A new report says the "long-term feasibility" of the native logging industry should be questioned.The Forestry Corporation of NSW's native logging division is not "economically viable", according to a new report raising questions about the industry's future.
If that happened, it would be the third state to stop logging native forests after Victoria and Western Australia, leaving Tasmania the only state with a large native logging industry. It says if native logging cannot be made economically viable when the contracts are renegotiated, the "long-term feasibility" of logging native forests should be reviewed.
A spokesperson for Forestry Corporation said it accepted the recommendations and would implement them.The report compared the costs incurred by Forestry Corporation for logging and transporting timber to the revenue collected through contracted sales agreements with private sawmills, which is meant to cover those costs.
IPART is required to conduct the analysis once every three years. Its report excludes the costs to the public for the loss of the trees themselves, as well as the revenue paid by sawmills meant to compensate for that .