Eden's timber industry will be forced to restructure and rebuild around what resources are available, Cr Robyn Bain has said.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Cr Bain is chairing a recovery sub committee involved with the timber industry and taking in the views of Forestry NSW, logging contractors and saw and chip mill operators.
"The Eden Forest Management Area has been the hardest hit in the state. Aerial assessments show about 80 per cent of the management area has been affected by the bushfires," she said.
"We've has the aerial assessments but they need to be ground-truthed."
However it's a tricky business trying to completely understand what has been lost when many of the Forestry staff and contractors are still fighting fires. There's little doubt though that along with the natural resource, there will have been considerable damage to infrastructure such as roads and bridges.
Read also: Fires ease on Thursday
"Department heads in Forestry and Planning and Environment have agreed to develop a protocol to allow logging in black wood areas. Because an area has burnt, it doesn't mean that logs are not recoverable," Cr Bain said.
There is a sense of urgency about recovering the saw logs.
"The saw mill could be running out of saw logs at the end of the month and so it's the number one priority to get saw logs in."
The saw mill's operation wasn't affected by the fires but the problem is in finding sufficient logs. The chip mill was fire affected but could recover however the industry cannot accept charcoal in the product.
There is discussion around having a saw mill to process some of the logs for pallet timber and also around having a briquette mill because briquettes - used overseas for heating - can tolerate charcoal.
"They are reviewing the resource and will do the rebuild according to the resource. The industry will restructure around what resource is left," Cr Bain said.
"Instead of chipping can we extract anything of higher quality from the wood," she added.
But there's another side to the industry and that is the logging contractors who employ many staff than the mills.
"Currently they are out working on the fires. The RFS has control over the forests and they won't be allowed back into them (to work) until the RFS releases them.
"The next job will be to get the roads and bridges done."
Cr Bain said she had spoken to State Forests in regard to using local contractors to help open up the forests again.
Read also: Rate relief proposal
However for some independent truck owners it may be a while before they can get work again and Cr Bain said they might want to look at taking up the offer of an interest free loan for two years particularly if they are currently paying off a commercial loan.
"It would be the same as the primary producers, interest free for the first two years and then at the government bond rate which is currently about .8 per cent," Cr Bain said.
"The world changed at Christmas and the industry will change too. The priority is to get saw logs out," Cr Bain said.
To join the forest recovery group either get in touch with Cr Robyn Bain or talk to the Recovery Centre at Bega.
