Last year a report by conservative think-tank the Blueprint Institute estimated NSW would save $45 million by ending native forestry logging and instead utilising the land for carbon sequestration and tourism.
Minns conceded that the industry was a “contested marketplace” and said he was attracted to the use of forests as carbon offsets,calling it a “a new marketplace for the state that could be particularly important for regional economies”.
“It could create a new source of revenue to drive regional communities,job creation[and] growth in the future,” he said.
“If NSW is placed to do that then we should explore it,so I’m not closing the door on that either.”
But Minns insisted hardwood logging — which usually refers to native logging in NSW — did have a future in the state.
“It’s not as if local industries won’t be using hardwood and softwood if it was all of a sudden phased out overnight,” he said.
“It’s just that they’d more likely take it from virgin rainforest in Indonesia or Brazil rather than domestically.”
But senior Labor sources speaking on the condition of anonymity toldThe Sydney Morning Herald the government would put together a taskforce made up of logging forestry representatives and unions to develop a road map for the future of the industry. It is likely to consider expanded private softwood plantations,which are more profitable and less environmentally contentious.
Wednesday’s case prompted six key NSW crossbench MPs,including influential Sydney independent Alex Greenwich and Wakehurst MP Michael Regan,to release a joint statement saying the court case represented an “opportunity” for the government to phase out native logging.
“We cannot continue to destroy forests through a taxpayer-subsidised industry when threatened species need these forests as habitat to survive and climate change demands that we protect our carbon sinks,” they said.
In 2018,while in opposition,NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said she would not have signed as “the science underpinning the RFAs is out of date and incomplete”.
Seizing on those comments,NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson said this was Sharpe’s “opportunity to conduct that review and place a moratorium on all native forest logging while the review is undertaken”.
She insisted the judgment was a “warning shot” to both the state and federal governments.
“The court confirmed that in no uncertain terms,this matter is wholly political,” she said.
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