Are five MCGs of native forest being logged in Victoria every day?

Updated

Environmentalists frequently talk about logging in terms of how many "football fields" or "soccer pitches" are felled.

But in the lead up to last year's Victorian state election, the Greens released a policy paper that measured logging in a slightly different way: MCGs.

"Five MCG's worth of native forest are being logged in Victoria every day," the paper claimed.

It is unclear exactly what the party meant though: was it referring to the size of the MCG's playing field, the area of the stadium or its volume ?

The size of the MCG has very different dimensions depending on how define it.

There is also an issue with how to define daily: is it Monday to Sunday or just weekdays?

The verdict

The Greens' claim is close to the mark.

While the policy paper was unclear on just which measure of the MCG it used, the common practice of using a football field to measure logging activity provides a reasonable basis for assessing that the claim would be calculated against the size of its playing field — which is just over 2 hectares.

Nearly 3,000 hectares of native forest was logged in Victoria in 2016-17, and forest harvesting crews generally work Monday to Saturday.

This equates to around 4.7 worth of MCGs logged every working day.

However, if the yearly harvest was divided by 365, just 4.1 MCGs per day would be logged.

The Greens' claim does not fare so well on the alternative measures of the MCG.

Measured against the area of the stadium as a whole, the figure drops to around just 1.6 MCGs logged every working day.

And if a volume measure is used, the figure plummets: less than one MCG is filled in an entire year.

What is an "MCG"?

The rate of logging is frequently referred to in terms of "football fields" or "soccer pitches".

Greenpeace Brazil's Marcio Astrini told the South China Morning Post that "more or less 1 million football fields" are logged each year in that country alone.

Across the planet, the World Wildlife Fund says "we're losing 18.7 million acres of forests annually, equivalent to 27 soccer fields every minute."

Global Forest Watch put that figure even higher in 2017, claiming "40 football fields of trees every minute for an entire year" were being felled in the tropics alone.

A "football pitch" is a fairly uniform measure.

The Laws of the Game published by FIFA, soccer's world governing body, state that a football pitch used in international matches must be between 100 and 110 metres long, and 64 and 75 metres wide.

This relative uniformity is not the case with a "cricket oval" or "Australian football oval".

The playing field of the MCG is significantly different in size to those of other venues used for cricket or Australian football (AFL).

The area of the playing field is approximately two hectares, a spokesperson for the MCG said.

A more specific measurement can be found on the website of the Port Adelaide Football Club.

The AFL side compiled a list of playing field dimensions of grounds used in the competition.

It puts the size of the MCG's playing field at 20,233 square metres: that equates to 2.0233 hectares.

That makes it easily the biggest playing field in the AFL: the next biggest oval on the list — Tasmania's sparsely used York Park — is less than 18,700 square metres.

The SCG, Gabba and Adelaide Oval — which are all used for both cricket and AFL — are each around 16,000 to 17,000 square meters.

At 15,354 square metres, the playing field of Geelong's home ground is about three-quarters the size of the MCG.

Size of the stadium also significant

As well as having an outsized playing field, the MCG also has an imposing stadium.

With a crowd capacity of 100,024, it is listed as the tenth biggest stadium in the world (in terms of capacity) by WorldAtlas.

All but one of these bigger stadiums are found in the US; the other is in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

A spokesman for the MCG could not provide the area of the stadium, but said its volume was 1.6 million cubic metres.

Fact Check used measurement features of satellite imagery tool Google Earth Pro to estimate its area (including the playing field).

It was found to be about 6 hectares — around three times the size of the playing field by itself.

The MCG is clearly no ordinary cricket ground, and it may have been chosen by the Greens as a measurement for logging for this reason.

However, that does not explain how the party defined an MCG.

How much is being logged?

The Greens used the present tense when referring to the amount of native timber being harvested in Victoria.

Consequently, Fact Check used most recent figures available to assess the claim.

A spokesman for VicForests — the government body which overlooks logging in the state's native forests — told Fact Check it currently "harvests around 3,000 hectares per year".

The latest Victorian Association of Forest Industries' (VAFI) Industry Review shows that the "area of public native forest harvested by VicForests" in 2016-17 was 2,965 hectares.

It has not yet released figures for 2017-18.

In making their claim, the Greens did not specify whether they used a volume or area measure.

Professor Brendan Wintle of the University of Melbourne said the area measure is the easiest to relate to, but that it is also important to consider volume.

VicForests says that just under 1,300,000 cubic metres of sawlogs, residual (lower quality) logs and firewood was logged in 2015/16, while the VAFI report says a similar volume of native hardwood was logged in 2016-17.

It is unclear how much logging of native forests on private land occurs, however, Professor Patrick Lane, also from the University of Melbourne, says it would likely be "a very small number" and "probably only done for land clearing".

So, how many MCGs?

The Macquarie Dictionary defines daily in relation to either "each day" or "each workday".

But VicForests says tree harvesting activity is carried out Monday to Saturday.

For this reason, Fact Check has decided to define daily as six-days-per-week.

2016-17 Hectares MCGs - field MCGs - stadium Yearly 2965 1465.4 494.2 Mon - Sun (365 days)

8.1 4.0 1.4 Mon - Sat (313 days) 9.5 4.7 1.6 Mon - Fri (261 days) 11.4 5.6 1.9

By this measure, the 2,965 hectares of state native forest that are logged yearly would translate to 4.7 MCGs daily — if the MCG is defined by its playing field.

Rounded up, this matches the claim made by the Greens.

However, if the area of the stadium was used, just 1.6 MCGs would be logged daily.

If the volume measure is used, the entire annual native timber harvest would fall short of filling just one MCG.

On a daily basis, it would fill just a fraction of the MCG.

And all these numbers would drop if one defined daily as 365 days per year.

By this measure, even using the playing fields measures would fall short of the Greens' claim: at around 4.0 MCGs logged daily.

But given that a playing field is commonly used to measure logging and that forests are logged six days a week, Fact Check finds that Greens' claim is close to the mark.

Principal researchers: Jack Kerr and Ben Singleton

factcheck@rmit.edu.au

Sources

Topics: environment, forests, forestry, rural, australia, vic, melbourne-3000

First posted