Plantation forestry has contributed to the decline in Western Australia’s farming population but overall has provided an economic and population boost to affected regions, a new report has found.
Plantation forestry has contributed to the decline in Western Australia’s farming population but overall has provided an economic and population boost to affected regions, a new report has found.
The report, by the Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation, estimated that 500 people were directly employed in the plantation forestry sector in the Great Southern region of WA.
Nearly $50 million was spent establishing, managing and harvesting plantations in the Great Southern in 2004, with two thirds of this amount spent in the region.
Federal Forestry Minister Senator Ian Macdonald said the report – and a similar report relating to southern NSW – was commissioned because many local government councillors were asking what effect plantations would have on their communities.
Senator Macdonald said the reports dispelled the myth that timber plantations were bad for local economies or reduced the rural population.
“In fact, where plantation expansion occurs as part of a mix of land use changes, it can increase rural populations, especially where there are processing industries associated with the plantations,” he said.
Plantaganet shire president Kevin Forbes said the report provided a fairly accurate picture of the industry but noted that it did not assess the impact of logging trucks on roads.
Mr Forbes said this was “probably the biggest issue” associated with the plantation industry and had become more acute in the past two years since large-scale harvesting had commenced.
Nationally, the plantation sector has experienced rapid growth over the past decade, driven by tax incentives that enable companies such as Timbercorp, Great Southern and Integrated Tree Cropping to offer ‘tax effective’ investment schemes.
In the Great Southern the plantation estate has expanded from 6,150 hectares in 1991 to 127,500ha in 2001.
Senator Macdonald said Australia currently has 1.7 million hectares of plantations and the government’s goal was to reach three million hectares by the year 2020.
The Great Southern report found that local government areas with plantations have, on average, experienced more rapid decline in the number of farmers than other local government areas, though there were exceptions to this pattern. The report also found that local government areas with plantations have experienced higher population growth (or a lesser decline) than other local government areas. It said the analysis was complicated by other trends, such as the growth in grape growing and ‘lifestyle’ farming.
The number of jobs in the plantation sector has grown rapidly in the past two to three years as the harvesting of eucalypt plantations, which have a 10-year growth cycle, has commenced.
The volume of harvesting is expected to grow rapidly over the next few years before stabilising at a higher level.
The harvesting has also led to investments in chipping mills and port infrastructure, and these are also expected to expand in coming years.
The report found that the plantation industry had contributed to the higher growth in land values in the ‘high rainfall’ parts of the great southern, specifically the shires of Albany, Cranbrook and Plantaganet. The industry had also indirectly boosted land values in neighbouring areas.
