Last Thursday’s State Government announcement to immediately cease logging in remaining old growth forests and cease all logging in native forests across the state by 2030 comes as a blow to local communities reliant on the industry, with flow on effects well beyond the timber cutters.

In his announcement last week, Premier Daniel Andrews said as part of the plan, $120 million would be set aside to ensure the industry was fully supported, “backing long-term sustainable jobs and giving local workers confidence about their future”.

VicForests will extend existing timber supply agreements until 2024, after which native timber supply will be stepped down before ending in 2030.

The decision will affect much of Far East Gippsland, particularly towns like Orbost, which relies heavily on the timber industry for much of its workforce.

While there had been whispers of such a move, it was seen by many in the industry as farcical, almost unbelievable.

Orbost Chamber of Commerce and Industry secretary, Garry Squires, says it is simply “not logical”.

He said there had been “rumblings that governments could do this over the years, but it was not taken very seriously”.

He thinks the government should want to keep a sustainable industry like forestry going. The township of Orbost is about 2000 people with about 115 jobs currently related directly to the industry.

“That’s about 25 per cent of all full time jobs in the town, so very significant,” Mr Squires said.

“When you take the flow-on effects to other businesses it’s probably about 40 percent of all the full time jobs in the town that are directly or indirectly effected by these decisions.

“Retail, teachers, services like mechanics, tyre supplies. We’ll need less teachers, hospital workers.”

With government assistance to be made available to help timber workers transition, Mr Squires, like many in the industry, asks, transition to what?

“The Orbost township is surrounded by forest. Over 90 per cent of the area is forest area. There’s a small farming community, but there are no other job opportunities so people who are retrained will need to leave the district to put those new skills into place in another town,” he said.

“I’m very pessimistic at present. I’d like to see what other options government might have on their plate.

“This was a classic government policy statement with very few details.

“Best case scenario, there is no phase down before 2030. Worst case, the phase down starts in five years time. We just don’t know any details at the moment. It’s all very up in the air.”

Throwing around ideas of what could happen to assist regional communities affected, like Orbost, Mr Squires says “they could certainly employ a few people in the DELWP and those sorts of organisations, to give us better fire protection and so on, but I struggle to see where any decision government’s going to make is going to replace over 100 jobs, perhaps closer to 200 jobs, that are going to be lost over time”.

“The other flow-on effect is most of the people who leave will be young families who want a future and that means all of our organisations in the town struggle. Retail businesses struggle, but so do the SES, CFA, the local football clubs, the hockey clubs, the tennis clubs. Everyone suffers when all the young people leave,” he said.

Warren Fenner, of W&J Fenner, whose operation is based around Cann River, says the announcement was “quite unexpected”.

“With the sale of Austwest Timbers recently to the Parkside Group we thought that was good news and that there was a future in the industry, if they were willing to buy mills,” Mr Fenner said.

“Over the past two years we’ve invested in new trucks of around $1.4 million for our current contracts, which are in place to 2025 and have been told VicForests will uphold, but long term it can’t be good for the towns that rely on forestry.

“What it comes down to is the government is ignoring regional Victoria. Daniel Andrews just doesn’t listen to what regional people have to say.

“The flow-on effects for East Gippsland towns, that’s the problem. Like what happened in Cann River, you lose a saw mill and there’s pretty much nothing after that.”

Mr Fenner is not completely disheartened at this point however.

“It’s no good portraying all doom and gloom just yet. We’ve still got our contracts until 2025. We’ll see what other options are available to us. But it’s sad to see that we’re not going to be able to utilise the good management of the forests that’s happened over the past 30 years,” he said.

Mr Fenner also wonders where the timber for sawmills is going to come from.

“You don’t get saw logs out of plantations. There will be no viable sawmills and they won’t be able to get species specific timber. Pine trees are not what sawmills want.

“We saw large reductions in our available area before this announcement. This is huge and it just goes on and on.”

East Gippsland Shire Council is standing behind the region’s timber industry workers.

Mayor, Cr John White, said the phasing out of native timber harvesting by 2030 raises many concerns for East Gippsland communities, businesses and residents.

