Category Archives: Commentary

Going backwards!

Posted on November 20, 2020 | Leave a comment

There are many reasons why the forest industry in Australia is going backwards.

Here is just one small example:

PF Olsen is a forestry services company which started in New Zealand, but has also opened offices in Australia.

Here is their New Zealand website:

https://nz.pfolsen.com/market-info-news/

Notice the headings across the top of the page.

Now here is their Australian website:

https://au.pfolsen.com/

Notice the headings across the top of the page. How do they compare with the New Zealand website?

The Australian website contains nothing about Contractors & Suppliers nor about Market Information & News!

Why is that?

Are there no forestry markets in Australia?

Do tree growers in Australia not want access to uptodate market information?

Or is it because profitable tree growing is not the focus of the forest industry in Australia?

New Zealand has a real forest industry where the focus is on supporting tree growers to make sure they are as viable and profitable as possible. That way more farmers plant trees, the forest industry expands and has a successful future.

It is a successful simple industry model!

PF Olsen NZ is acutely aware of this and do their bit to ensure tree growers and the forest industry share a successful future.

Go to PF Olsen’s New Zealand website and check out their Market Info & News. It’s a great resource for NZ farmers!

Curiously PF Olsen Australia does not seem to share the same vision.

The focus of the forest industry in Australia has always been about supporting and subsidising domestic processors, at the expense of growers and the future of the industry.

Curious to hear your thoughts on this.

Please post a comment…

PS. If anyone can find a single Australian forest industry website that provides uptodate market information I’d love to know. Thanks.

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Posted in Commentary, Markets, New Zealand

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FSC Standard – Economically Viable

Posted on October 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

I just thought I’d rave a bit more about the ridiculous FSC Standard for Economically Viable.

Clearly the FSC is completely confused and conflicted about whether forestry is welfare or commerce, or is it money laundering?

So far I have found two different definitions of what the FSC means by Economically Viable. The first example comes from FSC UK:

Economically Viable

Economically viable forest management means that forest operations are structured and managed so as to be sufficiently profitable, without generating financial profit at the expense of the forest resource, the ecosystem, or affected communities. The tension between the need to generate adequate financial returns and the principles of responsible forest operations can be reduced through efforts to market the full range of forest products and services for their best value.

https://www.fsc-uk.org/en-uk/about-fsc/what-is-fsc/our-mission-and-vision

The second example comes from FSC Australia:

Economically Viable

The FSC certification standard requires that a forest management entity have sufficient financial resources to manage the defined forest area in conformance with the full scope of the standard.  The standard does not require that the certified forest is managed at a profit provided that other sources of working capital are available and sufficient to enable management in conformance with the standard.

https://www.scsglobalservices.com/news/scs-responds-to-questions-about-the-forestry-tasmania-fsc-forest-management-assessment

Both these examples demonstrate that no one at the FSC has ever studied Economics 101 – basic economic theory and principles.

So let’s discuss the FSC UK definition first:

Of the two definitions it’s the one I like the most; not perfect but at least heading in the right direction. Clearly the UK believes that forestry (growing trees for wood production) is a business, not welfare or money laundering. But the wording could be improved and simplified.

So here is my edit of the UK definition:

Economically viable forest management means that forest operations are structured and managed so as to be profitable. Any subsidies to the forest grower must be available equally to all forest growers within the same jurisdiction.

The rest of the words are pointless. If the forest management is Environmentally Appropriate, Socially Beneficial but it is not profitable then presumably the forest owner would not harvest any trees, ie. No need to seek FSC certification.

If the forest management meets all three Standards, then there is no need to reiterate the environmental and social standards within the economic standard as the UK definition has done. It is superfluous text!

Meet all three Standards = Achieve FSC Certification!

What is “sufficiently” profitable is a decision for the forest owner to make, based on available markets, etc..

If the forest owner is subsidised to manage the forest for wood production (which may be the case in some countries), then the FSC must ensure that all forest owners within that same jurisdiction have equal access to the same subsidies, ie. The FSC has a duty to uphold the principles of competitive neutrality within the forest industry, and not advantage one forest grower over another.

https://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/2016/10/17/competitive-neutrality-in-forestry/

Which leads me nicely to the Australian definition of Economically Viable.

