Plantations and Forest Stewardship Council Audits

Anthony Amis

Friends of the Earth (FoE) has been concerned about the questionable practices of logging operations for many years. FoE, unlike most forest protection groups, has also questioned the sustainability of the plantation sector. As a member of the Forest Stewardship Council, FoE has been closely involved in observing the activities of FSC certified companies, particularly in Victoria. Contentious issues have included the clearing of native forest remnants to establish plantations and the use of herbicides to kill regenerating native forest inside plantations. The clearance of native vegetation and destruction of koala habitat continues to be a major focus of FoE's work in Gippsland.

However these are not the only issues of concern. Hancock Victorian Plantations have been certified by FSC since 2004. FoE initially supported this certification as a means of protecting large swathes of native forest in Gippsland and also to minimise the use of pesticides. Each year the FSC conducts an audit of certified companies and each year this process supposedly gives the community an opportunity to have input and to air grievances. It is questionable what this input actually achieves, because the certifying body carrying out the audit is paid by the company and will be reluctant to remove a company's certification because ultimately this will mean less business for them.

A number of issues have been raised over the past year which again highlight the unsustainability of FSC certified plantation companies.

Hancock Victorian Plantations

In August 2012, FoE learnt that Hancock Victorian Plantations pledged $305,000 to the recovery and rehabilitation of grasslands in Victoria's western district after contractors working for the company cleared 0.7 hectares of critically endangered natural temperate grassland of the Victorian Volcanic Plain near Mannibadar (south-west of Ballarat) between March and May 2011. This issue raised again the ongoing issue of contractors working for Hancock being unaware of the ecological attributes of the areas that they are working in. Surely it is not difficult for a manager to provide contractors with maps highlighting areas of high conservation significance. This breakdown of communication has been observed in the Strzeleckis for most of the past decade with Hancock managers again failing to properly inform logging contractors about the ecological attributes of key conservation areas. Further details on how the $305,000 will be allocated is posted at  environment.gov.au/epbc/compliance/judgements.html

In September 2012, a contractor aerially spraying over Hancock pine plantations in central Victoria was fined $10,000 for spray drift which spread over 200 hectares of neighbouring King Lake National Park and Black Ranges State Forest. The spray event occurred over a 10 day period in April 2010 over lands adjoining several plantations. The vegetation that suffered from the spray drift was recovering from the 2009 bushfires which devastated much of the region. It has since been determined that eucalypts that regenerate after bushfires are far more sensitive to the herbicide glyphosate than previously realised.

Who is ultimately accountable for a spray incident that goes wrong in an FSC certified operation? Hancock themselves were not fined but the contractor working for them was. What implications does this have in other fire damaged regions, where Hancock plantations border or contain significant amounts of regenerating native bush? There are many regions across Victoria where this scenario occurs.

If a spray contractor follows current label rates for glyphosate, this may be far more toxic in fire damaged landscapes than previously realised. Will glyphosate labels now have to be amended to incorporate this new possibility? Most sprayed plantations lead to pesticide pollution of neighbouring streams. Is the plantation owner accountable for this pollution, or is the spraying contractor or the pesticide manufacturer responsible?

Also of interest in regards to both incidents was that Hancock's auditor Smartwood appears to have been kept in the dark as there was no mention of them in its published 2012 audit.

Water pollution

The issue of pesticides reared its head again in April 2013 when the Victorian EPA published results of water testing in two subcatchments of the Latrobe River − Middle Creek and Narracan Creek. Narracan Creek is dominated by potato cropping and the EPA recorded 23 detections of 10 different pesticides in December 2011 and March 2012. Middle Creek is dominated by Hancock hardwood plantations, mainly Eucalyptus Nitens which have been planted on former Eucalyptus Regnans sites.

The EPA detected the herbicide simazine in Middle Creek. Hancock have apparently not used simazine in the catchment since 2003. If this is true, then the EPA is theorising that simazine has polluted groundwater which has been slowly leaching its way into Middle Creek for almost a decade. Is this occurring elsewhere across Australia where simazine is used?

