LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
OLD growth native forest in New Zealand is protected.
The only logging done there is for specifically identified trees which are old and ready to fall.
It has been this way for more than 60 years.
Here we insist on milling trees we never grew.
We demand this as a right.
But surely it is clear that this cannot go on forever.
To do so means every year we are milling smaller and still smaller trees.
This is simply not sustainable.
All of the emotion surrounding job losses in Heyfield will not make one tree grow to millable size overnight.
To solve the problem, we need to grow our own trees.
And we should have started doing this many years ago.
Editor’s note: VicForests does not allow the logging of old growth forests. Timber is sourced from regrowth areas, particularly areas formerly affected by bushfire some decades ago.
