The timber industry - a life raft in a storm
From the Autumn/Winter 2009 edition of Bush Telegraph Magazine.
Tumbarumba identity George Martin has been a champion of thedevelopment of the local timber industry. Photo courtesy of Willmott Forests
Timber is the life blood of towns like Tumut and Tumbarumba in the southwest slopes of NSW.
When times on the land are tough the timber industry is akin to a liferaft in a storm.
The timber industry in the south west slopes generates more than $1billion for the local economy and is one of the leading plantation forestryareas in Australia.
One job is created for every 65 hectares of plantation, which meanstimber towns are able to avoid much of the economic downturn so badly affectingmany rural communities across the country.
Take a walk down the main street of Tumut and it is abuzz with activity,in fact, quite often it is hard to get a parking spot.
In addition to direct plantation jobs in growing, transporting andharvesting timber, the big employers in town like Visy and Carter Holt Harveyare firing up the economy employing large numbers of people to work in theirprocessing plants.
Down the road at Tumbarumba, it is a similar story with the Hyne millinjecting growth into the local community. Hyne, one of Australia’s largest privately-owned timbercompanies, employs more than 800 people along the east coast of Australia.
Further south at Albury, NorskeSkog, a world leader in the production of newsprint and magazine paper, haslocated one of its 16 paper mills worldwide.
At Wagga Wagga, Ausply is manufacturing plywood from pine sources in thesouth west slopes.
All this has been achieved because the south west slopes region, due tothe foresight of foresters many years ago, has been able to achieve a criticalmass of plantation resource - big enough to attract processors to theregion.
The major plantation grower in the region is Forests NSW, which managesmore than 90,000hectares of plantation softwood, while privately-owned pine in the region isapproaching 40,000 hectares.
State forest in the south west slopes also boasts more than 68,000hectares of native forest, which is available for timber production.
Forests NSW planning manager Duncan Watt said the south west slopes wasa professionally exciting and challenging place to work due to the scale of thetimber industryz.
During the past five years, Duncan has been involved with the verysuccessful Tumut State Forest Recreational Trail network.
Duncan and his family live at Gilmore near Tumut and really love theoutdoor life the region offers.
“Tumut and the surrounding region is fabulous for cycling, fishing,horseriding, bushwalking. It a wonderful place for family activities and forchildren to grow up surrounded by the magnificent foothills of the SnowyMountains,” he said.
Well known local identify at Tumbarumba, George Martin, has beeninvolved in local politics for 25 years and has taken a very keen interest inthe timber industry.
He has watched the impact on the community of all stages of timberindustry in the region, and has in fact has been a champion of its development.
“The timber industry has guaranteed us jobs and because we havesucceeded in getting processing underway it has created more jobs than we havelost through the change of land use to plantations,” he said.
“A number of studies in both Australia and New Zealand make it quiteclear that those people living in timber communities such as Tumut andTumbarumba enjoy greater prosperity and growth than many of their ruralcounterparts, many of whom are enduring an ongoing drought.
“However, one of the prices we pay is the impact of heavy log traffic oncommunity roads, and because of this it is imperative that all players in thetimber industry continue to press the Federal Government to assist with theseroads in the clear knowledge that our timber industry replaces more than abillion dollars of timber products that we would otherwise need to import.”
George remains very active in the timberindustry as he sees it providing a great future for timber towns in the southwest slopes at a time when many rural communities are struggling to survive.
Sarah Chester - Public Affairs & Media, Albury
