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Forestry boss Bethlehem chops out the deadwoodLAEL BETHLEHEM
FAR away from the newspaper headlines, the forestry industry - one of the largest employers in impoverished rural SA - is undergoing its most dramatic changes in decades. The process is being driven by the Ministry of Water Affairs and Forestry, long viewed as something of a Siberia for tired politicians, but which has since received an injection of energy from minister Kader Asmal. Enter the new chief, Lael Bethlehem, who joined the department in June and, in spite of her youth, took on the "old" and powerful men in the timber and sawmilling industry to push through the landmark Forestry Bill last month. The Bill has fundamentally changed the way communities and commerce can utilise state-owned forests. But Bethlehem faces an even bigger challenge as she tries to find buyers for the SA Forestry Company (Safcol), a task which eluded her predecessor, as well as Stella Sigcau, the Minister for Public Enterprises. Despite her brief tenure at the post, Bethlehem is no stranger to the industry - her academic and professional careers have been spent studying forestry and its downstream industries. She completed her masters degree in the industrial policy of the pulp and paper industry, worked for the Industrial Strategy Project on the industry in 1993, and was responsible for examining the promotion of forestry as part of the Wild Coast industrial corridor project. She also chaired the National Forestry Advisory Council. Before joining the ministry, Bethlehem spent two years each at Nedlac and Cosatu's Naledi Research Centre. In formulating a new approach to forestry, she worked on the premise that it is one of the few industries that has development potential in rural SA. "Unlike many parts of agriculture, forestry introduces industrial processing into rural areas, bringing with it investment, jobs, skills, value-addition and infrastructure," she says. However, many industry players argue that the government has made a dramatic U-turn from supporting the industry to regulating it. They have warned of job losses as a result of the Bill. Bethlehem counters this, saying: "When the state started planting forests and supplying wood to the sawmilling industry, there were good reasons to do so, namely that the private sector was reluctant to enter the industry given the long lead times associated with the sector. "Today the situation is quite different. It is no longer appropriate for the state to play a direct role in providing wood to sawmillers - market forces have entered the sector as a result of SA's return to the international economic fold." The most dramatic impact of this approach is that sawmillers will no longer be provided with so-called "evergreen" contracts for the provision of logs to the mills. Instead, contracts will be limited to five years, thus hopefully spurring the industry into upgrading its outdated technologies. The key feature of the Bill is that the state will now lease the land out to private sector operators on a long-term basis. The Bill tries to regulate not only commercial forests, but also indigenous ones, which are fully protected, as well as community forests. Bethlehem joined the department when the privatisation of Safcol appeared as far away as when it was first promised by Sigcau four years ago. The process has been plagued by indecisiveness on the part of the government, which analysts believe has already reduced the value of the company to foreign investors.
Bethlehem says government is examining whether Safcol will be sold as a single entity or split into regional component parts that could include the forests in the former Transkei and Ciskei.
She adds that interest in Safcol's privatisation has been expressed by local and foreign companies, and expects significant announcements on the restructuring of Safcol and the department's forests before the end of the year. Sven Lunsche
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