Home›Questions on Notice›QoN 151

❓ Hon. Christine Sharp asks about total yield in the context of forestry, and the Minister responds by outlining the strategies in place to manage and sustain log supply, including force majeure clauses in production contracts to address significant losses from events like cyclones and fires. The Minister indicates that despite past events, sustainable yield levels have not been reduced and are currently above projections.

AnsweredQoN 151Legislative Council

Asked

7 August 2001

Member

Hon Christine Sharp

Portfolio

Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

AnswerView source ↗

Answered

28 August 2001

Responded by

Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

Response time

21 days

The strategy currently adopted includes: an appropriate protection system to monitor risks with the capacity to respond and achieve a minimum and acceptable level of losses, a regular review of the sustainable level of log supply, by product class, taking into account any losses that have occurred, monitoring of harvest yields, by product, and overall plantation productivity to adjust future growth and sustainalbe supply projections, production contracts based on the capacity to sustain supply, and an appropriate mechanism to adjust the Commission's supply obligation in the event of significant losses. This is achieved through the force majeure clause that is in every Production Contract. Significant losses have occurred in the past. The major recent events being Cyclone Alby in 1978 and two large Gnangara fires in the early 1990's. Despite these events there was no need to reduce sustainable yield levels. In fact the levels of harvest currently projected are well above those projections contained in the 1987 Timber Strategy. (2) No. Such an analysis is not necessary as the standard force majeure clause used in current Forest Products Commission production contracts includes provision for unpredicted damage from causes including fire, disease, and drought. I seek leave to table the current standard force majeure clause included in Production Contracts. See tabled paper.
(2) No. Such an analysis is not necessary as the standard force majeure clause used in current Forest Products Commission production contracts includes provision for unpredicted damage from causes including fire, disease, and drought. I seek leave to table the current standard force majeure clause included in Production Contracts. See tabled paper.

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