The Australian definition of Economically Viable could be taken to be supportive of money laundering in the forest industry.

Within the Australian definition no profitability is required.

Any amount of money from any source (eg. Criminal activity) can be used to subsidise forest management, achieve economic viability and hence achieve FSC Certification.

In Tasmania that equates to robbing taxpayers to pay sawmillers.

If that definition does not open the gates to corruption and criminal activity I don’t know what would!

I would love to meet the economist that signed off on that definition of “economically viable”! A very “creative” economist indeed!!

Never mind the fact that the FSC supports both of the above contradictory Standards!!

If I was a farmer wanting to diversify my income and plant trees for wood production what would I think of the above Standards?

Would I be supportive of the FSC?

If I was a Tasmanian concerned about the continuing plunder of our public native forests, what would I think of the FSC? Would I have any confidence in Third Party Forest Certification?

I think the FSC has a long way to go to achieve any credibility.

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Posted in Commentary, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)

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An invitation to join the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)

Posted on October 26, 2020 | 2 comments

HI Gordon,

I’ve been reading your newsletter. Have you thought about joining your group up to FSC?

I’m in the environment chamber and on the board. Happy to talk about it if you are interested.

Cheers

I recently received this invitation to join the Australian branch of the FSC.

I’m making my reply to this invitation public because I believe the public and the marketplace need to better understand what is happening within the forest industry.

Hi XXXX

Thanks for the invitation for the Tasmanian Blackwood Growers Cooperative to join the FSC.

Twenty years ago I had hopes that the advent of the FSC would see major reform within the Australian forest industry.

Today I have no such illusions!

The fact that Bunnings/Officeworks will help shut down public native welfare forestry next year is indirectly due to the FSC, but otherwise the industry and the wood marketplace are utterly moribund.

Harsh words I know, but after a 40 year career that is the only conclusion I can come too.

The FSCs standards for “economically viable” are a joke. No they are worse than a joke! They are completely offensive and destructive to the future of the industry:.  

https://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/2019/05/13/fsc-supports-illegal-forestry-in-australia/

https://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/2016/10/17/competitive-neutrality-in-forestry/

Because of this “Standard”, private forest growers have no hope. Because of this “Standard” my Group has no future. How can it when annual taxpayer subsidies to public native welfare forestry are fully supported by the FSC and PEFC? Private growers don’t get FSC/PEFC approved annual taxpayer subsidies!!

Growing trees for wood production is a commercial activity. It is not welfare!

Should I join the FSC to help drive change within the FSC?

If Greenpeace resigned because it could not achieve meaningful change within the FSC what chance would I have of doing so?

https://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/2018/03/30/greenpeace-leaves-the-forest-stewardship-council-fsc/

Greenpeace is right! Third party certification without transparency is a waste of time. It becomes a form-filling, label-sticking exercise of little value.

So why would I join an organisation like the FSC that deliberately seeks to undermine private forest growers?

Taxpayer subsidised welfare forestry and profit-driven commercial forestry cannot coexist in the same marketplace.

It’s that simple!

The FSC supports welfare forestry and therefore undermines commercial forestry.

It’s that simple!

If the FSC wants to support and encourage farm forestry in Australia then it needs to change its assessment standards.

It’s that simple!

Yours sincerely,

Gordon Bradbury

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Posted in Commentary, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Markets

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VicForests ‘hamstrung’

Posted on October 4, 2020 | 2 comments

https://www.gippslandtimes.com.au/story/6836029/vicforests-hamstrung/

This article appeared in a regional newspaper back in July.

Very few people would have read it. Even fewer people would have understood it or appreciated the wisdom (even if misinterpreted).

Vicforests is the State government forest agency in Victoria, Australia tasked with logging public native forests.

https://www.vicforests.com.au/

For the past 50+ years it has been the focus of increasingly bitter community opposition.

The article mostly expresses the opinions of Gary Featherston, a professional forester and apologist for public native forestry.

