Kangaroo Island Mayor Michael Pengilly wants future forestry on the island forbidden
As Kangaroo Island burns, its mayor wants all future forestry “written off the agenda”. But the forestry boss says the trees can be part of the solution, not the problem.
SA News
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Kangaroo Island Mayor Michael Pengilly says he wants forestry “forbidden” on the island after this month’s devastating bushfires.
In a blunt message as fires threatened Parndana and Vivonne Bay last night, Mr Pengilly said forestry on the island had been “a categorical disaster”.
“These blue gum plantations and pine plantations have made it almost impossible to control fires when they come out of parks, because they just act like giant wicks that drag it through and then we can’t get on top of them,” he told The Advertiser.
“I want to see forestry written off the agenda on Kangaroo Island.”
Mr Pengilly also called for SA’s Native Vegetation Act to be reviewed “as a matter of urgency”. He also wanted more cool-season burns, including in national parks. During fire seasons, property owners can’t burn off unless they have a permit from the council.
Thirteen growers have plantations on the island but Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers owns 86 per cent of them and 14,000ha.
KIPT executive director John Sergeant said forestry could act as a fire break, as seen during the island’s 2007 fires – as long as plantations had a combination of juvenile and fully grown trees. “(Juveniles) hold a lot of moisture and they’re more succulent so they’re not good fuel,” he said.
Mr Sergeant said if the company had a seaport – as proposed at Smith Bay – it would have harvested a significant amount of its trees already.
But the $40 million plan has received tough criticism from the community.
Mr Sergeant said the state needed to get better at controlling fire at the edge of national parks, with parks and native vegetation comprising about 10 times the area that forestry did.
“The Ravine fire burned for four days in the national park before it emerged and caused all this damage,” he said.
“It is mischievous for Michael to say that forestry was a particular problem in this fire.”
Roadside vegetation, tourist accommodation – everything in the path of that fire burned. Plantations weren’t singled out but no-one was spared and the fire was uncontrollable.”
Mr Sergeant said about 90 per cent of the business’s blue gum and pine plantations had been damaged in the fires, and independent growers had 100 per cent of their trees affected.
That left the company with a significant salvage task, and it hoped to begin harvesting the trees as soon as possible, likely using barges to remove them from the island.
The process would provide employment for about 200 people, Mr Sergeant said.
“I think forestry can play a key part in Kangaroo Island’s recovery at a time when agriculture and tourism are really suffering,” he said.