Kangaroo Island plantations a casualty as South Australia burns
Sections of Kangaroo Island’s plantations will be harvested early after large swathes of the forestry industry’s landholdings were affected by the December fires.
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Harvesting of the Kangaroo Island plantations will begin early after almost 1900ha of the region’s biggest timber company’s holdings were affected by the December fires.
Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers has notified shareholders that the areas affected by fires which broke out on December 20 and December 30, were collectively insured for more than $20 million.
“As soon as the fireground is safe, the company will turn its attention to salvage operations, both for its own trees and those of independent growers,” company secretary Victoria Allinson said.
“The salvage of pines and eucalypts that have been killed, but not consumed, by the rapidly moving fire front must be carried out immediately.
“Therefore it will be necessary to bring forward harvest and replanting operations in affected areas, and reschedule operations in unaffected areas that would otherwise have been harvested sooner.”
About 891ha was affected in fires in the Duncan area, which started on December 20, and another 971ha were damaged by blazes which broke out in the Ravine des Casoars Wilderness Protection Area on Monday.
The company hopes to soon win approval for a deepwater port at Smith Bay, so it can export logs and woodchips from the pine and eucalypt trees planted more than 20 years ago.
The plans, costing more than $40 million, have sparked criticism from some local businesses and environmentalists, and are awaiting State Government assessment.
The company said it could not wait until the wharf was complete to harvest the damaged trees as the unburned wood would be further compromised.
Kangaroo Island Plantation Timber executive director John Sergeant said it was likely barges would be used, transporting the affected timber from Kingscote wharf, “hopefully in the coming weeks” – though plans were still being finalised.
About 100 workers would be employed for the early harvest.
“From the island community’s point of view it’s a good thing in that some of the benefits of having the forestry industry mobilise in production are brought forward, though not in circumstances we’d like,” Mr Sergeant said.
However, he said while the fires had affected about 17 per cent of the company’s plantations, several independent growers had lost “potentially everything” in the blazes.
“As tough as it is for us, it’s very bad for them,” Mr Sergeant said.
“As far as they know not all of them are insured. Whatever solution we put in place, we will include them.”
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The company says the seaport is still vital to its operations because barges could not support its full production volumes.
Kangaroo Island Mayor Michael Pengilly said the fires had done “enormous damage” to plantations.
“I question now their viability,” he said. “Not to make light of it, but the reality is that they were always going to burn in these conditions.”
Meantime, the island’s plantations are not out of the woods yet, with another day of extreme fire conditions expected tomorrow.