Forest Products Industry

Victoria’s State Government is refusing to act on lack of firewood supply in rural and regional Victoria, including East Gippsland, according to Gippsland East Nationals MP, Tim Bull. And he says it is a problem that is very simple to fix. Source: Timberbiz Mr Bull, who wrote to Environment Minister, Steve Dimopoulos yet again on this matter, said the lack of understanding of the problem was extremely frustrating. “The one thing we should never run out of in this area is firewood, but it is the Government’s policies and overall lack of understanding of the situation has determined this outcome. “To make matters worse, the Mr Dimopoulos’ response states ‘firewood is a limited resource with unpredictable availability and demand can exceed supply’. “What rubbish. We have record fuel loads in the bush, debris everywhere, but government policy denies it being collected and used,” said Mr Bull. “The winding up of the timber industry significantly impacted supply as residual timber provided a lot of product to the market, and the government also removed the firewood timber coupes from contractors. “Combine this with the fact it has not extended public firewood collection periods (which it has the power to do) and we have a perfect storm.” Mr Bull said that some contractors were now bringing in firewood from interstate to meet demand, which “is just craziness in a place like East Gippsland”. “The Minister’s response also states, ‘the Victorian Government recognises supply availability is placing additional stress on people who rely on firewood’ – yet he won’t make the simple policy changes to address the matter.” Mr Bull said there were three simple, practical steps the government could take now to address the issue. “Announce an extension to the firewood collection periods, open up more collection areas to the public and return firewood coupes back to contractors who hold a commercial firewood licence,” he said. “Rather than trot out waffle that it is a limited resource (when it is most certainly not) and admit it is placing stress on people – just change the policies to fix the problem. “This of course is the same Minister we told free camping would not work time and again, which he pushed back before finally backflipping and making the changes we asked for. He needs to do the same here.”

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