The representative body for native timber harvesting operations in the South East has hit back over claims the state would be tens of millions of dollars better off if logging was ended.
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The report, published last Tuesday by AAP, claimed NSW taxpayers would be better off to the tune of nearly $62million over the next 30 years if forests were used for mountain biking and carbon farming rather than for harvesting operations.
Consultants Frontier Economics and climate risk expert Andrew Macintosh modelled the economic value of the native hardwood forests when harvested and used for timber products compared with being left untouched as an environmental and recreational asset.
Danny Price, managing director of Frontier Economics, said NSW could demonstrate strong leadership in removing the taxpayer burden of native forest logging in favour of boosting the tourism sector and carbon abatement.
"There is no doubt managing the native forests for conservation purposes provides greater economic benefits than logging," he said.
"It's a win-win and, quite frankly, a no-brainer."
However, South East Timber Association said this week ending logging would strip many more millions out of South East economies and from the families that rely on it for their livelihoods.
SETA secretary Peter Rutherford said he and members were "deeply disturbed" by "flaws" in the report.
"The report advocates for an immediate halt to all native forest harvesting of state forest in Eden and Southern Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) areas. This move would strip $100million in forest product sales out of South Coast economies each year," Mr Rutherford said.
"The report authors make the claim that over the next 30 years, NSW taxpayers will be more than $60million better off.
"A major flaw in the report shows about $80million of the economic benefit each year arises from avoided harvest, haul and processing costs.
"[However,] these operations are an expense paid for by timber processors, out of the $100million in revenue that flows from the sale of forest products.
"What are claimed to be avoided costs, is actually income that will be stripped from regional families, businesses and economies," he said.
Mr Rutherford also claimed there had been a "major omission" from the economic report. Namely, that if state forests would no longer be generating any revenue through harvesting, management of the 415,000 hectares of state forest in the Eden and Southern RFA areas would have to be fully funded by taxpayers.
"Latest figures show the taxpayer contribution to managing national parks is $50 per hectare higher than for state forests. The cessation of harvesting would deliver an annual additional burden on taxpayers of $20.75million or $622.5million, not inflated, over the 30-year analysis period," Mr Rutherford said.
Mr Rutherford said it was SETA's opinion the report was misleading, "fundamentally flawed" and "appears to lack any factual base".
