2018-06-27 Special Meeting Agenda

SPECIAL MEETING AGENDA                                                            27 JUNE 2018


Key elements of the project are detailed below and are covered under the proposed State Deed
provided as Attachment 2:
a)    Payment of compensation to HQP in return for surrender, within 5 years of the date of
      signing of the Funding Agreement, of their existing long term Plantation Licence Area (PLA)
      harvest rights over areas in Ringtail and Yurol state forests. The compensation in the
      amount of $3.5M is to be equally funded by DES, Council and NPA.
b)    To minimise the risk to Council and NPA, DES will pay the full amount of $3.5M up front
      and the combined contributions of Council and NPA ($2,333,332) will be paid into a
      Queensland Treasury Corporation interest bearing account. DES may not draw down this
      amount until the PLA area has been transferred to Conservation Reserve protected tenure
      with Noosa Council as trustee. This is expected to be achieved soon after the HQP 5-year
      harvest rights period has expired. If this has not been achieved within seven (7) years of
      signing of State Deed, then the funding contributions are to be returned to each party.
c)    On signing of the State Deed, DES will commence action to transfer some areas of State
      Forest to National Park protected tenure. Those areas comprise available areas of State
      Forest (non-PLA) and some PLA areas totalling about 357.3 ha as marked on Plan A
      attached to the deed.
d)    HQP will immediately relinquish rights to harvest hardwood timbers located in the PLA
      though DAF will maintain access to nominated hardwood areas for a period of up to 5
      years. The primary area of DAF interest is about 136.38 ha as marked on Plan A of the
      State Deed with a further secondary area of about 156.55 ha also noted on Plan A.
e)    HQP will finalise harvest of merchantable pine timbers within the PLA within a period of 5
      years from the date of the State Deed. This excludes any wildlings or non-merchantable
      size plantings. It is understood that they may well finish this within the 5-year timeframe
      and if so, the PLA would be surrendered at that earlier time.
f)    Upon expiry of the HQP licence in 5 years from the date of signing of the State Deed, DES
      will:
      i)    Transfer the remaining areas of available State Forest to National Park tenure (refer
            Plan A – comprises about 991.22 ha); and
      ii)   Transfer the remaining area of former PLA to Conservation Park tenure with Noosa
            Council as trustee (refer Plan A – comprises about 1039.81 ha).
g)    For 5 years after the transfer of the former PLA area to Conservation Park, Council will be
      responsible for rehabilitation of the former pine plantation area. After the 5-year
      rehabilitation period which is capped at that term, the land will then transfer to National
      Park tenure.
h)    The State Deed provides the option for Council to make a payment to the State for the cost
      of rehabilitation of the pine plantation areas upon expiry of HQP harvesting rights 5 years
      after signing the deed, and for the land to go direct to National Park tenure instead of
      Conservation Park with Council as trustee. That is at the Council’s option at the time.
i)    The project does not impact on private property or current apiary licence arrangements
      within the state forest areas.


3.   Rehabilitation component
   The approach to rehabilitation and NPV analysis of costs was outlined in some detail in the
     report to Council dated 13 October, 2017.
   Given this project will cover a number of future years, Net Present Value Analysis (NPV)
     has been used to compare the three likely rehabilitation scenarios and identify the likely
     total cost of the remediation component of the project (in 2017 dollars). The table below
     provides a summary of the total cost of each scenario in addition to the investment required
     per ratepayer to fund the rehabilitation over the 5-year period.


                                                                                   Page 6 of 65