Mr Featherston wishes us to believe that public native forestry is “hamstrung” by its political masters.

But what Mr Featherston describes is nothing more than the chaos of politically driven public administration. Every day the objectives change according to the winds of politics. Every day the chaos increases!

The chaos of public administration is bad enough in areas like education and health. But when it comes to pseudo-commerce like public native forestry the chaos takes on a whole new meaning!

Up until the 1990’s forestry in Australia was a Government run welfare scheme. Native forest and plantations were managed to provide jobs in regional Australia.

Today only NSW and WA have Government owned plantations. Today most timber grown and sold in Australia is privately owned. Profit is the motive! As it should be!!

And yet industry and Government policy in Australia is still focused on subsidising sawmillers/wood processors; ie. Policy is still focused on welfare.

Vicforests is not “hamstrung” as Mr Featherston wants us to believe!

Vicforests (and public native forestry around Australia) is the very embodiment of 19th century ideology well past its useby date.

Vicforests can never be divorced from the chaos of politics.

Politics is the permanent enduring Achilles Heel of public native forestry.

The future of forestry is in profitable private forest managers and growers, and until Australia recognises that fact we will continue on this endless cycle of conflict, stupidity and waste.

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Posted in Commentary, Forestry Tasmania, Sustainable Timbers Tasmania

Timber processor alarmed over ‘massive amount’ of softwood exported to China

Posted on September 4, 2020 | Leave a comment
A large truck carrying neatly piled wood logs enters a large yard with thousands of large wooden logs.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-02/softwood-resource-exported-to-china-amid-log-supply-insecurity/12617994

Here we are. Sawmillers who have spent generations being on the Government payroll are now complaining about having to exist in a global competitive market.

With the sale of Government pine plantations, the new plantation owners are free to sell their logs to whoever they like, including customers who are prepared to pay more than domestic customers/sawmillers.

Imagine that! Competition and free trade in the forest industry. Who would have guessed?

This is a classic forest industry sob story, about poor hard-done-by sawmillers who can’t compete in a global marketplace.

The softwood industry is no longer part of the Welfare Forestry System in Australia, except in Western Australia and New South Wales, where Governments have yet to privatise their plantation estates.

I just love the pity-me language:

“Our forefathers planted the trees — they were planted with a plan to create jobs into the future. It wasn’t about growing wood for Asia.”

A classic example of Trees-as-Welfare, not Trees-as-Commerce. The idea of growing trees to make a profit is anathema to these poor folk.

These sawmillers are demanding welfare not trees!

They are unwittingly demanding the destruction of their very own businesses and industry.

Clearly the Green Triangle Forest Industry Hub (GTFIH) is not the cohesive single-minded group that their website wants us to believe:

http://gtfih.com.au/

Tensions between growers and processors are running high!

The GTFIH has a plan to plant 50,000 ha of new plantation over the next 10 years. That definitely won’t happen with stories like this in the media.

Who would want to plant trees knowing you cannot trade in an open competitive market? Nobody that’s who!!

Unfortunately the article does not talk about prices and markets, or any idea of the growers side of the story.

And as for an industry Code of Conduct, that would be the final nail in the coffin for the already struggling forest industry in Australia.

What other primary producers in Australia face a more hostile political environment than tree growers? I can’t think of any! Happy to have your comments!

Anyone growing trees for wood production in Australia, whether plantation or native forest, should be very worried right now. Your investment is about to be destroyed by your politicians.

What a total mess the industry is!!

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Posted in Commentary, Markets, Plantations, Politics

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“Let’s fast track that plan!”

Posted on August 28, 2020 | Leave a comment

FastTrack

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/special-reports/more-trees-will-grow-jobs-economy/news-story/8b4fd3b46144584213fd106525ee0d6e

That’s forest industry speak for “hand over the taxpayers money now” and more political protection and subsidies please.

This is a typical piece of forest industry windy hyperbole; full of bluster, promise, and foreboding. I’ve been reading this kind of rubbish all my long forestry career.

The forest industry cannot convince Australian farmers to include commercial treegrowing in their business models.

Why?

