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Koalas in timber plantations: a testing issue for FSC certification

By Mark Poynter - posted Thursday, 21 November 2013


This is acutely evident in regard to Australia’s native forest sector which, until now, has been largely unable to gain FSC certification despite having forest management policies, plans, and operational practices that are equivalent to world’s best practice, and arguably higher than FSC standards. This is because FSC’s environmental stakeholders have pursued a strategy of actively creating a market demand for FSC-certified wood products while at the same time withholding their imprimatur which is needed for companies or forest management agencies to be FSC certified. This active prevention of FSC certification has been intended to wedge the industry out of its markets in order to weaken and ultimately destroy it.

Some may say that this misuse of the FSC concept has been left behind given that environmental stakeholders are currently assisting Forestry Tasmania (FT) through the process of attaining FSC-certification. However, these stakeholders are helping only on the condition that an agreed 500,000 hectares of new Tasmanian national parks will be declared if FT becomes FSC-certified, thereby reducing both the state’s surviving timber native hardwood industry and FT itself to mere shadows of their former selves.   

On the other hand, Australia’s plantation sector has not had to deal with such hostile ideological opposition and has been widely FSC-certified. Until now, there has been no substantive natural values to pique the opposition of environmental stakeholders who’ve for decades regarded plantations as ‘biological deserts’. This could now change given the new-found propensity for such an iconic native animal as the koala to take-up residence in eucalypt plantations.

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In reality, there is probably no way to guarantee that no koalas will be harmed in future plantation harvesting operations, except by not harvesting. Despite the plantation industry’s best intentions of a zero-harm management strategy, it is highly unlikely that this could ever totally prevent the occassional koala death or injury. In addition, it is likely that getting down to a very low level of incidental harm could cost plantation company’s plenty in pre-harvest surveying, operational observing, periodic disruption to harvesting, and assisting with koala capture and relocation to areas that may need to be hundreds of kilometres distant. 

If FSC’s environmental stakeholders decide to play hardball with Australian Bluegum Plantations over their management of koalas, they may well require both this increased plantation management effort and the reservation of significant areas of plantation to be maintained as permanent regional koala habitat. Together, this has potential to significantly undermine the economic bottom-line of the industry.

If unreasonable environmental demands ultimately prevent the company from getting back its FSC-certification, its international markets are likely to suffer given the words of Rainforest Alliance spokeswoman, Anita Neville, who said on the 7:30 Report in late October: “Really, FSC certification is almost becoming an essential in the forestry industry in order to do business”.  

Clearly, responding to the koala problem has some potential to undermine the industry’s profitability to a point where it becomes unviable. If this was to occur, the land where these plantations currently grow could progressively revert back to non-treed agricultural uses and the regional koala population would ultimately shrink back to its former small size restricted to remnant bush patches. Despite boasts that FSC-certification improves environmental outcomes, this issue provides an example of its perverse potential to worsen outcomes. 

There are no easy answers to the problem of koalas invading timber plantations, but a good start would be to acknowledge that the plantations sector has had it foisted upon them through natural factors beyond their control; and for FSC’s environmental stakeholders to concede that, although plantation companies must be responsible for how koalas are treated within their plantations, they shouldn’t be forced to shoulder the extra responsibility and considerable costs required to safeguard the welfare of the regional koala population.

Indeed, making the reinstatement of Australian Bluegum Plantations’ FSC certification conditional upon unrealistic or inappropriate environmental demands, risks both the viability of future plantation investment and the koalas that now depend on it. If such an outcome was to be foisted on a company operating responsibly in their own resource specifically established for wood production, it may well prompt the serious rethink about the veracity of the FSC concept that should have been sparked several years ago when it became apparent that FSC certification was being misappropriated to help cripple Australia’s native hardwood sector.

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About the Author

Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 40 years experience. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and his book Going Green: Forests, fire, and a flawed conservation culture, was published by Connor Court in July 2018.

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