21 GEORGE STREET, MORWELL 3840
TELEPHONE 0351354444
WEDNESDAY, 3 JANUARY, 2024
29
POSSIBLE STORM
22
24
SHOWER OR TWO
26
PARTLY CLOUDY
SUNNY
Tyers back on track
FESTIVE FLOODING PAGE 7
Photograph supplied
Member for Morwell, Martin Cameron celebrates the grand opening of the Latrobe River Bridge. Tyers Road had been closed since December 2022, leaving residents isolated.
STORY - PAGE 7
End of an era for timber harvesting By PHILIP HOPKINS
AS of January 1, Gippsland's hardwood industry is now largely gone, with harvesting of timber from native forests on Crown land no longer permitted. Gippsland's native forest is part of the vast swathe of forest that stretches along the Great Dividing Range from the Dandenongs to behind Brisbane. It’s integral to Australia having the seventh biggest forest estate in the world after Russia, Brazil, Canada, the US, China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Victoria is still one third forest, even after land clearing for agriculture and towns and cities. These hardwood forests have provided Victorians with high quality timber for housing, such as framing, flooring and windows, and furniture - beds, dining tables, chairs, sideboards and kitchen fit-outs. Victorian Ash has been used in engineered wood as huge columns and beams that are as strong as steel. Lower quality hardwood timber has become fences, garden stakes and pallets while traditionally; pulp was turned into white copy paper at Australian Paper’s Maryvale Mill - most of these products were from timber processed in Gippsland. The timber was largely harvested under the forestry
science and sustainable practices that were developed in Germany in the 18th Century and then spread throughout much of the Western world. These practises were adapted to Australian conditions. The former Andrews Government’s decision to close Victoria’s native forest industry, taken behind closed doors, is the culmination of successive cutbacks in the timber available to industry over the past 50 years. It was a process of attrition. Gippsland bore the brunt of this development. Initially, the reductions in native timber were based on sound public policy but they became increasingly driven by ideology and a shabby desire for ‘green’ votes at state elections. Key drivers were the huge expansion of national parks and other reserves that exclude timber harvesting; increasing environmental protection in state forest available for timber production in federal-state agreements; relentless pressure from green groups; dubious political decisions; the massive fires of the past two decades; and new harvesting techniques. The 1939 Black Friday bushfires had a massive impact; the Central and East Gippsland forests were opened to harvesting to provide timber for the post-war
building boom due to the damaged hardwood forest close to Melbourne. The then Forests Commission realised that the relentless use of the hardwood forests in the housing boom, particularly as post-war immigration grew rapidly, was unsustainable. Forest researchers pushed to develop a softwood resource for use in general house framing; the upshot was the dramatic expansion in the 1960s of pine plantations over the next 20 years based on interest-free Commonwealth loans. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, quality native hardwood saw log production was 1.2 to 1.5 million cubic metres per year (m3/yr), according to a paper by the former chief executive of the then Victorian Association of Forest Industries, the late Graeme Gooding, who grew up in Seaspray. In 1970, only 205,267 hectares of national parks had been created in Victoria’s native forests. In that year, the State Coalition Government formed the Land Conservation Council, which over the next three decades established an extensive reserve system founded on sound science.
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Continued - Page 2
Business BISTRO Guide DINNER DINN NER LOCAL TRADES AND SERVICES
See Pages 18 & 19 of today’s paper GP1666042
DEAL
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Only available on Tuesday, Wednesday Friday, Saturday and Sunday and not on Public Holidays. Promotion starts 1st and ends 31st January 2024.
5174 2156 Cnr Gwalia St & Liddiard Rd, Traralgon
$1 $1.80 80 iinc. GST
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GP1666041
PARAMEDIC GRADUATE PAGE 17
MELBOURNE AN OPAL SPORT