Queensland focused on evidence-based plan to build future homes

The peak state body for the forest and timber industry in Queensland is focused on future growth delivered by evidence-based solutions following the positive first meeting of the Timber Supply Chain Ministerial Roundtable.

Timber Queensland CEO Mick Stephens said “We welcome the commitment by the State Government to work with industry on improving our timber supply chains to meet ever growing demand for future housing and construction needs. This includes the target of building 1 million new homes in Queensland over the next two decades.”

“We can identify key actions to support this target through boosting our plantation softwood and native forestry resources along with wood processing in order to build and furnish more homes and buildings with renewable local timber materials,” Mr Stephens said.

“We also recognise the broader social and environmental benefits from supporting this essential industry, including regional jobs and economic development, maintaining healthy forests and reducing our emissions in the built environment.”

“Given these upsides, we look forward to working on a bold plan that delivers policy certainty to increase sustainable production while at the same time safeguarding the environment. Both plantations and well-managed native forests will play a key role in the plan,” Mr Stephens said.

“We care about our industry, our people and our environment. That is why we support the role of active forest management that can generate a wide range of ecosystem services, including carbon storage, recreational opportunities and wood fibre, that generate considerable benefits for people while also conserving biodiversity.”

The assumption that harvesting timber from native forests is necessarily harmful to biodiversity is not correct and there is strong evidence that forests need to be managed actively.

“This approach is in direct contrast to the views of some activist groups with ideological notions that forest reservation is the only way to deliver conservation outcomes. This rigid view fails to stack up against the evidence on the environmental benefits from well-managed native forestry.”

This evidence, particularly for species such as koalas and gliders, includes:

• long term research into koala abundance in the native forests of north-east NSW, with no difference in population densities in harvested state forests and national parks, noting key threats to koalas include disease, clearing for urban development and dog attacks;
• a cost-benefit study which found that state forests delivered better biodiversity outcomes and other economic and social benefits than if they were managed as national parks in South-East Queensland;
• recent surveys with a higher abundance of greater gliders in state forests in northern NSW than in nearby national parks, with twice the density in state forests; and
• broader carbon and biodiversity benefits from maintaining a hardwood timber industry in Queensland taking into account risks from imports and local environmental best practice.

“We are not surprised by the findings, given state forests are managed in accordance with codes of forest practice to maintain healthy fauna populations with timber, recreation and biodiversity outcomes.”

“The fact that sightings of gliders in forests that have been selectively harvested for 100 years in Queensland are being used by some activists as a rationale for changing their tenure just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t pass the pub test,” Mr Stephens said.

We support state forests as important environmental assets which contrast against the challenges of many national parks that do not benefit from the same active stewardship that state forests receive. Key issues in the parks include:

• pest and weed infestations;
• feral animal predations on local fauna;
• altered fire regimes such as a lack of active fuel reduction and risks of intense fires;
• a lack of access trails and road networks for fire management and suppression (compared to native forestry);
• high susceptibility to drought, fire and disease in the case of overstocked forests with a high density of suppressed and competing trees;
• no advantages from selective harvesting in the landscape with a diversity of habitat and foraging resources as in the case with state forests; 
• poor carbon abatement outcomes compared with state forests which include forest sequestration and carbon storage in wood products, and substitution with steel and concrete; 
• no revenues from timber harvesting to help pay for related infrastructure (e.g. campsites, mountain bike tracks, roads) and environmental management; and
• a lack of independent monitoring, certification or accountability of actual conservation outcomes compared with state forests that have internationally recognised PEFC sustainability certification.