Woodchipping, and why we shouldn’t do it.

Forestmedia Network

Woodchipping

• Less than 8% of the original old growth forest remains in Australia. Yet it is still being clearfell logged.

www.wilderness.org.au

Eden Chipmill

80%-90% of the trees logged in Australia are exported as woodchips to Japan (despite government assurances that woodchipping uses only the waste wood (heads and butts) from logging)

The Eden Chipmill uses 1 million tonnes of sawlogs per year and can only use whole logs.

south-east-fibre-exports.com

Eden Chipmill

Between 2,500 and 3,000 trees from SE NSW and East Gippsland Victoria are cut down every working day to supply the Eden chipmill.

www.green.net.au

Woodchipping makes no economic sense

• ForestsNSW sells native forest timber logs at bargain basement prices. Current prices for pulp logs range from $6.42 to $16 a tonne. 

• Commercial plantations would need around $35.00 to $40.00 per tonne to make a profit.

apps.facebook.com

Woodchipping makes no economic sense

• Woodchipping in NSW makes huge profits for Japanese export company SEFE but is heavily subsidized by NSW taxpayers.

• The recently released NSW Auditor General’s report on ForestsNSW shows that native forest logging in this State made a loss for state tax payers of $14.4 million in 2007-8.

(http://www.audit.nsw.gov.au)

Woodchipping makes no economic sense

• The Audit report also refers to secret wood supply deals that pay logging companies massive amounts of compensation.

 • It cites one example where FNSW paid more than

half a million dollars to buy out 34,000 cubic metres of timber – a small fraction of the committed volumes.

• The taxpayer is effectively locked in to paying ‘money for nothing’ to big logging companies. 

www.scienceimage.csiro.au

Woodchipping makes no economic sense

Recommendation 8 in the auditor General’s Report states that ForestsNSW should introduce a new pricing system by December 2009 that “ensures log production costs are recovered”

This can only mean "increase the price."

(Samantha Davis)

www.abc.net.au

Woodchipping makes no economic sense

• Direct employment in native forestry in south east NSW is estimated to be 516 workers – 79 at the Eden woodchip mill, 104 in Forests NSW, 149 in regional sawmills and about 184 contracted employees.

• But if the switch was made to plantation timber, the large majority of these jobs could be maintained.

• In fact, the two major occupations in woodchipping – truck drivers and loggers – are both nationally in short supply.

picasaweb.google.com/.../6QUAaItACelrC3Q4G2KLjw

Woodchipping makes no economic sense

• There are alternatives to woodchipping native forests. Fibre for paper can also be obtained from sources such as bamboo, hemp, wheat straw and plantation hardwood.

• There is enough plantation timber in Australia to supply all the woodchips needed for export.

Woodchipping makes no economic sense

Woodchipping• Adversely affects tourism• Adversely affects other industries such as:

fishing, oystering, wine growing.• Depletes water supplies to whole

communities

www.vicrainforest.org

Woodchipping makes no environmental sense

www.green.net.au

Woodchipping makes no environmental sense

Logging depletes water supplies • Logged areas suffer a 50 per cent reduced water

yield. Young regrowth trees need more water to grow, thus releasing less water into river catchments. It takes 150 years for water yields to regain their pre-logged status.

• Further studies have shown that logging adversely affects water quality through increased sediment entering rivers.

www.hancock.forests.org.au

Woodchipping makes no environmental sense

• logging actually increases the risk of fire by opening up the forest, increasing the amount of fuel on its floor, and drying the forest out.

blog.mywonderfulworld.org/2009/02/australias-...

Woodchipping makes no environmental sense

Forests play an important role in storing carbon and in mitigating climate change

Recent scientific research shows that the native forests of south-eastern Australia hold much bigger stores of

carbon than previously realised.

Woodchipping makes no environmental sense

• Mountain ash forests in SE Australia are considered the best in the world at locking up carbon.

