Queensland industry and Parliamentary Friends celebrate National Forestry Day

Combating climate change and supporting 25,000 jobs while providing renewable wood products to build our homes and public infrastructure top the list of state-based reasons for Queensland’s Parliamentary Friends of the Forest and Timber Industry to celebrate National Forestry Day at Parliament House today.

Timber Queensland Chief Executive Officer Mick Stephens said it is important to recognise

forest products as a functional part of our everyday lives that tackle climate change, help us feel better by connecting with nature and contribute to our rural and regional economies.

“We must also acknowledge the need to get planting for the future as demand for wood products rises. This demand is literally growing local manufacturing jobs, particularly in the regions where permanent local jobs are needed,” said Mr Stephens.

Mr Stephens said supporting local timber manufacturing supply chains will protect our construction industry against global trade disruptions.

“Our builders need us: every 5 minutes Queensland’s softwood plantations grow enough wood to build another timber framed home, or over 280 house frames every day,” he said.

“The state’s native hardwood and cypress industry also produces posts, beams, decking, flooring and cladding for our homes. With population growth and a forecast housing shortage, our plantation and native forests provide a renewable material that can help meet future residential building and social housing needs at relatively low cost.”

National Forestry Day also highlights the environmental benefits both plantation and native forests deliver.

“In Queensland, forest land and harvested wood products (HWPs) are a ‘carbon sink’ where carbon is stored in soils, trees and products. In 2018, nearly 8 million tonnes of carbon emissions were removed from the atmosphere on forest land with a further 922,000 tonnes stored in HWPs,” said Mr Stephens.

“Forestry can help reduce land clearing by providing wood product income and other benefits, such as carbon credits, whereby landowners can maintain private forests rather than clearing for other uses. The forestry industry also protects koalas by retaining permanent forest and providing habitat through codes of forest practice. These codes apply to private forests under vegetation management laws, and state land through the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service code”.

“These benefits are reason enough to celebrate National Forestry Day,” Mr Stephens said.