New Annual Report reveals yet another native forest logging loss for Forestry Corporation

 

Native forest logging in NSW has made yet another operating loss for taxpayers in the past financial year.

The latest loss is revealed in the Forestry Corporation Annual Report for 2015-16, just released http://www.forestrycorporation.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/686348/2015-16-annual-report.pdf

“This is at least the seventh year in a row that the state owned logging agency has lost money on native forest logging,” according to south east forest campaigner Harriett Swift who is convener of the Chipstop campaign and Deputy Convener of the South East Regional Conservation Alliance (SERCA).

“The operating loss of $0.7m in the past year does not include direct taxpayer grants of almost $16 million via the Treasury for a number of functions, known as the Community Service Obligation,” Ms Swift said

“These functions include such things as roads, fire management, “education” and “government relations,” which most people would view as normal commercial expenditure in an industry such as logging,” she said.

Ms Swift said that the Forestry Corporation Annual Report also makes a revealing statement about the creation of the Murrah Flora Reserve earlier this year from the former Tanja, Mumbulla, Murrah and (part of) Bermagui State Forests.

The Forestry Corporation acknowledges that excluding logging from the new reserve will bring "environmental benefits."

“That may be blindingly obvious to most of us, but not something the Forestry Corporation admits every day,” Ms Swift said.

4 December 2016