Felling would improve our forests' health, says minister
Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2000
September 25, 2000
By RICHARD BAKER
Australia's native forests would be vastly improved if the timber industry were able to log in restricted areas, federal Forestry and Conservation Minister Wilson Tuckey said yesterday.
He said the Australian system of protecting large areas of forest was not good for trees or the economy.
Speaking at a breakfast at the Royal Melbourne Show, Mr Tuckey said the parts of forests where logging was allowed were "over-harvested", while protected areas were degenerating.
"That to me is foolish," he said. "I would have a reserve system that encompassed the entire remaining native forest and a management regime (under which) you would have a harvest consistent with the rotation of native species."
Australia could limit its imports of timber and paper from countries with low environmental standards if trees could be harvested over a wider area, Mr Tuckey said.
Historical evidence showed forests needed to regenerate regularly in order to survive, and forests regenerated in much the same way when they were either harvested or burned.
Mr Tuckey said some environmentalists had "loved trees to death". He used the disappearance of banksia from Wilson's Promontory as an example.
"That was reserved 90 years ago to protect the banksia species," he said. "There are no banksias left. We've loved them to death.
"We haven't given them any opportunity to be burnt, which they need to eject their seed."
Mr Tuckey also mentioned Australia's salinity problem, telling the audience that he hoped the Federal Government would be able in the next four years to provide every farmer with an "ultrasound" of their property that showed their risk of salinity problems.