Because the forest industry in Australia has zero commercial credibility!

So who then is the audience for this article?

None other than Governments and politicians of course.

This article is not written for the farming community.

As usual the forest industry talks about growing demand and supply shortages but fails to talk about markets, costs, prices and profits.

Forest policy in Australia has always been about loggers, sawmillers and processors – regional jobs.

Forest policy in Australia has never, ever been about profitable tree growers.

This article talks about regional jobs and communities, and deliberately avoids any mention of profitable tree growers.

Saving regional jobs – ie. Welfare forestry – is a major focus of the forest industry.

But welfare forestry is a dead end; a road to failure.

The only truism in this article is “we need to grow the plantation estate significantly and strategically”.

If forestry markets are so positive as this article wants us to believe, then why isn’t the marketplace responding and farmers planting trees? Surely that is the way markets work is it not? More demand triggers higher prices triggers more supply etc, etc.. Classic economics!!

But Australia does not have a forestry market. There is no relationship in Australia between wood supply, demand, price, cost and profit. None!

And that is the result of deliberate industry and Government policy.

The end result is that the forest industry has no commercial credibility and farmers don’t plant trees.

And the forest industry has no clue whatsoever how to fix this problem except write blustering rubbish like this.

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Posted in Commentary, Plantations, Politics

Bunnings and the Forest Industry Extremists

Posted on July 3, 2020 | 1 comment

Bunnings

https://ausfpa.com.au/media-releases/bunnings-short-sighted-decision-will-cost-aussie-jobs-and-lead-to-environment-destroying-imports/?fbclid=IwAR0jgN7DidmkyPHn2LjzQwbXjN-ccbWDJYxgEi7LWoeVBxb_–z16rK-SDk

Am I surprised?

No not really!

The exaggerated rhetoric and chest beating of the forest industry extremists is utterly predictable.

Is Bunnings short sighted?

Absolutely not.

They have long-standing company policies that seek to improve the ethics and legality within its supply chains.

Bunnings has for many years been supportive of Vicforests efforts to gain FSC certification, but after numerous attempts Vicforests has failed to achieve what so many other forest managers have.

https://www.vicforests.com.au/

In 2018 Bunnings announced that come 2021 they would only sell FSC certified wood products.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-17/vic-forestry-industry-at-risk-of-collapse/10255128

Vicforests has had plenty of opportunity to prove its credentials. It has failed!

The Federal Court ruling in May was a “last straw” which Bunnings could not ignore.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-27/leadbeaters-possum-federal-court-rules-vicforests-logging-breach/12292046

https://www.fedcourt.gov.au/services/access-to-files-and-transcripts/online-files/friends-of-leadbeaters-possum-v-vicforests

Vilification

The vilification by the AFPA of Bunnings and the Victorian community who care about THEIR forests, is downright reprehensible.

It does the greater forest industry no good whatsoever.

Will there be job losses?

Absolutely!!

But the WELFARE FOREST INDUSTRY must face its Waterloo.

And the longer the battle rages and the more vehement the rhetoric, the worse the damage will be.

The AFPA is clearly determined to maximise the damage.

Will Bunnings actions lead to greater forest destruction overseas?

This is more disingenuous rhetoric from the AFPA.

Australia has legislation that specifically prevents the importation of illegal timber. You can read about it here:

https://www.agriculture.gov.au/forestry/policies/illegal-logging

If Bunnings is only selling FSC certified wood products, how does that lead to greater illegal forest destruction overseas? The logic doesn’t work!!

With this rhetoric the AFPA is implying that Australians do NOT care where their timber comes from, whilst Bunnings is showing us that Australians do care!

Another implication is that the AFPA believes that the FSC supports illegal destructive logging. I wonder what the FSC has to say about that??!!

Exactly who is the AFPA trying to offend??

None of this exaggerated hostile rhetoric does the forest industry any good whatsoever.

Contempt of Court

Instead the AFPA would rather push the boundaries of Contempt of Court by suggesting that the Federal Court is being misled or in error in its judgement.

Dangerous ground indeed!!

Bunnings is to be commended for having a social conscience and sticking to it despite the political heat.

