As much as I like to see wilderness and forested areas kept intact and untouched, the reality is that we need to harvest timber and it needs to come from somewhere. I say this should be allowed, but should be regulated and done with all viewpoints considering the surrounding community, forest, and other interests kept in mind.
From certain forestry perspectives, fully maintaining an old growth forest is seen as extremely economically unproductive, as timber can only be collected from falling trees, and also potentially damaging to nearby managed groves by creating environments beneficial to root rot. From this view, it may be more productive to cut the old growth down and replace the forest with a younger one.
The island of Tasmania, just off the south east coast of Australia has the largest amount of temperate old-growth rainforest reserves in Australia with approximately 1,239,000 hectares in total.While the local Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) was originally designed to protect much of this natural wealth, many of the RFA old growth forests protected in Tasmania consist of trees of little use to the timber industry. RFA old growth and high conservation value forests that contain species highly desirable to the forestry industry have been poorly reserved. Only 22% of Tasmania’s original tall-eucalypt forests managed by Forestry Tasmania have been reserved. Ten thousand hectares of tall-eucalypt RFA old growth forest have been lost since 1996, predominantly as a result of industrial logging operations. In 2006, approximately 61,000 hectares of tall-eucalypt RFA old growth forests remained unprotected. Recent logging attempts in the Upper Florentine Valley have sparked a series of protests and media attention over the arrests that have taken place in this area. Additionally, Gunns Limited, the primary forestry contractor in Tasmania has been under recent criticism by political and environmental groups over its practice of woodchipping timber harvested from old growth forests.
In Australia, there still exists the common myth that the only way to get wood is by logging native forests. However, there is another way of obtaining wood and that is by harvesting it from plantations. Despite this, and the fact that the timber industry could flourish through production of plantation timbers alone, the relentless logging of our native forests continues at a faster rate than ever before.
From certain forestry perspectives, fully maintaining an old growth forest is seen as extremely economically unproductive, as timber can only be collected from falling trees, and also potentially damaging to nearby managed groves by creating environments beneficial to root rot. From this view, it may be more productive to cut the old growth down and replace the forest with a younger one.
The island of Tasmania, just off the south east coast of Australia has the largest amount of temperate old-growth rainforest reserves in Australia with approximately 1,239,000 hectares in total.While the local Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) was originally designed to protect much of this natural wealth, many of the RFA old growth forests protected in Tasmania consist of trees of little use to the timber industry. RFA old growth and high conservation value forests that contain species highly desirable to the forestry industry have been poorly reserved. Only 22% of Tasmania’s original tall-eucalypt forests managed by Forestry Tasmania have been reserved. Ten thousand hectares of tall-eucalypt RFA old growth forest have been lost since 1996, predominantly as a result of industrial logging operations. In 2006, approximately 61,000 hectares of tall-eucalypt RFA old growth forests remained unprotected. Recent logging attempts in the Upper Florentine Valley have sparked a series of protests and media attention over the arrests that have taken place in this area. Additionally, Gunns Limited, the primary forestry contractor in Tasmania has been under recent criticism by political and environmental groups over its practice of woodchipping timber harvested from old growth forests.
In Australia, there still exists the common myth that the only way to get wood is by logging native forests. However, there is another way of obtaining wood and that is by harvesting it from plantations. Despite this, and the fact that the timber industry could flourish through production of plantation timbers alone, the relentless logging of our native forests continues at a faster rate than ever before.