Timber salvage ‘a priority’

By Kath Gannaway
AS SALVAGE of timber burnt in the February fires got underway last week, industry players met with Victorian Government ministers at Healesville to talk through the salvage operation.
Timber Communities Australia South East Co-ordinator Trevor Brown told the Mail that salvage harvesting was a priority, given there was only a 12-month window of opportunity.
The meeting on Tuesday, which was part of the Community Cabinet in the Yarra Valley, saw timber industry representatives from Gippsland and the Central Highlands meet with State Treasurer John Lenders, Environment Minister Gavan Evans and the Agriculture Minister Jo Helper.
Mr Brown said the timber industry, along with many others, had felt the impact of the fires and the aftermath.
Scott Gentle, Executive Officer for the Victorian Forest Harvesting and Cartage Council said 20 contractors with a flow-on of a couple of hundred people were affected in his organisation.
At a personal level, many who made up the workforce in communities across Central Highlands had lost family and friends.
Sawmills and machinery in Kinglake, Marysville, Alexandra and Narbethong had been destroyed or damaged.
Mr Brown said the full extent of the impact on the industry was still being worked through.
“Many of our harvesting and cartage contractors have been six weeks out of work,” he said.
“Salvage operations are under way on a small scale but that is starting to ramp up quickly,” he said.
He said some of the burnt timber was in areas allocated for logging, and, being 1939 regrowth, most of the available timber was mature and ready for harvesting.
He said VicForest, which allocated the harvest contracts, had stated it would re-negotiate all contracts, in the face of the disaster and the need to focus on the salvage operations. Fifty thousand hectares of productive forest under VicForests had been affected.
“The entire industry will be operating on salvage of fire-damaged timber,” Mr Brown said.
He flagged that new log dumps would be created to deal with the massive amount of timber which would deteriorate, if it was not harvested within the next 12 months.
“A lot of timber will be stockpiled under water to stop it degrading,” he said.
He said that National Parks and the Water Catchment areas would not be touched, apart from the special management zones already allocated for timber harvesting. Mr Gentle predicted the main harvest work would be focused around the Black Range near Buxton and said Healesville could expect a few more log trucks travelling through.
He said he had made approaches to VicForests to hold community meetings in areas that may be affected by the extra activity, to keep those communities informed of what was happening.
He said he was also talking with his members to encourage them to put their views to the Royal Commission, based on personal experience of working in the forests and as contractors on the fire-front working with the DSE.