DEAR News Of The Area,

SO Warren Tindall says he is dismayed by Anne Thompson’s ‘broad generalities’ in relation to multiple-use forestry (NOTA 24/11/23), and takes issue with what he says are ‘dodgy opinions and hearsay’.

However he then goes on to make ridiculous assertions about forest management and the timber industry, and relates some seriously dodgy opinions of his own, despite claiming to “have skin in the timber game”.

Mr Tindall states that seeing skinny logs on log trucks is evidence of past plunder.

If only forest management was so simple!

These logs probably come from trees thinned from plantations, enabling the retained stand to grow better and faster.

Or they may be native forest trees harvested for the same reason, and where many of the larger trees are retained for wildlife habitat or within streamside reserves.

But Mr Tindall would know this since he manages his own plantation, so you have to wonder why he would make such an unfounded claim?

He also claims logs cut today are only suitable for low value uses such as pallets and woodchips, the better logs having been ‘pillaged decades ago’.

If that is so, where do today’s mills get their logs for the flooring, veneer, power poles, decking and wharfing etc that we all use?

He goes on to suggest that planting pine on cleared farmland, a la New Zealand, is the answer. I’m sure the agricultural sector would have something to say about that but in any case, pine cannot satisfactorily substitute for hardwoods in these uses where strength and durability are essential.

To quote Mr Tindall, nothing in (his) remarks withstands scrutiny.

There are no plant or animal extinctions in Australia that have been caused by the forest industry.

Indeed Australia’s native forest industry is arguably the best managed in the world, and continues (for 150-plus years now) to provide carbon-storing, renewable and valuable forest products on a sustainable basis.

No other viable building product can claim that.

Regards,
Dale McLEAN
Coffs Harbour.