Victoria's Plantations
Victorian Plantations - Corporatised, Vested and on the verge of being Privatised
- 1997
Victoria has a total of 140,000 hectares of state owned plantations, according to the Victorian Association of Forest Industries
The State Government formed the Victorian Plantations Corporation in 1993 to manage state plantations. When it was formed, it was also vested with 167,921 ha. of public land. The "VPC act" of 1993 went by largely unnoticed. Very little information on the issue has been made available, perhaps due to the problems that become apparent when it is seriously scrutinised. The most obvious anomaly is that the VPC has been vested with 27,921 more hectares than there are state plantation. Reports are referring to VPC land as pine plantation. This is not entirely the case. In the Strzeleckis, 7000 hectares of the land in question is classed as eucalypt plantation and more importantly, a further 20,000 hectares is not plantation but native forest. The State Government now plans to fully privatise the VPC, its plantation assets and the vested public land.
Some of the vested land is not plantation. 20,000 hectares of the native forest, wrongly referred to as plantation, makes up a third of the Strzelecki State Forest . It was included in the 40,000 ha. Strzelecki parcel vested in the VPC, made up, roughly, of 13,000 ha. of pine, 7000 ha. of eucalypt plantation and 20,000 ha. of native bush. The VPC now holds two thirds of the entire 61,000 ha, state forest. This parcel is made up of "blocks". Instead of being given land selected from within these blocks, the VPC were handed the entire block and the term "block" was replaced with the term "plantation". The detailed Strzelecki State Forest maps that accompany the 1993 VPC Act fail to show plantation . These blocks may contain plantation, but they also contain a diverse range of mountain ash old growth and regrowth, messmate forest, acacia forest and rainforest. Vesting such land in a plantation corporation is a highly inappropriate move and plans to privatise this land is contrary to the State's aims to maintain and increase the amount of native forest in public ownership.
The Strzelecki State Forest plantations (13,000 ha. pine, 7000 ha. eucalypt) represent 50 years of experimentation. The countless problems that beset both the pine and eucalypt plantations provided an enormous wealth of knowledge about how to, and how not to, grow plantations - information far more valuable than the actual timber growing in these plantations . The Strzelecki State Forest's unique contribution was the development of some of the world's first eucalypt plantations. Now, there are more than 7 million ha. of eucalypt plantations around the world, much of which is derived from strains developed in the Strzeleckis .
Plantations had a dramatic effect on the local environment. Prime lyrebird and koala habitat was cleared to make way for plantations. Streamflow was reduced by the sheer amount of thirsty young trees. Sensitive areas of bush and native wildlife adjacent to plantations are harmed by the bulldozing, baiting and spraying that goes on in plantations. Likewise, the native forest inhabitants damage plantations.The black wallaby was singled out as a major pest and treated with alarming brutality.
Some plantations were unsuccessful. Many plantations achieved only partial success.Some were killed by frost and dry winds. Some were attempted in places where acacia forests flourished, but eucalypts and pines simply could not survive. Some were too neglected. In some areas, repeated attempts to re-establish failed plantations led to severe land degradation.
Some plantations were inappropriate Some were established too close to rainforests, roadsides, heritage areas, scenic and recreational areas and reserves. Even part of the Tarra-Bulga Park (declared of International Significance )was at one stage a pine plantation. Some plantations were established on wildly steep terrain. Some plantations were established in locations which block off wildlife corridors or make it impossible to link together the small reserves that currently exist. (presently, a meagre 10% of the S.S.F. is reserved. Should all the land currently vested in the VPC be made private, both the tiny Gunyah Gunyah Rainforest Reserve and the Tarra-Bulga national park would become "islands" unable to ever be enlarged).
Some plantations have been retained by DNRE and not vested in the VPC. This suggests that even more than 20,000 ha. of the land vested in the VPC is not plantation land.
Is it advisable or necessary to privatise our State tree plantations?
Victoria's state plantations amount to 0.6% of Victorias total land area - or 1.6 % of all Victorias public land This is indeed a significant chunk of the state. Put together, this would cover an area 100 kilometres long and 14 kilometres wide.The planned privatisation of this land (along with an extra 280 square kilometres of bush) is without doubt one of the most extreme privatisation schemes that the Victorian Government has ever considered.
New Zealand set the trend towards privatising plantations some years ago and several Australian states began to follow . They soon saw that the move was potentially controversial and decided to corporatise the management of state plantations instead - for the time being at least. Now, Victoria seems poised to fully privatise its state plantations. Details are veiled by commercial secrecy but it is said that the state has already talked with 5 potential buyers.
The 1990 State Plantations Impact Study recommended that , for a number of valid reasons, tree plantations are more appropriate for private land than in State Forests.
State forests are managed on a "multiple use" strategy. This means that along with its timber value, wildlife habitat, soil retention, water catchment, recreational and scenic, values, etc. must also be considered. Intensively managed plantations, as the report confirmed, are at odds with the multiple use strategy as they are a single purpose crop.
Short rotation pulpwood plantations, as the VPC eucalypt plantations have become (20 -30yrs between logging) are also at odds with Australia's sawlog driven industry strategy. Pulpwood is supposed to be sourced from the leftovers from sawmilling, not from entire state plantations.
Perhaps this report prompted the Victorian Government to come up with its privatisation plan. If so, it is missing the point of the report. The issue is not whether the state or the private sector should manage the state plantations. The issue is about where future plantations should go.
All that is really necessary to bring existing state plantations into step with the findings of the study is :- 1. that the State ceases to convert any further state land into plantation. Carefully tended plantations which have been fenced, thinned and pruned are far more successful and valuable. This is thought to be best achieved in a farm situation. The Victorian Plantations Corporation, however, continue to enlarge their state forest plantations. 2. that the State applies a less intensive approach to its plantations by using less poisons, herbicides and insecticides than would be allowed on farmland. The diverse forest community has a legal right to compete with the planted species and a degree of damage from browsing wildlife must be tolerated. 3. that the State grows its existing plantations for sawlogs, as was the original intention. This merely involves waiting longer before harvesting. [The Victorian Plantations Corporation, however,have changed the focus of their hardwood plantations from a minimum 60 year rotation to a minimum 20 year rotation. Areas which only 20 years ago were native bush, cleared to make way for plantations, are now being clearfelled again.]
Recommendations:
*Non plantation land vested in the VPC must be de-vested.
*Plantations should be individually assessed and clearly mapped.
* Unsuccessful and inappropriate plantations must also be de-vested and returned to the public forest estate and either left alone, or logged and rehabilitated.
* The Victorian public must be allowed to judge the success of the VPC so far.
*The Victorian public must decide whether the VPC or any of the vested public land should be privatised.
*The Government must have the bravery to hold its plans up for public scrutiny.
*The Government must avoid rushing any decision concerning the privatisation of public land.
*No major alteration to the status of this public land should be considered until the Regional Forest Agreements and Native Title claims have been completed.
....It is rumoured, however, that a fully privatised VPC could be just weeks away.