Science behind axing native forest logging is clear

Hardwood sawmills and native forests can both be spared, writes Nick Legge.

Mountain Ash, being loaded onto a logging truck by a log gripping crane at the Erica Forest ready to be sent to the mill in Heyfield. Picture: Paul Trezise

Peter Hunt’s article reporting the latest salvo by two Gippsland councils to keep native forest logging going beyond 2030, (“Dan tight-lipped on logging,” WT, May 5) misses the mark.

The transformation of Victoria’s native forest timber industry from sustainable to unsustainable was principally a result of the three megafires of the 2000s — the Alpine fire of 2003, the Great Divide fires of summer 2006-07 and the Black Saturday fire of 2009.

The Heyfield sawmill and the Maryvale pulp and paper mill both depend on ash forest logs for their supply, but 189,000ha of ash forest was killed in these fires.

The fires of the summer of 2019-20 killed a further 70,000ha so together with past logging we now face a situation where more than half of all Victoria’s ash forests, including those in national parks, is under 20 years of age.

Since alpine ash and mountain ash don’t generally set seed until at least 15 years of age, this places our ash forest estate at risk of decimation in future megafires which a hotter, drier climate make increasingly likely.

Four peer-reviewed, published scientific studies from four institutions in six years, and multiple scientific reviews have debunked the claim advanced by many pro-logging advocates that logging protects our forests from fire.

It is now clear that allowing Victoria’s mature forests to grow into old growth forest is the safest way of safeguarding the forests’ future.

For example, on Mt Disappointment the catastrophic Kilmore fire in Victoria in 2009 burned slower and with less intensity in tall, wet, old-growth forest.

The Maryvale mill may experience a shortfall in eucalypt pulplog supply when logging ceases, but with a modest state government transport subsidy, Nippon Paper could buy some of the woodchips slated for export from western Victorian plantations until new local plantations come on stream.

Unless they can secure logs from elsewhere, Victoria’s existing hardwood sawmills will need to close, but if the state and commonwealth governments were to fund the rapid expansion of new hardwood plantations on already cleared land, the hardwood sawmilling industry could rise once more.

● Nick Legge is a former forestry lecturer and Victorian Government policy adviser and is also member of the Rubicon Forest Protection Group

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