The EPA also found levels of oxychlordane in the sediments of Middle Creek. Oxychlordane is a metabolite of chlordane, an organochlorine insecticide which has not been used in Australia since the 1990s. FoE believes that the high levels of oxychlordane could be the result of eucalypt seed treatments which occurred in other regions of the state in the 1970s and '80s. Eucalyptus seeds may have been treated with chlordane as an ant repellant. Middle Creek is also known to have been sprayed heavily with the herbicide 2,4,5-T in the 1970s, however the recent EPA testing did not extend to dioxins. FSC fails to take into account past unsustainable practices.

Mining and coal seam gas

Another issue that FSC is failing to come to grips with is mining operations on Hancock land. Many Hancock pine plantations were planted on old gold mine tailings and tin mine tailings. A number of mining exploration licences also exist on land owned by Hancock. One Hancock pine plantation at Ballarat is now the site of a large gold mine and another nearby site was scalped for mining exploration in 2005. There is no evidence of tree planting to remediate this site. Is this now classified by FSC as a mining site and exempt from FSC or is it still a forestry site where FSC criteria still apply?

Plantation logging on former mining sites also raises the issue of stirring up heavy metals such as mercury which often contaminate old gold mine sites. These heavy metals can be remobilised and washed down creeks during and after a logging operation. At least 21 Hancock plantations lie on top of old gold mine sites or gold mine tailings. FSC remains mute about these matters. (For more information see hancockwatch.nfshost.com/docs/mining.htm)

Hancock operations in Gippsland also overlay coal seam gas (CSG) exploration licences. Perhaps two of the most controversial lie in the Merrimans Creek Catchment, owned by Lakes Oil. Australia's richest person Gina Reinhart has recently invested in Lakes Oil. All over Gippsland people are 'Locking The Gate' and refusing CSG exploration on their properties.

A concern in Gippsland is that a lot of the work of the community may be undermined if Hancock allows CSG exploration on its lands. CSG extraction, if it goes ahead, could contaminate regional groundwater and local waterways as it has in other regions of Australia. If CSG extraction does eventuate on Hancock lands, will it be covered by FSC and if pollution of waterways occurs, who is responsible? Is this an FSC responsibility? What social obligations under FSC does Hancock have to communities impacted by CSG exploration or extraction on Hancock land?

Fire

Another grey area with certification of plantations concerns fire. In January 2013, FoE produced an introductory assessment of fires and plantations in Victoria. This assessment made it clear that the risks associated with bushfires and plantations have increased significantly over the past decade. It also appears that FSC is not adequately dealing with the profound implications of greater bushfire frequency and greater risk now associated with large plantation landholders. In former state owned plantations, there is a 690% higher chance of a plantation fire than there was 15 years ago.

As global warming intensifies, so does the risk associated with fires. As the risk increases regarding native forest fires, plantations located in close proximity to native forest must also be placed at a greater risk. Over 35,000 hectares of plantations have been burnt in Victoria since 2002. In the preceding 70 years, 7,760 hectares of plantation were burnt. Ninety percent of the largest plantation fires in Victoria have occurred in the past decade.

One fire with profound implications occurred in January 2013, known as the Kentbruck fire. Apparently this fire originated in a Hancock plantation. The ABC reported: "The fire first started in pine plantations near the Portland Nelson road and it ran into the Kentbruck state forest heading in a northerly direction."

This fire, the largest ever in South East Victorian plantations, eventually burnt out 1200 hectares of plantations as well as thousands of hectares of national park. It would be interesting to determine how this fire started. Was it caused by a plantation logging operation? If so, then an FSC certified plantation is linked with a fire that caused untold damage to a National Park and nearby native forest.

How does FSC deal with the issue of cause and effect of bushfires? What responsibility does FSC take for the increased fire risk associated with plantations? What responsibility do FSC certified companies have in mitigating for the amount of carbon released both through the burning of plantations and nearby native vegetation? How does FSC deal with the issue of plantation fires destroying high conservation value forests? (For more information see hancockwatch.nfshost.com/docs/fire.htm)

Anthony Amis is the pesticides spokesperson for Friends of the Earth, Australia.