Ongoing fire recovery efforts have been Forestry Corporation’s primary focus in the past financial year, with record post-fire plantation timber salvage, replanting and rebuilding programs and reduced hardwood timber production in response to environmental considerations reflected in the financial results tabled in Parliament this week.

Forestry Corporation CEO Anshul Chaudhary said the fire recovery work had increased expenditure and reduced income from timber sales, but delivered substantial benefits to communities reliant on forest roads and infrastructure and ensured fire-affected plantations would regrow as quickly as possible.

“The 2019-20 fires were extraordinary, and it will take us many years to return to business as usual after fires of this scale,” Mr Chaudhary said.

“In the first full 12 months since the fires, we completed our largest ever fire-salvage operation, rebuilt priority infrastructure, reassessed and reset timber supply commitments and embarked on a record-breaking seven-year replanting effort to regrow for the future.

“Our fire-salvage program exceeded all expectations, with a total of five million tonnes of fire-affected timber from softwood plantations since the fires.

“While fire salvage drove softwood production to the highest ever volume we have ever produced in a year, on the other side of the business hardwood timber production substantially reduced as we continued to respond to environmental considerations.

“Across the State we have also continued to invest heavily in infrastructure repairs. Since the fires, we have repaired and reopened more than 5,000 kilometres of roads and repaired or replaced 80 bridges.

“State forest roads are public roads and these investments provided immediate benefits to the many local communities who rely on State forest roads and infrastructure every day.

“We have also expanded two production nurseries in Grafton and Tumut to grow an additional three million seedlings a year, allowing us to plant a record 16 million softwood and hardwood seedlings in plantations during 2021.

“We have also completed environmental assessments, introduced augmented environmental conditions in native forests impacted by fire, increased focus and resourcing on environmental compliance and reassessed long-term 100-year sustainable timber yields.

“As the appointed land manager for NSW’s State forests, we are responsible for managing environmental conservation, fire, roads, pests and weeds, tourism and recreation and renewable timber production across two million hectares of public land. During FY21, we have maintained a steady focus on recovering, rebuilding and regrowing so we can continue delivering on each of these responsibilities into the future.”

Read the Annual Report.

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