If only more Australian businesses were like minded. I’m thinking here especially of Australias other hardware empire Home Timber & Hardware:

https://www.homehardware.com.au/

which so far seems to have little sense of corporate responsibility.

https://www.metcash.com/corporate-social-responsibility/responsible-sourcing/

Come 1st January 2021

Bunnings revised its timber policy to require all native forest timber products to be independently certified to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) or equivalent standard by the end of 2020. Officeworks and Bunnings both recognise FSC® as the leading forestry certification scheme due to its high environmental and social standards for responsible and sustainable forest management, as well as its chain of custody processes and balanced governance structure.

https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/our-principles/sourcing/suppliers/

Come 1st January 2021 Bunnings and Officeworks will add the NSW Forestry Corporation and Sustainable Timbers Tasmania to its list of proscribed suppliers

https://www.forestrycorporation.com.au/

https://www.sttas.com.au/

since neither of these Government forest agencies have achieved FSC certification.

There is much change and pain ahead.

I only wish the forest industry would adopt a more positive approach.

I am not hopeful!

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Posted in Commentary, Sustainable Timbers Tasmania

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Timber supply chain constraints in the Australian plantation sector

Posted on June 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

pine2

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House/Standing_Committee_on_Agriculture_and_Water_Resources/Timbersupply

On 26 September 2019, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Water Resources received a referral from Assistant Minister Duniam for an inquiry into timber supply chain constraints in the Australian plantation sector.

The Committee invites submissions addressing any or all of the terms of reference for the inquiry.

Submissions are requested by Monday, 17 August 2020.

The Committee is dominated by conservative Government members so the chances of anything useful coming from the inquiry are very limited.

Nevertheless here is my submission

Submission

Yet another inquiry into the forest industry in Australia!!!

I think it would be useful for the Committee to do a quick review/summary of every other forest industry inquiry/report. There have been hundreds over the past 50 years, with most of their recommendations having never been implemented.

The Committee could seek to answer the question why have so few previous recommendations been implemented?

Terms of Reference

To inquire and report on:

  • the nature of wood supply from Australia’s plantation sector including:
    • Projected timber volumes available over the next 30 years and the potential grades of logs available.

The question needs to be asked, does current and projected wood supply from Australia’s plantation sector meet current and future needs? Answer. NO!

The next question needs to be asked, if growing timber in Australia is profitable why doesn’t everyone (farmers) know about it? If it is not profitable, then what is the point of this inquiry?

Another relevant question is, what’s wrong with imported timber? If New Zealand farmers can grow timber cheaper than Australia then good luck to them I say! We do not need to be self sufficient in wood products just for the sake of self sufficiency!

 

  • The plantation wood supply available for domestic softwood processors including:
    • Current and future demand for logs for domestic processors; and
    • Any shortfall in current processing industry demand for logs.

This TOR definitely smacks of protectionism and market manipulation. Do you want farmers to invest in trees? If so then get rid of this protectionist bullshit. Domestic processors must compete in open competitive transparent markets, otherwise the domestic processors become increasingly high cost and uncompetitive, which has negative impacts throughout the supply chain from growers to retailers and consumers.

 

  • The competitiveness of log pricing between domestic and export market.

Who in Australia knows what the domestic and export log prices are, let alone whether they are competitive? I’m a forester with 40 years in the industry and I have never ever known!! What does that tell the Committee?

A former Director of Forestry Tasmania once said:

The lack of price transparency for forest products, particularly from hardwood forests/plantations [in Australia], represents an impediment to the uptake of farm forestry. Unlike other commodities, price information for forest products is not published through the newspaper or accessible online. Better price transparency is required to encourage smallscale investment in trees.

Curiously Forestry Tasmania has never ever supported price transparency.

New Zealand has a REAL forest industry with excellent log price transparency. Australia has a completely dysfunctional forest industry.

 

  • The term of log supply contracts needed to support the processing sectors.

This TOR, like the second TOR above, is all about destroying the forest industry through market manipulation and protectionist policies. Local processors must compete in open competitive transparent markets. It is NOT the job of dairy farmers to subsidise cheese makers NOR is it the job of tree growers to subsidise local industry.

