The VICFORESTS court ruling can hit paper | Tech Reddy

A Supreme Court ruling against VicForests’ native forest program is causing industry consternation, and could lead to thousands of tonnes of pulp being imported from overseas, as Opal’s Maryvale mill it might need to make up for a potential shortfall in its supply.

Justice Melinda Roberts’ ruling ordered VicForests to abide by stricter rules on its operations, which the logging industry says are too restrictive and too difficult. The case centered around the protection of a native opossum, the Yellow-bellied Glider. Logging contractors have already moved their equipment out of the forests.

Logs from VicForests feed the Opal Maryvale mill. Paper produced by the mill from registered trees in the Victorian Forests includes Reflex copy paper, and a range of woodfree (UWF) papers used in commercial and commercial printing.

Reflex dominates the copy paper market in Australia, with a market share estimated by paper industry bible IndustryEdge to be more than 86 per cent by 2021-22. If the cessation of logging continues, imports would need to increase by more than 100,000 tons per year to make up the shortfall. Already one of the main newspaper wholesalers told the newspapers that Reflex will be provided on the allocation.

UWF papers produced by Maryvale are used in a range of commercial printing applications, including applications such as books, forms, envelopes and offset printing.

The Supreme Court ruling is the latest in a long line of court battles between environmental activists and VicForests over the ancient forest, and what activists see as its negative impact on the forests. and the local fauna.

VicForests is a government agency that manages the state’s forests, taking care of growth, regeneration, biodiversity and the like, in exchange for being able to log a certain percentage of the forests under its management, each year, which Print 21 understanding is about 0.1 percent, with many of the trees logged those that have either fallen down, a bushfire risk, or those that are crowding out other trees.

The logs that go to Maryvale for conversion to printing paper represent less than ten percent of all the wood coming out of the forests, most of which becomes wood for the construction industry, which may be severely affected by the end of logging by VicForests.

The Victorian state Labor government is seriously conflicted; on the one hand, he benefits financially from logging, and the construction industry is vital to his economic program and political success, and he is very sensitive to the 1100 well-paid regional jobs in logging that are now on the line – union members. They are currently leading a convoy of sardines to Dan Andrews’ office to highlight the potential demise of the industry and its livelihood. On the other hand, the optics of the native forest does not play well in the marginal constituencies of the inner city, where the party is fighting with the Greens for electoral success. Greens state leader Samantha Ratnam has said that if the Greens are asked to form a minority government with Labour, they will demand the end of native forest as part of the deal to get their support, although s He is just one in a long list. of improbable demands.

The Maryvale mill has five production lines, with three of them now dedicated to packaging grades. Packaging grades are typically generated from softwoods, and so are not affected, while commercial printing and copy grades come from hardwoods, many of which are Victorian old growth woods.

While saying Print 21 that the supply of safe, long-term and certified timber is crucial to its Maryvale Mill operations, a spokesperson for Opal Australian Paper said: “We appreciate that VicForests is currently experiencing a number of operational difficulties, which are likely to impact future state timber deliveries. Opal continues to work closely with VicForests and the Victorian Government to manage supply challenges. We remain fully committed to keeping our Opal team members updated on the supply situation as it continues to develop.”

Opal Australian Paper is owned by the giant Japanese conglomerate Nippon Paper, so it is unlikely to be left behind in the event that logging from VicForests stops completely, Nippon Paper has around 40 mills in Japan alone.

The issue has now reached national politics, with federal MP Sophie Scamps, one of the new Teals, in her case representing Sydney’s northern beaches, saying that “having the government negotiating with the forestry industry on the farm is akin to negotiating with the tobacco industry. on health,” prompting a furious response from local Gippsland MP Darren Chester, who invited Scamps and his Teal partner and logging critic Monique Ryan to East Gippsland, to see the industry for themselves, saying that “they can then invite me to their constituencies to teach me about biodiversity”.

The Supreme Court’s decision is the latest in a long line of decisions and rulings over the years that have impacted Australia’s manufacturing capacity. The continued focus by government, state and federal, on getting the cheapest price has seen billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money flow overseas, instead of being recycled through the local economy. Printers have long campaigned to get government-funded printing produced in Australia, arguing that while Chinese printing may be cheaper, buying overseas is not beneficial for Australia. In the United States, land of the free, all government products must be from American manufacturers.