By GERRY GEORGATOS
THE forest management and carbon (dioxide) price debate continues to rage between peak environment groups and the forest industry.
WA Forest Alliance (WAFA) spokeswoman Jess Beckerling said forests could not be logged profitably and forest management should be focused on preserving them to mitigate climate change impacts.
She said the carbon price was the perfect opportunity for the forest industry and government to reassess its forest management plan and to focus it on preservation of native and mature forests.
"Mature forests take carbon pollution out of the atmosphere and store it in woody biomass and forest soils," Ms Beckerling said.
She was backed by Conservation Council of WA (CCWA) director Piers Verstegen, who said the logging and burning released huge amounts of otherwise stores of carbon into the atmosphere, further damaging the climate.
However Forest Industries Federation WA (FIFWA) executive director Bob Pearce said Ms Beckerling and Mr Verstegen were misrepresenting the statistics.
"As the release of the draft forest management plan draws near we can expect an increased flurry of wild claims about the devastating impact forestry will have on the environment," Mr Pearce said.
"The CCWA are claiming the state can make more money by stopping forestry than by continuing it because of the value of the forest for carbon credits.
"Firstly, you can't get carbon credits for stopping native forestry."
Mr Verstegen said ancient jarrah trees were being sold as firewood for $9 a tonne, while we could be attracting a carbon price of $26 per tonne while also preventing the extinction of WA's threatened wildlife.
Mr Pearce refuted the claim.
"The actual carbon credit value (for native forest logging) is zero dollars," he said. "The $9 per tonne firewood price claimed is for non-jarrah firewood obtained from forest debris, including bark, from arid and Wheatbelt areas.
"No ancient jarrah trees, or jarrah trees of any age, are involved.
"The actual selling price of jarrah logs varies with the product, but first grade jarrah logs, the main value adding logs which sustain the WA industry, sell for a royalty of $70 per tonne. Jarrah burls attract $425 per tonne, poles $140 per tonne.
"Lower grade jarrah has a royalty of $30 to $48 per tonne.
"These figures are for the royalty only, the payment to the state for using the trees, like the royalty on iron ore, $9 a tonne. All the costs of harvesting and transporting and all the cost of the Forest Products Commission (FPC) and Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) are met by the industry, which adds to the selling price to mills, $90 to $100 depending on haul distance.
"Once sawn and dried, the processed product has a value of up to $1000 per tonne. However it takes three tonnes of log timber to produce this, more for lower grade timber and there is a lesser value for the mill residues produced. A reasonable average therefore might be $400 of value generated from each tonne of log timber purchased from the FPC."
Mr Pearce said a $400 harvest has zero carbon credit per tonne.
Mr Pearce said Mr Verstegen's claim wildlife extinction would be avoided by the cessation of logging had been refuted.
Nyoongar Elders Robert Eggington and Wayne Webb, both of the South West, said the extinction of wildlife in the South West was as a result of the deforestation - more than 90 per cent of forest that existed 150 years ago is now gone, and with this the South West has recorded more wildlife extinctions than anywhere else in Australia.
They said that it was disingenuous to argue logging was not a direct cause of animal extinctions, as when habitats were disturbed at the same time wildlife was threatened.
