J Jackman
Posted on 7 Apr 2010 6:04 pm

THE OUT SPOKEN VOICE OF THE TASMANIAN FORESTY DEBATE

Im a true environmentalist for the forests and a true economist for the state of Tasmania or as I like to think of myself also as a Real Custodian of The Forests and its high time and fare overdue that the real people in the Forest Industry have their say, Im a 3rd generation sawmiller and Logger and I have always said that the timber industry was build on sawlogs for high value flooring and furniture timber. This was achieved in low volume in the 1950s and 60s and this was sustainable and I can see that there is a steer away from wood chipping native forest logs in large volume but as a sawmiller we also need the wood chips sales for our wood waste to complete the sustainability circle as well!. I want to stress to the public good timber for flooring and furniture products comes from native forests in regrowth and old growth not plantation timber
There are logging contractors out there that can selectively log bushes for sawlog from Native forest weather its old growth or regrowth. What I have always said has to happen is the sawmillers should selectively log crown land themselves to get the saw logs they need for their mill.
An average family owned sawmill that value add timber from green to dry for flooring and Building products ect would employ approx 10 people but would only need 7,000 m3 per year of saw logs not the millions of millions of tonnes needed for wood chip. But what scares me the most is that in this whole forestry debate we the family owned saw millers are being forgotten and we have always done the right thing by our forests!
But we as a sawmiller and Logger must stress as a forest Industry we must have some form of native forest export wood chip market to be truly sustainable,
1: wood waste form sawlogs once green boards have been cut out of them has to be wood chipped!
2: The head or crown of the sawlog tree that is not viable for sawn timber as per 1950s and 1960s has to be wood chipped as per the start up of the wood chipping industry in the 1970s.
3: In some bushes when you selectively log them you have to take out some lower grade trees ie pulp wood that want make sawlogs but only wood chips this is important so the seeds from the good potential sawlog trees can drop into that space and regenerate into sawlogs of the future!
4: And most importantly you also leave small healthy looking trees when you selectively log so they grow and grow for our future generations of sawmillers.
NOW THAT IS SUSTAINABILITY!
Please Save our family owned sawmills!!!!!!!!