The Forest Wars
Judith Ajani
2007
Melbourne University Press
$34.95, 368 pages

Review by Anthony Amis
Friends of the Earth Forest Network

This is an important, yet fundamentally flawed contribution to the history of Australian forest issues. The book tells the story of the mismanagement of Australian native forests by "morally bankrupt" business interests and inept government bureaucracies. It is definitely worth a read, and the section concerning the profits associated with export woodchipping offers valuable insights into the real driver behind the clearfelling that has laid waste to many Australian native forests since the late 1960's.

However, in its haste to promote plantations, the book glosses over the environmental impacts of plantations. Ajani is highly critical of the current Managed Investment Scheme hardwood plantation expansion, however the criticism is based on economic rather than environmental reasoning.

Ajani's argument hinges on the fact that since the 1920's Australian foresters have argued that pine plantations would be the only means to meet Australia's increasing appetite for timber products. This vision was finally brought to fruition by the Menzies government in the mid 1960's with the first federal intervention into forestry issues – funding for a three million acre softwood expansion throughout Australia via loans to state governments. At today's prices Ajani claims the loans would be worth $460 million.

Estimates about the volumes of timber that were required to be planted at the time were optimistic, so by the early 1990's Australia had a huge stockpile of plantation pine. Ajani claims that this supply could adequately supply all of Australia's sawn timber and imported timber requirements. This theory fits into the black-and-white analysis favoured by many economic rationalists and native forest campaigners alike. With such a supply of plantation pine, there is, Ajani argues, no need to log native forests at all. This argument is not new and has been pushed by numerous conservation groups and Ajani (then Judy Clarke) since the early 1990's.

Ajani explains that the expansion of softwood initially raised the ire of environmentalists as native forests were cleared for the plantation establishment. The criticism was crystallised by the 1973 publication The Fight for the Forests written by Richard and Val Routley. This seminal work looked at the two main forest issues of the day – opposition to softwood expansion and opposition to the then nascent export woodchip industry. The book had a huge impact in exposing the flawed ecological nonsense inherent in forest policy at that time. One wonders how the Routley's would feel 30 years later with conservationists now supporting the land use which they so vehemently opposed in the 1970's.

Another interesting point made by Ajani is that pine producers were also active in funding industry associations that were set up to defend native forest woodchipping. The Radiata Pine Association of Australia had been absorbed into the National Association of Forest Industries. The pine producers were actually not willing to make the break from the native forest woodchippers until well into the 1990's, so until then profits from pine plantation companies were being directed to support export woodchipping companies working against the interests of the conservation movement.

Friends of the Earth has always opposed the export woodchip industry and logging of old growth forests. We have always argued that if logging is to occur in native forests then the volumes would be exceedingly small (a point not discounted by Ajani). However FoE has been vocal in its criticism of plantations, particularly the use of pesticides, the use of toxic timber treatments and impacts on waterways and local communities which have had plantations foisted on them. This issue has been a problem in many areas, especially northern Tasmania with widespread pollution of drinking water by forestry herbicides such as Simazine and Atrazine. FoE would also argue that by remaining uncritical of the plantation industry, the environment movement has actually done many communities a disservice, leaving them no support in opposing poor land use decisions in their communities. The Ajani book will do nothing to ease their concerns.

The only problems with plantations mentioned by Ajani are: "Plantings on steep slopes or in gullies, water catchments and potential habitat corridors were the prime environment problems. Managing these areas, in some cases withdrawing them completely from the plantation estate, corrected the mistakes made by the foresters' earlier rush to plant" (p.122).

Perhaps Ajani should make a visit to the Strzelecki Ranges or even the Otways where a large percentage of plantations are planted on steep slopes on highly erodable soils. Every time these plantations are logged mass soil movement occurs. Many of these plantations have been privatised and are now in foreign hands. Governments would have to fork out many millions of dollars to buy back the land in question, which could total up to 50% of plantations in these regions. The Otways scenario is interesting in that pine plantations established for pulp are now being replanted with bluegum plantations. The pines were to be logged every 30 years, the bluegums every ten. A large proportion of these plantations lie in the domestic water supply for 50,000 people. Aerial spraying of insecticides commenced in the Otways for the first time in November 2007. Is this really a sustainable outcome?

A novice reading The Forest Wars would presume by Ajani's assumptions that the plantation industry is clean and green when a more cynical view holds that it is reliant on toxic chemicals and is responsible for catchment degradation on a massive scale. One of Ajani's corporate heroes Auspine gets the thumbs up throughout the book. Nothing is said about Auspine being the largest tropical timber importer in Australia, its use of the 'gender bender' herbicide Atrazine in pine plantations or that it is the largest producer of Copper Chrome Arsenate (CCA) toxic timber in the country. CCA treated pine threatens the health of thousands of Australians, yet like pesticides is not mentioned in Ajani's book.

Ajani also fails to mention that predicted growth rates have been questioned not only by industry hacks but also by conservationists. Duclos in 2002 highlighted that ex state managed pine plantations in Victoria were only getting a 30% sawlog recovery not 50% as predicted by Ajani in an earlier work. Duclos also noted that in the Ballarat region, MAI's (Mean Annual Increment) from Spargo plantation was almost 50% less than what Ajani had predicted. MAI in Gippsland's Strzeleckis Ranges is much lower than predicted growth rates due to logging of native forest under the guise of plantation logging.

Earlier this year, Hancock Plantations started bulldozing bluegum plantations that had failed to grow in central Gippsland. Ajani's understanding of the Gippsland scenario shows a lack of clear understanding about the plantation sector in that region. If Australia has more than enough radiata pine, why in the past six months have pine producers been claiming that more plantations need to be grown to meet future demand? If there were enough plantations to meet all of Australia's needs in the early 1990's, why is PaperlinX now planting 20,000 hectares of plantations, with Gippsland water supplies being increasingly targeted?

That said, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Australia's forest industry could eventually become sustainable, with possibly 50% of Australia's plantation base having to be retired/'reforested' and the use of most pesticides and toxic timber treatments used in plantation products banned. Export woodchipping from native forests would also have to be banned (which in turn would collapse most of the native forest sawlog sector) and all plantation woodchips used domestically. The odds of this occurring in the near future – particularly in Tasmania, Victoria and NSW – are extremely limited due to the influence of forestry unions and timber industry associations.

The question then would be how to manage a plantation in a sustainable fashion (an issue discussed at: <www.forest-network.org/Docs/Plantations.htm>).

(For more details on plantation mismanagement in Victoria see: <www.hancock.forests.org.au> and <www.baddevelopers.green.net.au>.)