State Government committed $151 million to ecological thinning days before native logging ban came into effect

Just days before the end of native logging, the State Government committed more than $150 million to cut down trees with local industry questioning why they could not have continued to access the timber? The planned removal of trees from native forests will be done as part of ecological thinning - a practice that fells trees in order to maintain forest health. Forestry consultant John Clarke agreed thinning is an important element of maintaining forest health, but said he disagreed with the Government’s strategy of focusing on younger trees and was “blown away” by the budgeted cost. “It’s a huge sum of taxpayers money,” he said. “Why can’t timber harvesting just continue on a commercial basis, where the product is sold? “It’s weird . . . it just doesn’t make sense to me as a forester.” However the Forest Products Commission said the ecological thinning would focus on smaller regrowth forest rather than the bigger sawlog-producing trees desired by industry. The Government’s mid-year financial projections statement - signed off on December 19, 12 days before the native logging ban came into effect on New Year’s Day - showed a new commitment totalling $151 million over the next three and a half years to the practice. Up until the end of June, $21m has been budgeted for ecological thinning with $41m, $43m and $46m in expenditure respectively planned for each of the next three financial years. The recently-released forest management plan says the practice is of growing importance in a heating and drying climate. “Ecological thinning aims to reduce competition between trees and facilitate persistence of the remaining vegetation, thereby maintaining greater structural diversity of habitat types,” it reads. “This may also enhance forest resilience to high-intensity bushfires, help maintain carbon stores, and support the development of tree hollows for a variety of species.” A spokesperson for the Forest Products Commission said commercial logging and ecological thinning “do not produce a similar resource”. “Commercial logging targets the most valuable timber (large sawlogs) rather than the timber required to be removed for ecological health (usually smaller material with little commercial value),” the spokesperson said. “Many of the issues of over stocked areas that ecological thinning will address was at least in part created by commercial harvesting that targeted sawlogs and left behind any resource that had no commercial value.” The spokseperson said the commission and Forestry Minister Jackie Jarvis were in “constant contact” with the remaining sawmills in the region.