Tasmania's forestry quota logjam under fire once again

Under the legislation, the state's forestry arm Sustainable Timber Tasmania must make 137,000 cubic metres of high-quality eucalypt sawlogs available per year for harvest.

Despite that target, however, STT continually falls below the legislation's benchmark, most recently reaching just 115,500 cubic metres in the 2020-2021 financial year.

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In that same period STT generated $102 million in revenue from forest product sales, trending down from $147 million in the previous year and $150 million in the year before that.

When questioned by Labor MLC Josh Willie on why STT continues to miss the target, Tasmanian forest policy director Alastair Morton pointed to a 2017 review noting the policy was "sustainable in the long term".

"[The figure] effectively gives STT the confidence needed to enter into contracts but the total volume under contract does not necessarily add up to 137,000," he said.

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It should be noted that while the state government sets the figure, STT is ultimately responsible for managing how much forest is made available for logging each year.

Mr Morton went on to reference a STT report which said the 15,400 cubic metres had met customer demand, but Mr Willie said this claim "didn't marry up with what we're hearing from the industry".

Responding to Mr Willie's comments, resources minister Guy Barnett criticised previous forest "lock-ups" for impacting the industry.

"But we're managing within those constraints, as in the lock-ups. We don't want to go back and we have no intention of going back there as a government," he said.

The Tasmanian Greens have continually pushed to remove the quota, with leader Cassy O'Connor labelling it a "legislated forest destruction quota" due to its impact on the state's native forest.

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"It's a quota which is holding Forestry Tasmania back from achieving Forest Stewardship Certification because they have to cut harder and harder in order to meet their legislative quota," she said in October last year.

The lack of a Forest Stewardship Certification prohibits the sale of Tasmanian timber to a growing list of viable overseas and domestic timber markets. The removal of the quota has continually been opposed by both state Labor and Liberal parties.

In the coming months, STT will unveil its five-year sustainable yield review, which should shed more light on the state of the sector and the economics of its logging practices.

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