 

  • Opportunities to increase Australia’s wood supply, including identifying and addressing barriers to plantation establishment.

There are abundant opportunities to increase Australia’s wood supply, but they are vastly outnumbered by the barriers to plantation establishment. Many previous forest industry reports have addressed these issues, with all those previous reports now collecting dust on library shelves around Australia.

I have to ask why we need yet another report when the answers are already known! The forest industry in Australia is completely dysfunctional. Does it behave like a commercial business desperately wanting a future? No it does not!

 

  • The role that state governments could have in assisting in addressing any problems identified by the work of this committee.

All State Governments that engage in public native forestry (WA, Vic, NSW and Qld) are all engaged in industry-destroying Welfare Forestry. Welfare Forestry is all about subsiding processors and “saving jobs”. It has nothing at all to do with real commercial forestry.

The forestry industry in Australia has no future whilst Welfare Forestry continues to undermine the industry.

State Governments should be encouraging profitable tree growing, but all of them refuse to do this.

 

  • Make any recommendations around any code of conduct or management mode that could assist in addressing any problems identified by the work of this committee.

Please read all previous reports and inquiries and implement the recommendations!

But as just one example, New Zealand has a single set of environmental regulations that apply to all primary producers. The regulations do not discriminate against the forest industry. Similarly to overcome differences between local Council regulations, the NZ forest industry implemented a single set of plantation management guidelines that work across the entire country. Contrast this with Australia where the industry faces a mountain of diverse changing regulations across the country.

How can Australia hope to compete with NZ? We can’t! It is not possible!

 

Blackwood

Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) is Australia’s premium appearance grade timber. It can be grown successful in plantations, as NZ farmers are doing, and potentially it has a very high market value. But most blackwood comes from Tasmania where the State government and the forest industry work to undermine the market and supply the market with cheap taxpayer subsidised blackwood. Transparent competitive markets for blackwood do not exist because neither the Government nor industry want transparent competitive markets.

Attempting to establish a Tasmanian Blackwood Growers Cooperative is therefore impossible due to Government and industry policy.

Conclusion

I’m a forester with 40+ years experience in the industry. And for all that time, after hundreds of forest industry plans/strategies/inquiries and reports the industry in Australia remains moribund and dysfunctional.

New Zealand has a real forest industry, one of the most successful in the world. But we choose not to learn from their example. Up until 1990 the NZ forest industry was run by the Government, including public native forestry, plantations and sawmills. In the early 1990s the New Zealand Government decided to get out of the forest industry entirely. Public native forestry was shut down, and plantations and sawmills were sold. Since then the NZ industry has gone from strength to strength, and is now one of New Zealands major industries; fully private, commercial and profitable!! Do they still have challenges and opportunities? Absolutely! But they are committed and capable of resolving every one!!

The NZ forest industry is now 30 years ahead of the Australian forest industry and pulling further ahead of us every day. Will Australia even have a forest industry in another 30 years time? Not if we keep going the way we are!

Good luck with your Committee and its report and recommendations.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dr Gordon Bradbury

Hobart

Tasmania

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Posted in Commentary, Plantations, Politics

Tasmanian Forest Products Association – a new beginning?

Posted on May 28, 2020 | 1 comment

Hayes

It seems many people are hoping that the new Tasmanian Forest Products Association (TFPA) will offer the forest industry a chance for a new beginning. I have to say after 40 years in the industry that seems unlikely.

But never mind! As someone famous once said “There is always hope!”

Here are a few of my thoughts about what the TFPA is facing and what the challenges are (in no particular order):

  • The biggest issue facing the REAL forest industry is the WELFARE forest industry – everyone who works or depends upon public native forest wood. Public native forestry generates bad media like there is no tomorrow. It starves the real forest industry of oxygen!

It’s not as if the real forest industry has been working hard to create positive media, but they don’t stand a chance whilst the public and marketplace perception is dominated by WELFARE forestry.

Public native forestry is the stinking albatross around the industry’s neck!

