MONA's Forest economics shared vision: Progress or just another motherhood statement

Preamble

The MONA Forest Economics Congress has done something remarkable. After years of careful dialogue, it has produced a Shared Vision that recognises native forests as living, perpetual systems — a statement now signed by conservationists, Palawa leaders, scientists, artists, philanthropists and, importantly, several major industry figures. That alone marks a significant shift in Tasmania’s forest debate. But it also exposes a deep contradiction: while the Shared Vision treats forests as ecosystems we inherit and steward, STT’s financial accounts continue to treat them as single‑rotation timber crops whose “value” rises automatically on paper each year. This briefing note sets out why that contradiction matters, how it shapes public narratives, and why honest accounting must come before any discussion about how much logging — if any — is compatible with the values the Shared Vision expresses.

STT's paper profits

 

The discussion about whether to process Tasmanian native timber logs here or in Victoria sidesteps the real issue and once again highlights the widespread misunderstanding of the financial realities of the native forest industry.

Industry defenders usually point to the accounting profits in Sustainable Timber Tasmania’s annual reports as proof that native forest logging is commercially viable.

But almost all the profits come from book entries not from cash. The core issue lies in how STT values its forests - as a single‑rotation horticultural crop. The standing timber is valued at fair value less costs to harvest and sell not including the costs to regenerate. Any increase in the book value is booked as profit. In 2024–25, that revaluation added $7.5 million to STT’s bottom line -- more than the entire reported profit.

But native forests are not a crop. They are perpetual ecosystems that require continuous investment in roads, regeneration, land management and fire protection. These are not optional extras. They are the essential costs of accessing and maintaining the forest. Yet STT’s valuation model excludes them from the net harvest proceeds calculation that’s used to value timber. The result is predictable: trees are overvalued and the reported profit is overstated.

Native forest logging or carbon credit schemes?

 

Why Ending Native Forest Logging Delivers Far Greater Public Value Than Funding Short‑Term Carbon Schemes

“Why should the Federal Government incentivise foreign companies to buy up agricultural land in Tasmania for carbon credits?” Primary Industries Minister Gavin Pearce asked at a recent media conference, responding to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s backing of the reported purchase of the 22,000‑hectare Rushy Lagoon property in the state’s northeast.

Why indeed?

It is a fair question — but it is also a revealing one. Because the Commonwealth has been intervening in markets for years. Sometimes with good results, sometimes with questionable ones, and sometimes with consequences that only become clear long after the policy has been abandoned.

The Economics of Tasmanian Wind

 

Why new projects face a wall

Tasmania’s energy debate still assumes that wind farms are profitable and Marinus will unlock a wave of new renewable investment. But the only audited window we have into the real economics of Tasmanian wind — the accounts of Woolnorth Wind Farms (WWF) — tells a very different story.

WWF supplies around 10% of Tasmania’s electricity, with 308 MW of generation across Bluff Point, Studland Bay and Musselroe Bay. It is also the only operator that files full financials with ASIC. Those accounts reveal the structural truth that now defines the future of Tasmanian renewables: Tasmania’s oldest wind farms are only profitable because Hydro Tasmania subsidises them — especially via Large Scale Generation Certificate (LGC) guarantees. Strip out those supports and WWF is loss‑making every year, even with its current low level of debt.

This is the starting point for understanding why new wind projects — the very projects Marinus depends on — face a wall.

ASH attempts to correct the record

 

ASH’s response to Four Corners (it appeared in a Facebook post which is pasted below) presents itself as a factual correction. In reality, it is a carefully constructed piece of misdirection that avoids the central financial facts, reframes definitions to obscure economic reality, and omits the single most important issue facing the company - the looming 2027 redemption cliff. Once the structure is laid out clearly, the Facebook post collapses.

Heyfield ASH to Ashes?

 

This is the third part of a three‑part series Heyfield–ASH: A Case Study in Public Risk and Private Control

PART 3: HEYFIELD -ASH TO ASHES?

The 2027 Redemption Cliff

By the time the 2025 financial statements were signed, the future of Heyfield ASH Holdings (HAH) was no longer a question of operational performance or market conditions. It had become a question of solvency. The business had reached the point where the structure created in 2017, and reinforced through the WJS years, could no longer be sustained by accounting treatments, inventory movements, or government grants. The numbers had converged on a single, immovable fact: in 2027, HAH must repay $33 million to the Victorian Government, and there is no internal source of funds to do so.

The redemption of the cumulative preference shares is not a technicality. It is the moment the entire structure is tested. And the closer we get to that date, the clearer it becomes that the structure cannot withstand the test.

Heyfield ASH The WJS Years

 

This is the second part of a three‑part series on Heyfield–ASH: A Case Study in Public Risk and Private Control

PART 2:THE WJS YEARS

When the private partners behind Heyfield ASH Holdings (HAH) purchased the Western Junction Sawmill (WJS) in northern Tasmania in October 2021, the move was presented as a pragmatic response to Victoria’s decision to shut down its native forest industry. The public explanation was simple: if Heyfield could no longer source logs locally, it needed a new supply chain. But the financial statements tell a more complicated story — one in which the Tasmanian acquisition did not merely secure log supply but reshaped the entire economic structure of the business. What emerged was not a conventional supplier relationship but a closed‑loop related‑party ecosystem in which HAH became the financier, WJS became the beneficiary, and Victorian taxpayers became the silent underwriters of a private Tasmanian enterprise.

To understand the WJS years, you have to look past the public narrative and follow the money. Once you do, the pattern becomes impossible to ignore.