The sixth NSW Parliamentary inquiry into the future of forestry, this time at Coffs Harbour on Friday, highlighted the great gulf between ethics and industry while sawlog supply through Forest Corp has never been tighter - and in direct opposition to strong demand for timber.
Chaired by Shooters Fishers and Farmers legislative committee member Mark Banasiak, with his deputy and Labor member Mick Veitch, the inquiry heard first hand the impractical constraints on log harvesting crews trying to fell timber in an ever tightening stronghold from state protection legislation.
Committed conservationists pleaded with the other five members of the panel to recognise the critical importance of older forests for their role in buffering climate extremes while providing habitat for bio-diversity at a time of extinction.
The squeeze for saw log resource has never been tighter, with much more land under protection than being managed for silviculture. Timber NSW continues to point out that with 90 per cent of NSW's forests protected in national parks and reserves (80 per cent, or almost 6 million hectares) or in State Forest Reserves and protected areas (10 per cent, or about 1 million hectares), and only 30,000ha selectively harvested each year and then regenerated as required by law. Out of two million hectares of state forest just 2 per cent of NSW native forests are harvested for timber each year.
However, with environmental change upon us and voter concern for climate action never so anxious, the argument to lock it up and leave it grows louder, as was evidenced at Coffs Harbour.
The worry that NSW will follow Victoria's lead, as will WA, and ban all native forest logging, was voiced by logging contractors like Craig McPherson, Grafton, manager of Tableland Timbers. His concerns have been echoed by other North Coast contractors who won't invest in such an uncertain future.
Tableland Timbers Craig McPherson, Grafton, works the Eastern forests from the Queensland border to Taree, all of it in private native forestry, as the left-over quota his is awarded from state-owned Forestry Corporation doesn't provide the quality of timber his market requires.
Meanwhile the inquiry heard from Keith Davidson, formerly Boral now general manager domestic operations with Victorian-based Pentarch Forestry, who said 90 per cent of his company's sawlog supply came from state forests with their contract running until 2028. The member panel also noted Pentarch was the preferred blackbutt harvesting contractor.
If the koala national park becomes a reality, the loss of supply in state forests will push the larger contractors out of state forests and into private native forestry, a scenario feared by Mr McPherson who told the inquiry there was only enough resource on private forested land for existing mills.
"If there is a reduction in state forest access that will put us under enormous pressure," he said. "and probably put us out of business."
Ecologist and solo-tourist guide from Bellingen, Mark Graham told the inquiry that run-off from healthy, mature forests was a benefit to agriculture, fishing and tourism.
Long-time forest campaigner Dailan Pugh, North East Forest Alliance, argued there was no trust between the industry and environmentalists, claiming Forestry Corporation had gazetted areas of native forests as plantations when there was no sign of previous planting. He also cited examples where contractors employed by government cleared native forest to plant hardwood trees for commercial logging.
Mr Davidson pointed out that in the natural sequence of plants, a harvest coup eventually dropped in quality output to the point where it had to be "re-set", and all non-performing trunks removed. The regrowth that followed in the Coffs Harbour hinterland was typically dominated by blackbutt, and might look like a plantation but was not.
The difference of opinion between what a well managed forest looked like appears unbridgeable, with Forestry Corp telling the parliamentary panel that best practice silviculture involves a young forest producing saleable logs, not a mess of limbs, while environmentalists argued for well managed forestry that embraced diversity and drained clean.
The debate continues.
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