Business by Lachlan Leeming and Kaitlyn Hudson-O‘Farrell 17th Feb 2021 6:28 AM
Premium Content The state s housing construction industry is on the brink of disaster, with the twin strains of the Black Summer bushfires and soaring international demand for quality pine predicted to cause a major shortfall in timber used for house frames. Industry bodies fear the state s supply of softwood pine could be exhausted as early as April - triggering rocketing construction costs and thousands of job losses. Hyne Timber CEO Jon Kleinschmidt is now appealing for timber that would usually be exported to China to be freighted from interstate to NSW for processing, but said transportation costs meant the move wasn t viable without government subsidies.
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Incoming Chair of UN FAO forestry Council says turbo-charging timber and forestry key to achieving ‘Carbon Neutral by 2050’ Incoming ACSFI Chair Ross Hampton
Incoming Chair of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) forestry advisory Council, Ross Hampton, says the world’s renewable timber and forestry sectors must be turbo-charged if we are to have any chance of achieving the global goal of ‘Carbon Neutral by 2050’.
Mr Hampton, who is also Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA), has just been appointed Chair of the UN FAO’s Advisory Council on Sustainable Forest-based Industries (ACSFI).
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New National Park won’t help koalas but will cost thousands of jobs, and $billions
A flawed report commissioned by an anti-forestry group grossly underestimates the cost of closing down the NSW North Coast’s hardwood timber industry and fails to take into account the scientific evidence that the modest, regenerative timber harvesting operations in the State Forest have no impact on koala prevalence, the Australian Forest Products Association said today.
AFPA CEO Mr Ross Hampton said previous independent economic modelling of the impact of the so-called Great Koala National Park on the NSW North Coast found it would lead to a $757 million-a-year hit to the NSW economy and cut almost 2000 jobs, devastating communities across the region where the timber industry is a major employer. This conservative estimate by respected economic modeller Ernst & Young would amount to billions of dollars and thousands more down-stream jobs over the 15 years than the report published to
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Federal Court decision a win for Australia’s sustainable native timber industries
The full bench of the Federal Court has today delivered a strong endorsement of Australia’s sustainable native timber industry by rejecting the Bob Brown Foundation’s legal challenge to the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement, the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) said today.
AFPA CEO Mr Ross Hampton welcomed the Federal Court’s affirmation of the Tasmanian RFA, which underpins the state’s robust environmental laws that regulate forestry operations.
“Today’s decision is further proof that Australians can have confidence that our sustainably managed native forestry operations are regulated to the highest environmental standards,” Mr Hampton said.