Sawlog supply from the Forestry Corporation of NSW is in extreme shortfall, following natural disasters from fire and flood.
In compartments where bushfires cleared ground cover by more than 75 per cent, work couldn't continue under stringent "world-best" environmental safeguards - the 2018 coastal Integrated Forestry Operations Approvals.
With all this rain the re-growth has powered away, but logging contractors can't access the bush because it's too wet.
Sawlog supply as demanded under contract can't be fulfilled and NSW Forestry Corporation says the natural disaster situation is out of their control and has flagged a force majeure, which relieves them from carrying out contractual obligations. Instead, what wood is available is doled out to customers from the highest bidder down.
Peter Caban, Ellalong via Cessnock, reckons he's at the lowest rung.
The mill operates on the same property the family have occupied since 1823 and when Caban's Rural Fencing was at its peak it employed five men and delivered split post, and rail throughout the Hunter Valley, out to Warren and beyond to South Australia.
These days Mr Caban works by himself, stymied by lack of supply. Under his contract with Forestry Corporation he is guaranteed dozens truckloads every year. In the last financial recording period he took possession of just four.
"I've got nothing to work with," Mr Caban said.
"Forestry Corporation seems to not care about the little guy like me, but I also understand their hands are tied by bureaucracy."
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J. Notaras and Sons hardwood sawmill at South Grafton relies 100 per cent on state forests for its log supply and like everyone else in the industry, is not getting their full contracted quota.
Family company general manager Donna Layton says the impost has to be worn by everyone because the cause is beyond human control.
"Since 2019 when the damage was done by fires we haven't been able to access those lands. The forests we came to rely on are simply not accessible," she said.
Plantation hardwood that was ready for harvest has filled the gap, but being a managed timber supply, previously thinned, there is no salvage wood - directly impacting the likes of Mr Caban.
Logs available at the moment are not what the mill is used to - durability one and two species like white mahogany, ironbark, tallowwood and spotted gum. Instead they are learning to deal with faster-growing, less durable species like messmate and flooded gum.
There's been a learning curve, and for these timbers they must cut oversize and allow for more shrinkage, and warping when kiln dried. The lack of timber supply has forced J Notaras and sons down this path.
"We've been in business for 70 years. "We have been forced to keep the mill going using a different species mix. Either you accept things and change or you get left behind."
In the meantime the future for native hardwood production is good, with very strong demand, and a willing government to back what is left of the industry.
"We have the best controls in the world," she says. "When you import timber you don't know how it was managed."
Forestry Corporation is in a no-win position at the moment, with pressure from its bureaucratic opposite, the EPA fed by members of a passionate public about breaches of law. Fines accumulated from wrong practice over the past two years has been publicly released by the EPA in the last month totalling more than half a million dollars.
Forestry Corporation won't comment other than to say that as an arm of government, it is only doing its duty.
CEO of Timber NSW Maree McCaskill has considerable experience defending the timber industry at a political level and says Forestry Corporation is being harangued by its state government counter-part the Environmental Protection Agency.
"The EPA has the upper hand," she says. "The Coastal IFOA is so complex it has been made impossible to comply with and the various environment groups along with the EPA stalk every operation and wait for the opportunity to breach Forestry Corporation."
"There is more government support for Private Native Forestry but should state forest supply go the way of Victoria and Western Australia, then PNF might only supply 30pc to 35pc of demand.
"PNF or plantations will never replace supply from state forests," she said. "And yet smaller family mills in regional areas often are the only source of employment. There's not enough work as a tour guide."
"Even with timber supply improving through better management it will be decades before that happens. People have no idea about time frames when it comes to timber."
Ms McCaskill said Forestry Corporation appears to be accepting the EPA fines rather than challenge the charges in court.
"And yet one third of the fines were for a handful of trees," she says. "And many of the incidents were before the fires."
