VicForests losing millions, but promises ‘no massive forest furnaces’ under new RET deal

Leaked business and corporate plans from Victoria’s state-owned forestry business, VicForests, reveal multi-million dollar taxpayer losses and logging operations in parts of the state that ‘are not commercial’.

This is especially the case in East Gippsland, where weak demand for poor quality logs has made operations unprofitable over ‘many years’.

The leaked ‘commercial in confidence’ documents also reveal that VicForests is keenly interested in using poor quality, low volume native forests to generate electricity under the Renewable Energy Target, or RET.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt cleared the decks for the burning of native forest biomass yesterday with the introduction of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Amendment Bill into Federal Parliament.