Choosing a Future for Victoria's Forests

On 7th September 2006 MyEnvironment, along with other members of the Victorian Forest Alliance, released detailing a plan for Victoria's forests that spells a brighter future for our wildlife, air and water, while also offering a comprehensive transition strategy for the logging industry.

The report details specific areas across eastern Victoria that require immediate protection. The document is underpinned by sound economics and strong science.

The report calls for the protection of 400,000 ha old-growth forest estate, 623,000 ha water supply catchments, habitat vital for many threatened and endangered species as well as securing corridors that will connect coastal dunes to alpine mountains. These corridors will enable plants and animals to move freely across the landscape when climate change occurs.

The protection of 970,000 hectares of public native forests will ensure substantially more water flows in rivers and dams, a large volume of carbon is stored in forests and many species are pulled back from the brink of extinction.

Forests are core to any equation that attempts to ameliorate catastrophic changes to our climate. An old growth-forest stores carbon, when the forest is logged and burnt the carbon is released as carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas. Research has found that if one hectare of old-growth forest is logged it is equivalent to the emissions given off by 250 motor vehicles over and entire year

Protecting these areas is finally possible because of the available and growing wood volumes in plantations. Victoria presently has the largest plantation estate in Australia. This growing volume of wood means that it is now possible to move 98% of the logging out of native forests and into plantations.

This transition is already being driven by the market as is evident by the increasing demand for softwood (pine) and a corresponding decline in demand for hardwood.

The market demand will continue to drive this type of transition. However, it is critical that these types of transitions out of native forest are done in a structured way – by this we mean that core areas should be protected and the transition out of native forests made to occur in areas outside the proposed protected area network.

It is possible to protect two thirds of the native forest estate and transition the logging industry out of the remaining unprotected areas over the next ten to fifteen years.

The transition into plantations should be accompanied by a corresponding injection of government funding into tourism such as has successfully occurred in other countries. In New Zealand’s south island, the west coast was historically dependent on logging – the forests were protected in 1999 and towns once dependent on logging are now thriving tourism hubs. Figures show that the regional economies are flourishing as a result of tourism and growing five times faster than when logged was the main economic driver. The report proposes that government invest in Milford sound type tracks in East Gippsland one of the gems in Victoria’s crown. There are also such proposals for tracks in the Central Highlands.