Victorian Association of Forest Industries. Fact Sheet 2: Forest Industries in Victoria: Environmental Credentials

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1 Victorian Association of Forest Industries Fact Sheet 2: Forest Industries in Victoria: Environmental Credentials Tricia Caswell November 2007

2 Forest Industries in Victoria: Environmental Credentials Native timber is: Organically grown, Solar powered, Non toxic, Renewable and Stores carbon for the whole of its service life and after in landfill, with each cubic metre holding kilograms of carbon By law all native timber harvested in state forests must be regenerated. Local seeds are collected and distributed to recreate the forest as close to the original as possible. Less energy is used to process timber into a construction material than any other mainstream material. This energy is called embodied energy and the comparisons are as follows. Material Fossil Fuel/Energy Used (MJ/cubic metre) Sawn timber 50 Concrete Plastic Steel Aluminium 4,800 x6.4 timber 90,000 x120 timber 266,000 x355 timber 1,100,000 x1,466 timber SUSTAINABLY MANAGED PRODUCTION FORESTRY STORES MORE CARBON THAN NON-PRODUCTION FORESTS OVERALL OVER TIME The lifetime of an unmanaged forest varies enormously, depends on the place, species, disturbance regime (flood, fire, drought, pestilence, winds, extreme weather), species and so on. Trees in Victorian native forests may live as long as several hundred years, but they eventually become senescent (they die). When they are young and growing they typically store lots of carbon. As they age they store less. When they are dying they actually emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Over the whole life cycle of the unmanaged forest the net carbon storage may be close to being balanced out, absorption and emissions, i.e. close to zero.

3 If the forest is sustainably managed for timber production then over time the story is very different. Additional carbon is stored with each harvest and the manufacture of the wood and paper products. These products continue to store carbon as long as they are in use and even after service in landfill with very little deterioration after decades, research tells us. All this adds to the total carbon store, as the forest where the products originated is regenerated and again storing carbon. Only when the wood finally decomposes or is burnt is the carbon emitted back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. And if it is used for heating and/or energy it is renewable heat/energy as opposed to fossil fuel based. One tonne of carbon in wood stores the equivalent of 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Australian research indicates that in 2004 the net carbon store in wood and paper products in service and post service was 230million tones, equivalent to 844 million tones of CO2 in the atmosphere. SUSTAINABLE FOREST MANAGEMENT, HARVESTING AND BIODIVERSITY Native forests in Victoria are home to a range of plants and creatures (biodiversity) dependent on particular habitats and cycles (ecosystems). Most of our native forests are eucalypts, which require significant amounts of heat and light to regenerate (burst their seed pods). Consequently substantial areas need to be harvested to allow this to happen. Selective harvesting will not allow the regeneration of the harvested trees. Victorian legislation, codes and practices regulate how this is to be done and require any one area harvested (a coupe) to be no larger than 40ha and most are considerably smaller. The jigsaw pattern of harvesting which emerges also takes into account a whole lot of other factors in terms of biodiversity needs as well as aesthetic. So while anti-forestry campaigners continue to condemn clear felling it is much more effective for the regeneration of eucalypts than selective harvesting. Experiments and trials refining these methods to maximize biodiversity protection continue in Tasmania and Victoria. Most production forestry in Victoria is now in regenerated forests. Regrowth provides habitat for some creatures and foraging for others in early years, not only when the forest is mature or old REGULATIONS AND CODES There are many, many rules, regulations and restricted practices around all the activities that are forest management and harvesting developed over the last decades. There is much scrutiny and monitoring of actual performance against these with numbers of Government and other Agencies involved. Vic Forests, DSE, DPI, expert private sector consultants as well as stakeholders like Environmental NGO s and local communities.

4 Restrictions cover a wide range of these activities and include Special Protection Zones (SPZ s), declared for vulnerable or endangered species, protection of habitat trees, very big trees, stream and other buffers and no rainforest is harvested. Coupes are selected to maximize species mobility and the development of multi-aged, regrowth forest. Some ecological experiments suggest well thought out management and harvesting is beneficial for habitat development and saving species like the Leadbeater possum. All these methods and codes are reviewed regularly with significant stakeholder involvement. REGROW, RE-USE, RECYCLE, RECOVER...Closed Loop Production The long time mantra of environmentalists has been these four R s. All of them apply to the way we can manage the use of timber along the chain of production. Timber is a natural, renewable which can, after many re-uses and recycling can be used for heat and/or energy, with less Greenhouse Gas emissions than other forms of heating, like natural gas or electricity. Most timber processing plants (sawmills) in Victoria utilize the whole of their resource, all of the timber, its residue in their own operations. There is simply no waste. State base legislation is yet to acknowledge the importance of this. The residue on the forest floor in native hardwood harvesting is not yet recognized as a renewable resource under the renewable energy schemes and its use as such a fuel is forbidden. Residue after processing is used and in some cases has been accredited under the renewable energy schemes, but only after much work. Given the importance of renewable biomass in the production of heat and energy in a carbon constrained world these restrictions must be eliminated. Australia has been extremely tardy in its understanding of the potential of its own biomass resources and their potential to replace fossil fuels, way behind Northern Europe. Much of what has been outline here is little understood by politicians and opinion leaders more generally. The success of anti-forestry campaigns has been instrumental here. The pincer movement that continues to guide these is alive and well. The twin aims of reducing access to resource, to zero if possible and restricting the development of the market are ongoing and obvious. There are endless examples of legislation, regulations, energy ratings (five star energy ratings do not include embodied energy in materials leading to significant discrimination against timber/wood as a construction material). Ecolabels and a host of environmental indicators have threshold policies, which eliminate timber, especially native hardwood from any specifications understood to be environmentally good. These are based on the policy/campaign to eliminate native timber harvesting and consequently eliminate the industry itself. Local, sustainably managed native timber was eliminated from the specifications for major government construction projects, the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games and it has been arduous to ensure its presence in more recent projects like the new Convention Centre.

5 WATER AND PRODUCTION FORESTRY Water is now a front page issue in Australia and around the planet. Questions about the science, its value, quality, and quantity are also often front page. Significant research about numbers of these issues is in train but often incomplete as yet. The science and the explanation of that science need attention from a forestry perspective. For production forestry in Victoria the immediate issues revolve around * native forest harvesting in Melbourne s catchments where there are ongoing studies and stakeholder involvement * the relative worth of water and its utilization for plantations compared with other land uses, water uses *Local community concerns about change, jobs, land prices, landscapes/aesthetics and environmental impacts in relation to plantation developments.