and redeployment package would provide for less than six months' salary per worker.
Even that is not yet assured. The government admitted on June 14 that it was unsure if it could access money which it is relying on to fund the package; at present it is held in three trust funds established in 1990 to promote environmental and educational projects.
It is estimated that the average pay-out to retrenched workers will be only $15,000.
The federal Labor government's Forest Industry Statement, expected in July, will further shape the future of wilderness areas, and native and old-growth forests in NSW. In the meantime, the response of conservationists, the trade unions and industry to the NSW plan will no doubt be watched carefully by the federal government.
There are indications that the environment movement's campaign to save the forests has caused some headaches. Commenting on the NSW plan, George Day of Boral Ltd told the Sydney Morning Herald on June 14, "If it is going to put an end to all the arguing and let us get on with our business ... we can accept it".
Statements such as these underline the need for the environment movement to step up the campaign again, to take it to the next stage of building broader and more active opposition to the destruction of our native forests and to woodchipping in particular.