forestry warns of old growth logging halt

The Forest Industries Association says jobs can not be sustained without continuing to log old growth forests. (ABC News: Simon Cullen)

Map: Hobart 7000 An alliance of forestry companies in Tasmania has launched an advertising campaign warning of the risks to the economy if all old growth logging is stopped.

The Forest Industries Association has commissioned a report showing an end to logging old growth forests would cost more than 2,000 jobs.

Association chairman, Julian Amos, says the campaign is aimed at countering propaganda from green groups calling for the ban.

"This hasn't been done with a view to the way in which a new government may be formulated," he said.

"This had been done to ensure that when people vote, and with forestry in mind, that they recognise they are voting for people's jobs."

Dr Amos says the idea jobs can be sustained with the exclusion of old growth forests from logging is unrealistic.

"Less logs, more jobs - it's quaint, it's simplistic, it's ridiculous," he said.

"How can you have less product and more employment? It just doesn't make sense."

Environmental groups have criticised the advertising campaign as 'old-fashioned economics'.

Vica Bayley from the Wilderness Society says the economic argument is outdated and the forestry industry is in crisis.

"The international markets, the community and indeed the certifiers are rejecting native forest products that come out of old growth forests," he said.

"So this is the forest industry and old-style politicians actually fighting back the tide of what the markets want and trying to bulldoze ahead with unpopular, unsustainable old growth logging."+

Tags: elections, forestry, timber, tas, hobart-7000

First posted Thu Feb 25, 2010 3:08pm AEDT