Regulations stunt timber plantation growth

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A “VEXATIOUS” regulatory regime and broken promises from the government have hindered the growth of South Africa’s timber plantations, the forestry industry has claimed.

A “VEXATIOUS” regulatory regime and broken promises from the government have hindered the growth of South Africa’s timber plantations, the forestry industry has claimed.

The forestry sector has been identified by the Department of Trade and Industry as having a strong potential for job and small business creation, both upstream and downstream. Timber is used in the paper and construction industries, among others.

But representatives of Forestry South Africa say the government has failed to act on its commitments to plant about 100 000 hactares in the Eastern Cape and to provide a grant for small growers.

Only about 2 000ha of the 100 000ha the State committed to eight years ago — in both the department’s industrial policy action plan and the sector’s broad-based black economic empowerment charter — had been planted and no fiscal commitment had been made to fund the grant announced in September 2012.

Forestry South Africa executive director Michael Peter told Parliament’s trade and industry committee colloquium on beneficiation last week that “vexatious” and obstructionist officials in the Department of Water Affairs had also played their part in the stalled growth of the sector.

“We believe national policy is being sabotaged by medium-and junior-level bureaucrats who do not face any consequences when their actions limit communities from planting timber,” he said.

Obstacles had also been placed in the way of industry in Mpumalanga when it wanted to switch from eucalyptus to more economical pine trees for a R3bn processing plant. The government had demanded new applications.

Forestry South Africa chairman Norman Dlamini said he believed government officials were “anti-forestry” and got in the way of small growers.

Permit applications required environmental impact reports which small, poor farmers could not afford. Furthermore, it took a long time for application approvals to be granted.

Instead of expanding, the quantity of land under plantation had shrunk from 1,5 million hectares in 1998 to about 1,27 million hectares today. Industry had voluntarily withdrawn from 80 000ha of forests to conserve water and the environment.

Peter noted that the government decided six years ago to reverse its decision to exit forestry in the Western Cape and Mpumalanga and to begin replanting plantations.

However, the process had not yet started and more and more plantations were closing down.

The state had also failed to transfer 47 000ha of its land that it had earmarked for transfer to communities and land claim beneficiaries. About 46% of this land was unproductive.

Forestry South Africa also accused the government of not supporting the sector with tariff and nontariff barriers as other countries had done.

Peter said Russia, India, Brazil, China, New Zealand and Australia had been subsidising their forestry industries for the past 30 years.

Whereas South Africa used to be in the bottom 25 percentile in terms of global costs, its competitiveness had deteriorated and it was now in the middle 50 percentile.

It was also not competitive in terms of the volume of timber produced as it was not engaged in the active and continuing process of afforestation.

MPs were told that total roundwood production in the country generated R6,7bn in annual turnover, with about 75% of this wood being made into pulp and about 25% into timber.

Turnover from primary processing plants amounted to about R20,4bn annually, and paper and packaging R17,4bn, making a total contribution to gross domestic product of R42bn. About 98% of the round-wood produced was beneficiated locally.

In a written reply to a parliamentary question by Democratic Alliance MP Zelda Jongbloed last week, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries minister Senzeni Zokwana said the government planned to decommission 22 000ha of commercial timber plantations in the Western Cape between now and 2019 to 2020.

The Cabinet originally decided in 2001 that 45 000ha would be converted over a 20-year period for use for conservation, agriculture, community forestry and human settlement, but this decision had been reviewed because of its negative effect on jobs and on the timber supply.

The department had presented new proposals to the Cabinet to reverse the decommissioning of half the area. “Various options for this exercise are being investigated” for the decommissioning, Zokwana said.

– BDLive