Loading This is 0.3 per cent of the 44,000 hectares of forest in the catchment – nominally three trees in every 1000 harvested under rigorous regulation by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning. These regulations are monitored and audited independently by Melbourne Water. Neither authority is sounding an alarm. The cited authors say harvesting since 1940 reduced the catchment water yield by 9 per cent. But they seem to omit other expert research by Russell Mein, in 2008, which found that stopping harvesting in Victoria would see a marginal increase in water yield of 3 per cent over 30 years to 2050.

The article also asserts that VicForests makes a loss, despite the audited fact that in the past six years VicForests has generated more than $10 million in after-tax profits. We do that by harvesting 3000 hectares a year from the 7.1 million hectares of public native forest. Nominally, that is 0.04 per cent – or four trees in 10,000 – harvested sensitively, with respect to species and habitat and under onerous regulation and scrutiny. That’s not to say we are complacent, and we believe we can improve our systems and practices. Contrary to the claim that only 660 people are employed, our activity provides 2500 regional and rural jobs for families with mortgages, education costs, children to raise and business loans to pay.

Loading If you look to the small eastern Victorian community of Orbost, you would notice that, locally, that means about 214 or one in 10 jobs – stopping harvesting would shred the town. In Morwell, we help support a paper industry that employs 1400 people, or one in five jobs in that town. In total, including the revenues of our contractors and customers, we generate about $770 million each year in remote, rural and regional economies. In fact, Deloitte Access Economics found there would be a $5.2 billion negative impact over 10 years from 2016 if VicForests did not exist. For the people who rely on us, it’s a big deal.

And there are no government grants, as the article claims. The “grants” are offsets for forgone sales for allocated areas that VicForests does not harvest in order to protect species. These are openly outlined in our annual report each year, and we agree with this process of protecting habitat and species, and actively supporting government ecological objectives. What’s clear is the most significant impact on native forests and water supply is catastrophic wildfire. In fact, in the decade or so after the 2002-03 bushfire, about 3 million hectares have been burnt across Victoria – equivalent to 1000 years of Victorian native timber harvesting. VicForests is in furious agreement with the report’s authors on one area – harvesting in catchments must be intensively managed, and it is. Alex Messina is general manager, corporate affairs, VicForests.