The Member for Burnett, Stephen Bennett is delighted that selective harvesting in local State Forests will resume in the Burnett Electorate.
The LNP Government is committed to supporting Queensland Forestry industries, which have suffered for the best part of 20 years under Labor, which shut them down, destroying hundreds of direct jobs in regional Queensland.
These State Forests have been previously available and they will be well managed and meet the highest forest sustainability management standards.
The areas being re-opened for harvesting are not world-heritage-listed forests.
Many of these robust, former state forests had been sustainably harvested for a century and more supporting regional towns before being locked up by Labor in its dirty preference deals with the Greens.
Labor destroyed our well-managed, sustainable timber jobs, but opened the floodgates to imports from Asian rainforests – many of which are clear-felled and not sustainably managed.
Our forests are recognised worldwide for their high standard of management and it’s extremely disappointing, but no surprise that the Greens are trying to make political mileage of our long-term, forest management strategy which is encouraging investment in new harvesting and milling technologies and helping create long-term jobs.
All harvesting is conducted consistent with the Code of Practice for Native Forest Timber Production on an individual tree selection basis and only about 30,000 hectares per year is subject to harvesting across Queensland