practicalfool said:
It is about value add.
If you are building houses out of cheap pre-fab steel from o/s you are definitely hurting the economy. There isn't any real value add on that which justifies taking the equivalent activity from the local economy.
If you are holding off imported steel with tarriffs and that steel is required to build a tomato canning factory, forcing the tomato canning factory to be built more expensive and slower and not be able to afford modern cost saving technology, then you are kicking back a genuine opportunity to add exponential value to that steel and make some real money.
It'd make sense to me if they wanted to log selectively and let's say set up a furniture industry, building timber, flooring etc that'd add real value, sell the labour of the workers making that stuff. They could dig into the foliage and set up a herbal products industry. Attract some brains in and really put people to work, it'd involve working harder though.
This idea that tassie forests are about to be turned into wood chips is what rankles the greenie. It is bare subsistence industry. You're not lifting anyone out of that. This is bare minimum lip service at the cost of turning trees into wood chip. Leave that low value harvesting alone. It's the attitude of minimum effort for low margin income on a large scale that is repulsive.
Do you really think that native forests are just logged for wood chip?
All state controlled native forests in Tasmania, I can't speak for private land, (except for plantations that are grown for the express purpose of chip) are logged for higher value product. Chip logs are the by product of a sawlog industry. Forestry is way too expensive to go and exclusively chase low yielding product.
Returns of $10-$20 per tonne for pulp, Returns of $70-150 per tonne for sawlog nd upto $1000-$10,000 per tonne for very high value special species ie black Heart Sassafrass, Huon Pine, Tiger Myrtle etc.
One of the issues with Australian timber is that there is waste due to high incidence of defect within trees, on an average 40-60% of logs will not meet a higher grade product. This lower grade resource is what goes into the chippers and is exported...Would be great to be able to downstream process this material into other products such as paper, particle board, MDF, nano cellulose products.
Look up nano cellulose, exciting stuff, it can be used to make just about everything from plastics to capacitors
Selective logging:
The majority of forests in Tas are selectively logged. The exception is the wet eucalypt forests of NW and SW Tasmania that are pretty much clear fell. There are some very good reasons to clearfall such as, better regen, safety, cost etc etc, Selective logging is best practiced in dry multi aged forests however these techniques do not always cover all forest types.
Forestry has been going on in Tas since man first arrived on the island and funnily enough much of these pre logged areas are now within World Heritage areas, so us foresters must have been getting something right.
Alternatives:
Crops such as hemp, wheat stubble etc. have very high chemical inputs and a huge C02 footprint. Native forest logging has no chemical inputs...could be considered organic and is also the
only carbon positive industry in Aus.
Growing products such hemp, wheat, sugar cane fro pulp is also incredibly expensive ,tough on soils, have high water inputs, fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides, its difficult to bulk transport, has low pulp yields and at the end of the day you still have to build a pulp mill and paper plant that no body wants in their back yard.
Where are the alternatives to timber ? Concrete, steel, aluminium? Recycling is only a small percentage of actual need.
If only we could construct houses from dream catchers?
Cheers
Chris
