Plantation vs. Old Growth Timber

Make the right choice in timber - our forests are in your hands!

• In Australia, there still exists the common myth that the only way to get wood is by logging native forests. In fact, there is another way of obtaining wood and that is by harvesting it from plantations. Despite this, and the fact that the timber industry could flourish through production of plantation timbers alone, the relentless logging of our native forests continues at a faster rate than ever before.

• By using native forest sawlogs, you are not only accounting for that particular log but for all the timber that was clearfelled in order to obtain it. In places like East Gippsland, 85 percent of forests ends-up as woodchips or waste in order that the logging corporations can take their 15 percent of usable sawlogs. In NSW and Tasmania, this figure can be as high as 95 percent woodchips or waste.

• Despite woodchipping being the driving force behind forest destruction, the timber industry claims that native forest operations are "sawlog-driven", ie, driven by the demand for sawlogs. By using native forest timbers, we are effectively validating woodchipping operations.

• The timber industry needs to shift its focus and energies out of old growth forests and into plantations - this is the only sustainable alternative. There are more than enough plantations to meet current and expanding needs. 4

• You, as a consumer, can help save our native forests and help to ensure that the industry moves into the already-existing plantations. Only use timber that is plantation-grown or recycled.

THE FUTURE OF THE TIMBER INDUSTRY

• The future for the Australian timber industry is in plantations. This is not wishful thinking, but hard commercial fact. Plantation timber has many advantages over native forest timber. Plantations already supply the majority of our domestic timber needs. A recent study of the wood products industry in Victoria predicts that the amount of sawlogs will double over the 1990's, with a further doubling possible in the following decade. This situation is similar throughout Australia.

• While the timber industry continues to stubbornly persist in logging native forests, it is consequently destroying our priceless natural heritage and actually reducing employment. Tourism based on our spectacular native forests has enormous potential.

• There is great potential for the timber industry to expand without logging native forests. The role of the consumer (you and me) in speeding-up the transition to use of plantation timber is very important. Never use any Australian timber unless it is grown on plantations. Remember that using plantations now makes dollars and a great deal of sense!

1. See also the article The Case for Plantations, by Sean Cadman of the Native Forest Network.

2. The Wilderness Society is just one of many conservation groups which wants to see an immediate end to all old growth forest logging. (See Forest Activist Groups in the Alternative Directory).

3. This seemingly outlandish figure of 3000 football fields per day being cleared was the 1990 estimate. It may be close to double that amount now, as the end of the millenium approaches. The Biodiversity Unit of the Commonwealth Dept of Environment, Sport & Territories stated that, for 1994, permits for the clearing of 1,079,297 hectares of land were granted in Queensland alone. (Refer to the book, The National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity - see Books, Miscellaneous in the Alternative Directory.)

4. While it is widely accepted that the timber industry needs to shift out of native forest logging with all haste, it is by no means a consensus viewpoint that there is presently in place sufficient plantation resource "for our current and expanding needs". If the end-use of some plantation softwood entails, for example, it's being treated with toxic chemical preservatives, then there remains a cloud over its eligibility for being deemed a responsibly used resource. Quantities of durable softwoods and hardwoods are not yet available, so preservative-dependent timber will be an unfortunate fact of life for some time to come.