Environment groups say logging should end sooner as state government unveils $120m in industry assistance

This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

Native forest logging will be phased out in Victoria by 2030 and logging of old growth forests will cease immediately under a plan to transition the state’s timber industry.

Announcing the plan on Thursday, the Andrews government said it would provide $120m in financial assistance to the sector, which has been under increasing pressure in recent years.

The government will extend existing forestry agreements until 2024, after which native timber supply will be reduced before ending in 2030. The industry will be transitioned to plantation-based supply.

The premier, Daniel Andrews, said an immediate halt to the logging of old growth forests would protect about 90,000 hectares.

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The government says it will also protect another 96,000 hectares of Victorian forest from logging in order to preserve habitat for the greater glider, which is listed as vulnerable under Australian environment law, and other threatened species.

The $120m package for workers will include money for training programs, employment assistance and top-ups to redundancy payments.

“This industry is going through a transition. It means it’s not good enough for us to merely cross our fingers and hope for the best. We need a plan to support workers and support jobs,” Andrews said.

The state’s timber sector has been under growing pressure in recent years due to declining sustainable timber supply.

Environment groups have opposed the continued logging of native forests, which has destroyed habitat for native species including Victoria’s faunal emblem, the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum.

VicForests would have lost money for the past three years were it not for skyrocketing payments from the government not to log areas where the Leadbeater’s possum is found, the company’s annual reports show.

VicForests declared a profit before tax of $4m in the 2018-19 financial year but would have made a loss of almost $7m if it were not for $11m in government payments not to log possum habitat.

The possum subsidy was almost double the $5.5m in taxpayer’s money handed over the previous year.

And last year’s handout reflects an almost tenfold growth from the $1.3m contribution in 2015, the year VicForests first started accounting for payments under the possum program.

Thursday’s announcement will be met with opposition from the industry.

The Australia Forest Products Association said it would lead to “the loss of thousands of jobs and the withdrawal of key investment in many regional and rural centres across the state”.

“The Andrews Government has also seriously underestimated the pride most Australians, including those in our cities, have in our primary industry sector,” the association’s chief executive, Ross Hampton, said.

Environment groups say the plan is a welcome first step but the end of native forest logging should come sooner than 2030.

The Wilderness Society’s Victorian campaigns manager, Amelia Young, said the transition plan was a step towards bringing forest management into line with community expectations and supporting regional workers through a period of “inevitable change”.

“For too long, Victoria’s native forests have been badly managed and overlogged,” she said.

“The industry’s future is in plantations and recycled fibre, which is where security lies for the 1,000 workers remaining in the industry. We welcome the government’s long-overdue acknowledgement of this,” she said.

She said the Andrews government should put in place immediate protection for the forests that would now be exempt from logging.

The Australian Conservation Foundation said an immediate end to old growth logging would protect some of Victoria’s most spectacular and intact forests and the exemption for 96,000 hectares for the greater glider was also good news.

But Jess Abrahams, a nature campaigner at the ACF, said ending native forest logging in 2030 “is just too slow for the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum, which is on the brink of extinction”.

“The transition, and any payouts, must be fully locked in and bedded down to prevent a future government trying to bring a zombie native forest logging industry back to life,” he added.

Victoria’s announcement stands in contrast to logging that persists in New South Wales and Queensland. The Queensland government has allowed the timber industry to log thousands of hectares of forest in Noosa that had been set aside for a national park.

In New South Wales, there have been calls to open the Murray Valley national park to logging and the government has been looking at remapping old growth forest to potentially open up new areas to industry.

The Goongerah Environment Centre and Friends of the Earth said they needed to see more details and maps of the government’s proposal.

“(The environment minister Lily) D’Ambrosio is to be congratulated on her work to secure protection for an additional 90,000 hectares of mapped old growth forest, however clarification about where these forests are located and how this policy will be implemented is urgently need,” a spokesman, Ed Hill, said.