Forestry

Wow what a difficult and complex history that surrounds forestry in Australia. The irony of it all - especially the debate over native forests way back in the 1970’s - is that the best custodians of the forests were those policy makers drove out of business. When you look at small country towns who relied heavily on forestry, many today struggle. The multiplier effect of forestry to SMEs - in terms of social capital and economics - is huge. We know this because when we took forestry out of the towns the ramifications were catastrophic. Come on a journey with us that I doubt many have taken before.

WA to cease all hard wood logging

The decision by the WA Government in 2022 to cease all hard wood logging within two years sums up the policy response and approach, in and around forestry, really well. These types of decisions are politically driven, no matter what side of the fence you sit on. They fail to take into account a range of externalities - as the effects on communities and SMEs will be huge. Decisions like this also tend to lead to what we call displaced effort; as a number of saw mills and companies have long standing harvest contracts. As a result, they will seek to to reach maximum harvest volumes over two years, rather than ten years and so the State Government either needs to step in with legislation or pay out contracts.

The solution is rather simple to be honest. Forestry policy particularly should be wrapped around broader regional develop policy practice and theory. In essence, rather than make one single unilateral decision in isolation, consider the broader context and wrap the policy objective around a range of solutions. The WA State Government didn’t do this and it’s a subsequent mess.