“Council would like to recognise that many people in the forestry industry and our small communities will be doing it very tough on hearing of the announcement,” he said.

“We have multi-generational harvesting, haulage, sawmilling and service industry families who only know this industry, and are heavily invested both emotionally and financially.

“In recent times there has been significant financial investment in local timber industry businesses as they prepared for sustainable native timber harvesting to continue.

“Following an announcement of this magnitude, we need to take stock, deal in facts, and understand the full and true impact of direct and indirect job losses, the scale of economic impact, and the social challenges ahead.

“Council has a long history of supporting the timber industry and timber communities.

“Our geographic location, high percentage of public land, and our residents’ strong affiliation with their communities, such as timber towns in the High Country the Orbost district and Bairnsdale, make East Gippsland unique.

“Council will listen and advocate for our communities. The support we will require in the weeks, months and years ahead must be tailored to suit East Gippsland.”

Local members of state and federal governments are also standing behind the region’s timber industry.

Member for Gippsland East, Tim Bull, said he had spoken with mill owners who confirmed the plantation timber would not be available by 2030 to replace the native timber supply.

“Premier Daniel Andrews’ announcement that the native timber industry in Victoria will be shut down by 2030 will decimate the East Gippsland economy,” Mr Bull said.

“His statement that we are going to transition totally to plantation timber by 2030 is flawed.

“We do not have enough plantation timber in the ground to do this, and furthermore, the high quality timber - appearance grade timber for furniture and floors etc. - takes at least 40 years to grow and can’t be matured viably in plantations.”

Mr Bull said of the 7.8 million hectares of public native forest in Victoria, more than 94 per cent of it was in reserve or inaccessible, meaning the timber industry had access to less than six per cent, harvested on an 80-year rotation.

“I am very confident we are going to see the people and industries of the regions, not just forestry, fight the Premier for Melbourne every step of the way on this,” he said.

Nationals leader, Peter Walsh, said the Liberal/National party would reverse the decision once in power.

“Today is a dark day for our regional communities and the industries that underpin us,” Mr Walsh said last Thursday.

“We should be backing Victoria’s sustainable timber industry, not axing it.”

“This is a gut wrenching decision for hard working families in the timber industry and Gippsland small business owners,” Federal Member for Gippsland, Darren Chester, said.

“Melbourne Labor ministers continue to sell out blue collar workers in regional Victoria to secure Greens votes in the city.

“From bans on Alpine grazing and commercial fishing, to cuts to power station jobs and the timber industry, the modern Labor party knows nothing about labourers.

“Victoria has the most environmentally sustainable native timber harvesting industry in the world with value-adding occurring in our timber manufacturing facilities in Gippsland. It is a major employee and source of contract labour during emergency situations, particularly bushfires.

“Timber is a renewable resource and our well-managed forests can have multiple uses including timber production, four-wheel-driving, bee keeping, camping and hiking.

“This is an economically reckless decision, which has nothing to do with environmental science and everything to do with political science.”

The Victorian Association of Forest Industries (VAFI) chief executive officer, Tim Johnston, said the association was devastated by the State Government’s decision.

“It’s clear the government has bowed to pressure from vocal environmental groups and turned its back on listening to those within the industry and those impacted by the flow-on of this devastating decision,” Mr Johnston said.

“Victoria has a long and proud native timber history and it is integral to many rural and regional communities that depend on it.”

He said many regional towns, including Orbost, will be devastated by this decision and said the government must work closely with industry and those affected to help towns and families recover from the impact of the government’s decision.

On the other side of the argument, Goongerah Environment Centre and Friends of the Earth spokesperson, Ed Hill, welcomed the announcement.

“It’s good to see the Andrews Government finally show leadership to protect native forests, especially old growth forests in East Gippsland.

“This is a positive first step towards better protection of East Gippsland’s forests, but questions remain over how these promises will be implemented.”

Minister for Agriculture and Regional Development, Jaclyn Symes, said industry and retailers were moving towards more sustainable timber products.

“The future of the forestry industry relies on a government with a clear long-term plan,” Ms Symes said.

“By acting now, businesses and workers have the security they need and a clear strategy in place for the transition to plantation timber.”