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Towards a sustainable firewood industry Kathryn Maxwell

From the Executive ....................

Where are integrated plans? Mike Thompson

Towards a sustainable firewood industry Kathryn Maxwell

The Conservation Council of the South East Region and Canberra has been campaigning to try and achieve an ecologically sustainable firewood industry in the ACT since 1990. The key environmental issues in this campaign have been saving endangered woodlands in surrounding NSW; and reducing air pollution in the ACT.

Around 85% of temperate woodland including yellow box/red gum and box/ironbark have been completely cleared for agriculture and the remnants have been adversely affected by logging, mining, over-grazing and invasion by weeds and feral animals. One consequence is that woodlands have a disproportionate number of threatened species. There is also a wave of local and regional extinctions occurring amongst woodland birds.

Due to the lower rainfall, most of the trees in woodland and drier forest areas are generally slower growing and have denser timber, giving a greater heating value per volume than trees from wetter forest areas. Woodland areas supply the bulk of firewood.

It is estimated that there are around 17,000 homes in the ACT using firewood for heating, consuming between 60,000 and 80,000 tonnes of firewood per year. This wood is mainly sourced from NSW, with about 5% coming from ACT softwood plantations.

In the last five years, the average distance to places of supply for the ACT’s firewood has doubled to 600 km. This means the firewood catchment is all of NSW west of the great dividing range.

Research by the CSIRO indicates that Canberra has a greater concentration of fine particulates in the air than larger cities like Sydney and Melbourne, with much higher levels in winter. More than 100 chemicals have been identified in emissions from burning wood.

Since 1990 there have been some major achievements in the ACT. A Firewood Working Group was established in 1995 and the Air Pollution Act has been amended. In particular, a licensing system for wood merchants in the ACT is now in place. We are closely monitoring the new licensing system, and are keen for other jurisdictions to adopt a similar system, alongside State-level Firewood Working Groups.

We believe calls to ban the firewood industry will be counter-productive. If people use wood heaters only for special occasions, with plantation sourced firewood and supplementary heating, then we can have a sustainable firewood industry.

Kathryn Maxwell
SE Conservation Council

NPA is pushing the NSW Government to develop its own firewood strategy, and we held a firewood conference in late May to raise awareness of this issue. Information on a draft national discussion paper and a CSIRO study can be found at www.ea.gov.au/firewood

Where are integrated plans?

Integrated planning for Natural Resource Management in NSW is in danger of being relegated to the ‘too hard’ basket as a dozen agencies juggle challenges like salinity against a backdrop of frustration and anger across rural and regional Australia.

Local government participation and integration of local environment plans within regional environment plans is one welcome new development from the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning. But unfortunately we cannot see how their proposed ‘regional forums’ can achieve satisfactory collaboration when Landcare, Bushcare, and other community groups like NPA are already working together on integrated plans within a different regional assessment process!

Catchment management boards and authorities are already producing regional plans – including ‘three-legged’ environmental, social and economic reporting. Farmers and Landcare and Bushcare volunteers will become more involved in these regional plans as specified in the new Inter-Governmental Agreement for Salinity and Water Quality. The Commonwealth and Department of Land and Water Conservation (DLWC) will fund community participation in this ‘accredited’ planning process, which will soon be extended to cover all regions throughout NSW.

Achieving an integrated solution may require the Premier to bump some heads together. Wouldn’t it be nice if DUAP and DLWC Executives could deliver one integrated regional planning process to rural communities in this International Year of the Volunteer?

Mike Thompson
Executive Member


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