Cape Forestry Seeks Government Help With Fire-Damaged Plantations

Commercial forestry operations in the Southern Cape region, which had experienced extensive damage from wildfires that rampaged across rural and urban landscapes in June, have pleaded for government assistance with the felling, harvesting and processing of salvageable trees. Failure to speedily undertake these tasks could result in thousands of job losses in South Africa’s forestry value chain. Lloyd Phillips investigates.

- Lloyd Phillips

Although final figures on the extent of damage to commercial forestry plantations in the Knysna, George, Plettenberg Bay, Mossel Bay and Garden Route areas are not yet available, it is estimated that the total area affected comprises thousands of hectares, with direct economic losses running into hundreds of millions of rands. This is according to industry representative organisation, Forestry South Africa (FSA).

An entire sawmill operation was also razed, FSA and Sawmilling South Africa (SSA) said in a joint statement.

SALVAGING TIMBER

FSA executive director, Michael Peter, told Farmer’s Weekly that salvageable trees in the fire-damaged plantations had to be harvested within 10 to 12 weeks, or the wood fibres would degenerate to the point of being useless.