Forestry Tasmania recently and quietly released the latest Review of the Sustainable Sawlog Supply from the Blackwood Management Zone (BMZ). As I predicted last year Tasmania’s iconic blackwood industry is about to go into serious decline if not disappear.
http://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/certification-and-supply/
Last year I reviewed the available information on the public blackwood resource and predicted a serious reconciliation in the near future. The reconciliation has now begun.
http://www.forestrytas.com.au/sfm/review-of-the-sustainable-sawlog-supply-from-the-blackwood-management-zone
The 2013 Review is a difficult document to read and understand. Important information is missing making it nearly impossible to “join the dots”. To help better understand the 19 page review I have compiled a chart of the planned vs actual production data that is scattered throughout the document. In fact the chart neatly summarises about 80% of what the review has to say, but it is still a very incomplete picture. There is no chart like this in the review.
Chart notes:
- The 1991 Forest and Forest Industry Strategy (FFIS) set a blackwood supply target of 10,000 m3 of blackwood sawlogs per year.
- The 1997 Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) reaffirmed the FFIS blackwood sawlog supply target.
- The Forestry Tasmania 1999 Review of the sustainable blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) sawlog supply from Tasmanian State forest calculated the Statewide sustainable yield of blackwood sawlog at 8,500 m3 of blackwood sawlogs per year. The figure for just the BMZ was 6,800 m3 of blackwood sawlogs per year, with the remainder coming from the rest of the State.
- The Forestry Tasmania 2010 Special Timbers Strategy (STS) continued to reaffirm the blackwood supply target of 10,000 m3 of blackwood sawlogs per year until 2019.
- The Forestry Tasmania 2013 Review of the Sustainable Sawlog Supply from the Blackwood Management Zone (BMZ) recalculates the blackwood sawlog sustainable yield at 3,000 m3 per year. Production of blackwood sawlog from public forest outside the BMZ is expected to be negligible.
- Actual blackwood production figures from 1991 to 2006 are not publically available. The 2013 Review only provides actual blackwood sawlog production figures from 2008. Forestry Tasmania wood production dropped dramatically following the 2007 GFC.
Blackwood generally comprises >80% of all special species sawlog production from State forest. Between 2000 and 2007 special timbers production averaged 17,000 m3 per year, with some years exceeding 20,000 m3 (Forestry Tasmania Annual Reports). Clearly neither the so called supply target nor the 1999 sustainable yield estimate had any relevance to the actual production of blackwood sawlogs.
Where are the actual blackwood sawlog production figures between 1991 and 2007?
Why is Forestry Tasmania so reluctant to clearly demonstrate sustainable blackwood management and production?
Here are some other highlights from my analysis of the 2013 Review of the Sustainable Sawlog Supply from the Blackwood Management Zone:
- No mention is made in the 2013 Review of the fact that in 2010 Forestry Tasmania classified it’s blackwood and other special timber operations as “non-commercial, non-profit”, and subject to a significant taxpayer subsidy. There is no discussion of what impact this non-commercial focus will have on future blackwood forest management and production (it will have a major impact), or its impact on blackwood production from Tasmanian farms;
- An update of the current area of the Fenced Intensive Blackwood (FIB) resource is provided but still, after 30 years, no estimate is provided of it’s likely contribution to the future blackwood industry. There are no details of the financial investment that has been spent to date on creating this resource. The 1999 Review estimated this resource would provide over 250,000 cubic metres of blackwood sawlog to industry between 2040 and 2050.
- The major investment to establish 880 ha of blackwood plantations in the early 1990s has now officially been written off and will contribute nothing to the blackwood industry. The 1999 Review estimated this plantation resource would contribute over 370,000 cubic metres of blackwood sawlog to industry. No estimate is provided of the financial loss due to this asset write-off.
- As mentioned the 2013 Review provides grossly inadequate details and analysis of blackwood sawlog production since 1991. There is absolutely no way to verify whether blackwood has been sustainably managed or not. Limited available information indicates that since 1991 blackwood has been grossly over-cut;
- There is no discussion why in 1999 blackwood sawlog production did not drop to match the sustainable yield estimate. There is also no discussion or explanation of why actual blackwood production appears to have greatly exceeded even the FFIS/RFA/STS 10,000 m3 supply target.
