Regional Forests - The Central Highlands

 

Stretching out from the northeast suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria's Central Highlands cover more than 1,000,000ha and encompass Lake Eildon and Baw Baw National Park. Within the spectacular forests of this area lie Melbourne's water catchments, which provide drinking water to more than three million Victorians. Five of these catchments, which supply 28 percent of Melbourne's drinking water, are open to clearfell logging.

The forests of the Central Highlands are, in many ways, the backbone of the clearfelling and woodchipping industry in Victoria. A staggering 63 percent of the State's woodchips and 43 percent of its sawlogs come from the region. Of all native forest logged in the Central Highlands, a massive 81 percent is ending up as woodchips (ABARE figures).

 

The Wilderness Society CAMPAIGN TO PROTECT THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS

Despite Melbourne suffering its second worst drought on record, logging in the 'restricted access' catchments was set to double in the summer of 2000-2001

As well as imposing further stress on our water supplies through preater regrowth uptake of soil water , scientists also warned that the proposed logging would result in the disintegration of surrounding forests, and that regeneration burns would further expose this delicate ecosystem to myrtle wilt, a fatal disease which spreads rapidly through Myrtle beech trees following disturbance. Under an agreement between Melbourne Water and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE), only one of the Yarra tributaries, (Cement, Armstrong, Starvation and McMahon's catch-ments) can be logged in any one summer.

The Wilderness Society uncovered , scheduling of logging in all but the Armstrong catchment. On the eve of preparations to establish a 'forest rescue blockade' at Cement Creek, a breakthrough in negotiations with Melbourne Water saw Cement and McMahon's Creek removed from the logging schedule.

While The Wilderness Society's spotlight on the management of these catchments has resulted in a substantial reduction in logging for that upcoming summer 2001-2002, the Thomson catchment and the Yarra tributaries are still not protected in formal reserves. This, along with the protection of other key areas in the Central Highlands, is the next challenge in their Central Highlands Campaign

The Wilderness Society's Melbourne Campaign Centre runs day tours to the Central Highlands. Please phone (03) 9639 5455 or email (below) to find out more.

The Wilderness Society

Contact : Gavan McFadzean - Victorian Campaign Coordinator Phone : (03) 9639 5399 Email : melbourne@wilderness.org.au WWW : http://www.wilderness.org.au/victoria

 

Use of the woodchip resource and connection to Corporate Campaigns

The main woodchippers of the Central Highlands are Amcor and Midway.

PAPERLINX

In 1999, transnational packaging and paper giant Amcor 'demerged' its native forest pulp and paper products arm to Paperlinx. Its giant Maryvale mill is the largest pulp and paper making complex in Australia, consuming 475,000 cubic metres of Central Highlands eucalyptus forest per annum (RFA, 1998).

Paperlinx is Australia's only office paper producer. Its flagship product is REFLEX photocopy paper, made from 100 percent virgin native forest. It makes 'recycled' office papers from pre-consumer (eg printers' offcuts) waste, but no genuine post-consumer (eg kerbside collected) recycled papers. Paperlinx has the resources and technology to make use of alternative sources such as plantations and recycled paper, but doesn't do so because it receives state-owned native forest logs for a significantly lower cost than plantation logs.

Paperlinx is the focus of a consumer campaign (see our Teachers for Forests Corporate Campaign Page - click here) . It has an active Green Shareholder group, which focuses on improving Amcor's environmental performance.

MIDWAY FOREST PRODUCTS

Midway annually takes 115,000 cubic metres of eucalyptus from the Central Highlands, woodchipping it in its Geelong mill and exporting the chips to Japan for paper and packaging. Midway is also the big woodchipper of the Otway Ranges, with a statewide licence to export around 500,000 tonnes of woodchips per year.