Blackwood criticises compliance standards
Cutbacks to timber supply from 2024, which will halve the amount of wood harvested to just two per cent of the native forest estate, will be guided by compliance standards set out in legislation this year. These standards, according to the Andrews government, show how the timber industry can meet its obligations.
This will establish a legal presumption that harvesting operations will have met requirements of the ‘precautionary principle’.
“These changes do not change the scope of the Precautionary Principle, nor its environmental protections as it remains a mandatory action under the Code (of Timber Practice), but compliance standards will remove much of the ambiguity about how it is implemented,” says notes introducing the ‘Sawmill opt-out Scheme’.
Amendments to the Conservation, Forests and Lands Amendment Bill that were passed this year give the Environment Minister or DELWP Secretary the flexibility to amend the code, if necessary, to ensure its principles are adhered to.
A key issue is how the internationally recognised ‘precautionary principle’ relates to timber harvesting. Under the precautionary principle, threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage when the science is not yet settled, “requires us to put in place protective measures to ensure we don’t have regrets in the future”, Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio told Parliament.
“The precautionary principle was triggered by the 2019/20 Victorian bushfires, which dramatically impacted forest ecosystems, threatened the survival of endangered species and limited timber production, particularly in Gippsland and East Gippsland,” she said.
“There remains scientific uncertainty about the ability of species to recover from these impacts…consideration needs to be given to additional protective actions...in timber harvesting operations.”
Ms D’Ambrosio said the precautionary principle meant the framework for protecting forests could respond to shocks such as major fires and also provide greater certainty to ensure the timber industry was meeting its obligations – hence the extra discretionary powers to be given to the minister or secretary.
However, Opposition spokesman on forestry and Member for Narracan Gary Blackwood attacked Ms D’Ambrosio’s claim as “disingenuous” as it neglected to mention the code applied only to a very minor portion of the state’s 7.8 million hectares of public forest.
Just 4.5 per cent of native forest was available for timber production and other uses. “Therefore, timber production operations that are subject to the Code are of such a proportionally minor scale, that there is virtually no chance of them creating a threat of ‘serious or irreversible environmental damage’ that justifies invoking the precautionary principle,” Mr Blackwood said.
“Similarly, the excuse that the 2019– 20 bushfires have created ‘scientific uncertainty about the ability of species to recover’ is largely disingenuous. Forests have been recovering from similar major fire events since European settlement—indeed the Ash regrowth forest which comprises the state’s primary timber resource is the product of the huge 1939 bushfires.
“The distinguishing feature of the 2019–20 bushfires was their extent and, notwithstanding that parts of East Gippsland were intensively burnt, it has been noted by fire experts that the worst days experienced in that fire season were not as bad as in other most notable fire seasons.”
Mr Blackwood said the original code was written as a set of state-wide broad minimum standards of environmental protection during timber production. “By necessity it retained a lot of flexibility in wording to account for the reality that, for example, particular requirements for wet forests in the Central Highlands may be far more onerous than what is necessary to protect environmental values in flat red gum forests and woodlands in northern Victoria,” he said.
“The detailed prescriptions needed to implement these standards were contained in associated regional documents that were more attuned to particular local forests… designed to take into account the characteristics of each of those regions.
“Timber is harvested on an 80-year rotation. Not one species of animal has become extinct because of timber harvesting. Timber harvesting and threatened species have co-existed for well over 100 years,” Mr Blackwood said.