The North East Forest Alliance's Response to the NSW Government's decision not to go ahead with the sale of its pine plantations:
The North East Forest Alliance has welcomed the NSW Government's decision not to proceed with a fire sale of public pine plantations, and sees the need to replant thousands of hectares of burnt plantations as an opportunity to complete the transition out of public native forests.
The North East Forest Alliance has welcomed the NSW Government's decision not to proceed with a fire sale of public pine plantations, and sees the need to replant thousands of hectares of burnt plantations as an opportunity to complete the transition out of public native forests.
With
such extensive areas of pine plantations burnt last year, a fire sale of pine plantations was
no longer an economic
option, said NEFA spokesperson Dailan Pugh.
"In north-east NSW, north of the Hunter River,
the
Forestry Corporation had 37,000 hectares of Pine Plantations,
last year 16,000
hectares (43%) of them were burnt. Due to the flammability of
pines most of
these burnt intensively, rendering them useless for future
production.
"They are now being salvaged logged and sold to
China,
likely at a loss.
"Pine plantations were where the Forestry
Corporation
made most of their profits and were used to subsidize their
largely
unprofitable native forestry operations.
"Massive replanting is required, which provides
an
alternative employment opportunity to continued logging of
native forests.
Though in this heating world maybe they should consider
re-establishing them as
more resilient eucalypt plantations.
