Running out of old-growth

AS co-founder of the Australian Wooden Boat Festival, I would like to add some observations on the forest debate (Mercury, June 6). At current harvesting rates, access to old-growth forests will be exhausted in production forests in five years. This is why the forest industry wants access to the remaining 365,000ha of future potential production forests. The industry says it wants to continue with the clear-fell, burn and conversion to regrowth eucalypt forest in every coupe that contains less than 25 per cent old growth forest. Clear-felling is cheap and quick, but it means there is only a single yield of Cat 1 eucalypt and special species timber (much currently immature due to slow growth rates). These timber varieties are vital for local valueadding boat building, furniture and highquality hardwood industries.

If Sustainable Timber Tasmania call its management sustainable? If they want access to the last of our state-owned old growth forest, harvest should only be allowed with low-impact selective practices already successfully demonstrated in Tasmanian trials. These are slightly more expensive and require better planning, but clear-felling yields lesser quality timber, is more fire prone, stores less carbon and will destroy what is left of our high-quality local value-adding industries. They should not be allowed to gerrymander old-growth patches into less than 25 per cent of a coupe and destroy our industry forever.

Ian Johnston Kettering