  • The TFPA needs to think differently, speak differently and project a completely new message to the community. Speak and behave like you mean “business”. Whatever you do, do not keep repeating the tired boring messages of the last 50 years!!

You need to get the farming and broader community onboard.

The community is not your enemy!

This means keeping a visible and significant distance from politicians. In Tasmania that will be difficult! Tasmanian politicians are like leeches. They climb up our legs and bleed us.

If the community sees you playing politics, you are dead!

  • Cutting down trees, sawing up or chipping logs has always been the easiest part of the forest industry. The hardest part is getting people to plant, grow and manage trees for future wood production! That means the focus of the industry must be on PROFITABLE TREE GROWING! And it must be a planned, collective approach to expand and grow the industry. Individual businesses cannot do this.
  • The forest industry in New Zealand is one of the most successful in the world. We can learn much from them.
  • Competition, level playing fields and market transparency are fundamental to the future of the industry! Numerous reports have been saying this for decades! JUST DO IT!!!
  • If you adopt any of the above ideas you will come under intense pressure from your mainland colleagues who regard all of these ideas as anathema. Nevermind! Stay strong! Someone has to break the cycle of failure that has cursed our industry.

All of the above makes for a very long hard road ahead for the TFPA.

But the only alternative is extinction.

We are in the fight of our lives.

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Posted in Commentary, Tasmanian Forest Products Association

Tasmanian Forest Products Association

Posted on May 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

Hayes

Bryan Hayes, Forico CEO

The forest industry remains quite for months and then BANG! News stories everywhere!!

This article appeared in the media the other day:

https://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/6767207/new-forestry-body-to-represent-industry-plagued-by-conflict-and-old-issues/?fbclid=IwAR1nZ_BpPTnxqz7EalGl-006syfKk1J3EQ-g6OzAG8ebcwg6km0tvL26n-g

The article formally announced the death of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmanian (FIAT) and the formation of yet another forest industry representative body, the Tasmanian Forest Products Association (TFPA). Tasmania is now back to having two forest industry representative bodies, the other being the taxpayer-funded Tasmanian Forest and Forest Products Network (TFFPN).

https://www.tffpn.com.au/

The TFPA as yet has no website. Hopefully soon!

I’m not sure where the TFGA sits in all this confusion:

https://tfga.com.au/farming-enterprises/forestry

Do they represent forest growers? Its hard to understand!

If Tasmanians are confused this is perfectly understandable. The forest industry in Tasmania remains deeply conflicted and divided.

The main theme of the article is to give Tasmanians very rare insight into the history of the forest industry; the truth being that for the past 20-30 years the forest industry has been very deeply divided!!

Driven by ego, power and greed; and as the article says “doing things the same way over and over is not a good strategy”. Who would guess?

Tasmanians have never had this insight into the inner workings and conflict within the forest industry. This is indeed a rare moment in Tasmanian history.

Few people in Tasmania were aware of this. Most Tasmanians thought the issue was “The Greenies”, when in fact the story was more complex.

“We want to depoliticise the conversation, we want to speak with an apolitical voice … take in the balance of social, economic and environmental concerns.”

Mr Hayes said the task ahead was enormous, particularly taking into account years of highly political activity within the industry and with professional protesters.

“There’s that old saying, herding cats …” he joked.

“But I hope it is able to act like a glue to bind the industry together.

“It’s going to be a long road.”

A long HARD road ahead!! Has anyone in the Tasmanian forest industry spoken with such candour before?

Not in my 40 year career as a forester!

Never mind!

The Tasmanian forest industry remains deeply conflicted and divided – between the taxpayer-sucking forest-destroying welfare forestry people, and those who believe that growing wood is a commercial activity.

My limited dealings with Mr Hayes have been very positive. Can he bring the peace and resolve to this long bitter divisive destructive period in Tasmanias history?

Time will tell.

Good luck Bryan herding those Feral Welfare Cats !!!

PS. Note to Bryan: You know I’m going to give you guys a hard time but you wouldn’t expect otherwise would you??

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Posted in Commentary, Politics, Tasmanian Forest Products Association