australia: forest and plantation
privatization in victoria
Neo-liberal policies supporting the
privatization of state assets have been the
fashion in Australia for the past two
decades. The broader community has very
rarely had any substantial gains as far as
conservation and environmental outcomes are
concerned. At every opportunity, industry
has attempted to undermine any critical
analysis of their operations using a
combination of bullying tactics and public
relations to mitigate for disasters. An
example of this has been the privatization
and sale of 180 000 hectares of
ex-government-controlled plantation and
native forestlands in Victoria.
the birth of the victorian plantation
corporation
In the 1990’s the Victorian State
Government ‘relinquished’ control of the
State’s plantation assets and created the
Victorian Plantation Corporation (VPC).
This corporation was granted its own
legislation and also came under the State
Owned Enterprises Act in 1992. The VPC
originally controlled about 170 000
hectares of land throughout Victoria,
including different types of tree
plantations as well as old growth forest
and cool temperate rainforest. The VPC
legislation allowed the forests to be
excised from the land and the leasehold,
held in perpetuity, allows for harvesting
and establishing of plantations on that
land.
non-enforceable codes
VPC also benefited from the redrafting
in the 1990’s of the Victorian Code of
Forest Practices. It was designed to make
it very difficult to enforce, which was
done largely to placate Amcor, now called
PaperlinX, a major paper company which had
plantations and non-plantation land in the
Strzelecki and Gippsland regions of
Victoria.
The Code is only enforceable through a
strong council, which is willing to demand
that the environmental care principles be
implemented, or the Victorian Civil and
Administrative Tribunal. However, a
procedure at this Tribunal is often too
expensive for community groups. In reality,
the implementation depends mainly on
voluntary agreements between industry and
the authority. Occasionally these
agreements include full community
participation when it suits the company.
Once it encroaches on industry’s economic
assets, the mood of the industry changes
markedly.
Alterations to the State’s Planning
Scheme in 1993 meant that local councils,
not the State, were made responsible for
enforcing the Code of Forest Practice on
private land, a difficult task considering
their extremely limited resources. One
legal battle which FoE won in 1995
concerning private land logging in a
domestic water supply catchment, revealed
that the local council had not been on site
for 10 years!
Moreover, the Flora and Fauna Guarantee
Act (FFG) supposedly protects threatened
species and communities throughout
Victoria, but it does not apply to private
land.
impacts of plantation forestry
In 1997 locals found that VPC had been
expanding their hardwood plantations by
logging high conservation value old growth
forests and cool temperate rainforest
buffers. The logging of non-plantation
trees, under the guise of plantation
logging, infuriated locals and it was this
act that was one of the catalysts for
community monitoring taking place in the
Strzeleckis.
It is well recognised that past clearing
practices have left the entire bioregion
depleted of its original vegetation cover.
Less than 2% of the original vegetation
remains protected in reserves. Much of the
VPC hardwood areas in the Strzeleckis
contained remnant areas of cool temperate
rainforest, which faces an uncertain future
on mainland Australia. This forest requires
large buffer zones of eucalyptus forest to
protect it from the effects of wildfire and
to minimize the impacts of tree fall that
can wound beech trees, allowing the Myrtle
Wilt pathogen, which is air and water
borne, to enter wounds in the trees.
However, buffer zones for cool temperate
rainforest on private land are not
mandatory.
In some areas plantations have been
established right up to the edge of
rainforest stands, meaning that when
plantation logging occurs, the risks of
wounding beech trees and stirring up the
Wilt spores are increased substantially.
These plantations are also open to the
effects of wind throw, where high winds can
knock over remnant trees.
subsidizing hancock
In 1998 a subsidiary of John Hancock
Financial Services, the Hancock Timber
Resource Group, purchased rights to log the
assets of VPC, under a 99-year leasehold
agreement. Ownership of the land was
retained by the State, but to all intents
and purposes the land was privately
owned.
In 2001, Hancock purchased the assets of
Australian Paper Plantations (APP), whose
land was based in Victoria. Most of the
areas in the northern Strzeleckis that were
not under the control of VPC now came under
the private ownership of Hancock.
Thanks to the efforts of local
Strzelecki campaigners, Hancock embarked on
a voluntary moratorium of not logging
native forests within its land base,
however this moratorium did not extend into
areas of indigenous tree plantations that
had the appearance of 30-40 year-old native
forest.
In 2000, Hancock announced that they
would be embarking on Forest Stewardship
Council (FSC) certification of the assets
that were previously owned by VPC. In 2004
they were the first to be awarded such a
certificate in Australia. However, forest
campaigners are still waiting for the
improved management and community relations
which are supposed to be the hallmark of
FSC.
It should also be pointed out that
privatization of the plantation base in
Victoria means in practice that the
purchaser does not have to pay for the
water that these plantations consume.
Hancock plantations may be using in the
vicinity of 1.3 million litres of water per
year, which effectively over 99 years, adds
up to billions of dollars worth of water
subsidies in the driest continent on earth.
Much of Victoria has been in drought since
1992 and further rainfall decreases of 30%
per annum are expected under greenhouse
effect scenarios.
In basic terms privatization has
delivered less accountability and
legislative control, a decrease in
community participation in the decision
making processes, and declining public
disclosure of assets, wood volume and
contractual arrangements.
more information
Friends of the Earth Melbourne.
Friends of Gippsland Bush.
Hancock Watch
