DEAR News Of the Area,

TO Peter Paunovic (‘How much do protestors know about native forestry?’, NOTA, 5 May 2023) I say it’s a bit hairy-chested for a youngish fellow like you to take on the Knitting Nannas about how much they know about how forests grow.

I suspect they can all read as well as knit, some are citizen scientists active in the forests and some are even former ecologists.

It’s also a bit unfair as the state government at the time paid you and I handsomely to study forestry at our best universities for five years – an offer the Nannas were unlikely to have received.

You and I are probably a better match for a debate as we studied forestry at the same place at the same time.

I would nevertheless stumble at the first question if it was something like “How many of the Federal Government’s 100 (now 110) top priority threatened species are forest dependent?” and at best be able to blurt out something like “many”.

As you ended up in forest marketing, I would have no chance competing there to questions like: “how cheaply did we flog off our wood chips, pulpwood and low quality sawlogs on the North Coast?“, and “when was the last time the Forest Corporation made an annual profit on native forests?”.

Your push against the Nannas for having native hardwood timber in their homes such as frames, mouldings or furniture is a bit rich.

Do you really expect them to throw it out and rebuild with pine?

Our previous house was native hardwood from the floor joists to the roof tile batters with lovely brush box flooring and our current unit has blackbutt flooring.

No intention to rebuild there.

I am closely monitoring a new house build at the Jetty at the moment and even asked the builder if there was any native hardwood in the build.

He looked at the ground for a bit then spied an old timber post from an earlier era lying there and said wirily: “that’s the only hardwood on this block mate”.

As a marketing man Peter you would probably know project home builders are not generally offering solid timber flooring as an option these days, as it’s too expensive.

Instead of calling into question the knowledge of Knitting Nannas you should, for better or worse, recognise native forest timber as a building product has all but disappeared and it’s time to manage our native forests on public land for a host of other benefits that make a much greater return than chopping them down.

The supply of recycled hardwood, hardwood from private property and plantations will continue no doubt.

Regards,
Ashley LOVE,
Coffs Jetty.