- The 2013 Review provides no details at all about the commercial management of blackwood or the contribution of blackwood to the commercial performance and profitability of Forestry Tasmania. Given that the new Forest Management Bill 2013 provides Forestry Tasmania with a greater commercial focus does that mean that all blackwood operations will now be reclassified as “commercial and profitable”?
- The 2013 Review contains no discussion about the past and ongoing Sovereign Risk to blackwood production;
- Without any discussion or explanatory information the 2013 Review drops the blackwood sawlog sustainable yield from the BMZ from 6,800 m3 per year in 1999, to 3,000 m3 sawlog per year. It provides absolutely no details about how the 3,000 m3 estimate was calculated. It’s a number out of a hat! I personally doubt even this figure. I suspect the real figure is somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 m3.
- The 2013 Tasmanian Forestry Agreement had little impact on the area of the BMZ, so the dramatic drop in production is due to causes other than the TFA.
- And that concludes the 2013 Review. No mention at all of a major drop in blackwood supply. No mention of whether the 10,000 m3 supply target will remain in force. No discussion about what impact this drop in supply will have on Forestry Tasmania’s profitability, nor on the Tasmanian blackwood industry. Is 3,000 m3 per year even commercially viable to log, or is the BMZ now a liability?
The Review proudly states:
The blackwood forests are managed on a sustainable basis on a rotation length of about 70 years.
I’m not convinced. There is absolutely no evidence of ecological, commercial, political or social sustainability here at all. How can a drop in sawlog production from 10,000 to 3,000 m3 per year be called sustainable?
By 21st century commercial business standards the 2013 Review of the Sustainable Sawlog Supply from the Blackwood Management Zone is a profoundly deficient document.
As an example of an organisation seeking Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Certification the 2013 Review completely fails. No meeting with stakeholders, no press conference, no presentation, no Q&A.
As a stakeholder in the Tasmania’s iconic blackwood industry I consider this is a complete disaster. Yet another Tasmanian forest industry catastrophe.
On the positive side the drop in supply from public forests should mean that blackwood log prices will increase. This will help attract the interest of farmers.
But on the negative side the forest product markets and prices in Tasmania have never been transparent. This continues to be one of the forest industries biggest problems. Also the volume of blackwood trade will drop dramatically. Businesses will close. The blackwood market will contract. Options for farmers to sell blackwood timber will shrink. And we still have many legislative, policy and management issues that inhibit private farm forestry, not the least of which is Forestry Tasmania’s taxpayer-subsidised blackwood production.
It is ironic that Tasmania is about to lose its iconic blackwood industry at the very time that New Zealand farmers are about to crank up blackwood production across the Tasman Sea.
Tasmanian blackwood has been Australia’s premier timber species for over a century. It is a Tasmanian icon.
Is the Tasmanian community going to surrender its blackwood heritage and commercial potential to New Zealand farmers?
Or will the necessary legislative, policy and management changes be made to allow Tasmanian farmers to rebuild the Tasmanian blackwood industry?
Will the forest industry open up and become more market transparent?
And will the Tasmanian community take up the opportunity?
Tasmanian Blackwood Growers Cooperative 
Tasmania’s magnificent blackwoods
The forest industry TV series “Going Bush” offers a traditional view of the “public service/public forest” forest industry. It’s a view dominated by science and professionalism. In my view that is a very 19th century attitude to forestry that just doesn’t work in the 21st century.
As their website says:
The television show about our forests, the people who work in them and the industries they support. Going Bush is designed to be entertaining, informative and most of all give the proud and passionate people that work in our forest industries a voice, a chance to tell their stories.
http://www.goingbush.tv/
This particular video on blackwood is an excerpt from Series 4 Episode 2 and comes from a few years ago.
The video showcases some of the issues around public native blackwood forest management and the blackwood industry. There is no doubt that Forestry Tasmania has contributed significantly to our understanding of native blackwood forest management, in the same way that New Zealand farmers and foresters have dominated research into successful commercial blackwood plantation management.
The video is a bit of forest industry propaganda that highlights the “good bits”. There is a “business-as-usual, everything is going really well, don’t you worry” persona about the video that hides the very real turmoil within the industry. Blackwood issues such as the overcutting and mismanagement of the public resource, taxpayer subsidies, the incessant politics and community conflict are conveniently ignored.
And as for the remark by the hosts near the end of the video that there will be “blackwood sawlogs for decades to come” that is a long way from the truth.
Apart from that it’s entertaining.
Enjoy!
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Posted in Commentary, Forestry Tasmania
Tagged Going Bush