Brendan Mackey of the Australian National University and colleagues report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Woodchipping makes no environmental sense

• Mackey and colleagues found the highest amount of carbon was contained in a forest located in Victoria's Central Highlands, which held 1900 tonnes of carbon per hectare.

• By comparison, the average tropical forest had somewhere between 200 and 500 tonnes of carbon per hectare.

Woodchipping makes no environmental sense

• The best way to sequester carbon forests is to protect existing old forests.

• "If you take one of these mature [mountain ash] forests with 1900 tonnes of carbon in it and trash it … it's going to take hundreds of years to grow back that amount of carbon.“ (Mackey)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/centralaustralia/2402348031/

Woodchipping makes no environmental sense

Woodchipping accounts for the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions in NSW alone as all of the cars in the state.

Australia could reduce its CO2 emissions by 15% - 20% just by ending woodchipping.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25737152@N04/2904248928/

Woodchipping makes no environmental sense

• There are many endangered species because of the impact of woodchipping. In SE NSW the Koala is endangered.

• Millions of other animals are killed every year as a result of loss of habitat, and many are killed during logging operations.

• Ecological bio-diversity of both plants and animals is permanently damaged.

www.solarnavigator.net/animal_kingdom

Woodchipping makes no environmental sense

• Possums, gliders and owls are among 400 species which depend on tree hollows in the south east forests.  Most eucalypts do not form hollows until they are 150 to 180 years old.  Large dens needed by animals such as possums and gliders are seldom found in trees less than 200 years old.

• The logging cycle is on average 20 years

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/32580564/

The role of the Federal Government

Penny Wong has entered into Forest Carbon Partnerships with Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to collaborate on reducing emissions from deforestation.

She describes it as “a critical issue, given emissions from deforestation and forest degradation account for around 20% of

emissions globally.”

The role of the Federal Government

Why has the government supported the preservation of native forests in less advanced countries, but not in our own?

The role of the Federal Government

• "Currently everyone is focussed on how to reduce emissions from deforestration and degradation in developing countries,".

• "But what this points to is that we can't forget about emissions from natural forests in economically developed countries like Australia.“ (Mackey)

The role of the Federal Government

• The Kyoto Protocol currently measures only greenhouse gases resulting from "land use change" - emissions from clearing of native forests and uptake (sequestration) by plantations since 1990. It does not measure emissions from land whose use remains unchanged.

...and now, a proposal for a wood fired power (biomass) plant at Eden!

In July 08, Penny Wong declared forest biomass as an eligible fuel (subject to this biomass being a harvest residue or processing

waste.)

...and now, a proposal for a wood fired power (biomass) plant at Eden!

“Worse still, the Council of Australian Governments is set to define burning native forest wood as ‘renewable energy’ ”.

The role of the Federal Government

• The woodchipping industry has called for compensation to counter the impacts of the Government's climate change policy, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).

• “Not only has this massive greenhouse polluter (Eden Chipmill) been declared carbon neutral,  the Government’s White Paper has recommended that burning native forest wood should also be exempt, even though it is a bigger greenhouse polluter than coal.”

• “If it paid the full carbon cost of the emissions for which it is responsible, the Eden chipmill would be up for over a million dollars a day.” Harriett Swift.

wood fired power (biomass) plant at Eden

• The Federal government’s White Paper has given a green light to the NSW government to use its extraordinary planning powers to push through the wood-fired power plant at Eden.

• “Minister Keneally can now use her powers under Part 3A to stifle public input on issues such as the devastation of the forests, the greenhouse impacts of the plant, local air quality and the loss of sustainable jobs in tourism and genuinely clean energy generation.’(John Kaye)

The role of state governments

The Western Australian and Queensland governments do not allow the export of native woodchips. Why does NSW and Victoria and Tasmania?

“It is now abundantly clear that our forests are not in the 'safe hands' we are told, nor are they  managed for the long-term benefit of the people of Australia and NSW.  They should be managed as carbon sinks, biodiversity stores and water reservoirs.  Mining them for timber is no longer acceptable.”

Forest campaigner Susie Russell

 

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