Most notably, the double-episode of the ABC’s Australian Story – ‘Something in the Water’ in February 2010 – springs to mind. It claimed that eucalypt plantations occupying just 4% of a Tasmanian town’s water catchment were toxic to humans, animals, and marine life. Screened just 3-weeks before the Tasmanian state election, the program sparked a controversy that was not backed by credible science yet resulted in the unseating of the government’s Health Minister and quite likely contributed to the formation of the current Labor-Greens minority government which has a distinctly anti-forestry agenda.

If the ABC is to ever rid itself of the perception that it caters to a primarily Green-Left audience, its supposedly independent investigative journalists need to start examining the excesses of mainstream environmentalism and the damage it is doing both to the wider environment and regional and rural communities. A good start would be for Media Watch to investigate arguably the most prominent form of media spin which is seen on an almost daily basis – that is the coverage of natural resource usage promulgated at the behest of mainstream environmental groups.

Read more here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13417

Their campaign revolves around research by scientists from the Australian National University Fenner School of Environment and Society who have found that large amounts of carbon reside in some Australian “old growth” forests. Environmental activists have shoe-horned this finding into their over-arching 40-year campaign to completely evict timber production from all Australian forests. Their rationale is that a total absence of timber harvesting will allow all forests to become “old growth” which will store maximum amounts of carbon.

This raises several important issues. First, closing a carbon-positive industry that is based on a renewable resource is hardly likely to reduce carbon emissions. Second, the capability of most forests to attain “old growth” is reliant on fire, irrespective of timber harvesting. And third, there is concern about the integrity of the Wilderness Society’s campaign and the key participatory role of several ANU scientists.

It is hardly a surprise that large trees store more carbon than small trees. Yet this is essentially the finding of the ANU research which the Wilderness Society has loudly trumpeted as an exciting new development since it was released via two academic papers published during the past 10 months.

The first paper entitled Green Carbon – the Role of Native Forests in Carbon Storage – Part 1, by ANU scientists Professor Brendan Mackey, Dr Heather Keith, Sandra Berry, and Professor David Lindenmayer, was published in August 2008. This is now supported by a follow-up paper published just days ago (in late June 2009) – entitled Re-evaluation of forest biomass carbon stocks and lessons from the world’s most carbon dense forests, by Keith, Mackey, and Lindenmayer.

Much of the research underpinning these papers has focused on mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests in Victoria’s Central Highlands. Prior to February 2009, the majority of these ash forests were classed as advanced regrowth derived from the 1939 and 1926 bushfires. Only about 1.5 per cent of their area was classed as “old growth”.

February’s “Black Saturday” fires changed this quite significantly by killing a large area of ash regrowth and most of the “old growth” ash. Ash forests depend on fire for renewal and these burnt areas will regenerate as new young stands. The period between stand replacement fires is variable, but may be sufficiently infrequent to allow some forests to grow for hundreds of years to attain “old growth” status. However, as we have seen over the past century, more frequent fires can kill huge areas before they grow old and thereby maintain much of the forest in a regrowth state.

Anti-logging activism is typically silent on matters of scale and proportion as it is far easier to foster community outrage by implying that all forests are threatened. However, this is far from the reality. In Victoria, less than 10 per cent of public forests are available and suitable for timber production: the national figure is 6 per cent. Within these available forests, harvesting and regeneration occurs on a sustainable cycle that aims to supply timber and fibre in perpetuity.

Despite being Victoria’s most productive forest type, about two-thirds of the state’s mountain ash forests are in parks and reserves where timber production is excluded. Where permitted, timber production is restricted to regrowth ash forest mostly emanating from the 1939 bushfires. While, the ANU research and associated environmental campaign have built a perception that central Victoria’s “old growth” ash forests are threatened by logging, all were protected in parks and reserves, or by management prescription.

The exclusion of timber production from the vast majority of Australia’s forests means that most already have the potential to grow their carbon stocks towards their maximum carrying capacity. However, it is drawing an extremely long bow to expect all Australian forests to attain “old growth” given the prevalence of fire in the landscape; and an even greater leap of faith to expect that closing down a timber industry which operates in only a minor part of the forest, to be a catalyst for maximising forest carbon storage.

On the contrary, it is highly likely that closing Australia’s hardwood timber industry would exacerbate climate change. This is because it would encourage greater importation of hardwoods from developing countries whose forests are not sustainably managed; and increase the substitution of renewable wood products with non-renewable alternatives, such as steel and aluminium, which embody massive carbon emissions in their manufacture.

Furthermore, the forced removal of economic activity from Australia’s forests in response to political activism is already acknowledged as a significant factor in declining capability to manage forest fire. Total removal of industry and associated government workforces would only exacerbate this problem and thereby further reduce the chances of forests growing old before they are burnt.

The ANU research has ignored all these factors. In particular, its failure to consider the role of fire as the ultimate determinant of forest carbon storage is a stunning omission from scientists of such high standing. The magnitude of this flaw was emphasised when the February bushfires killed most “old growth” ash forest in the O’Shannessy catchment (north of Melbourne) which had been the study area for the most recent ANU research.

Forest carbon storage is clearly a complex matter. It cannot be simply assumed – as the Wilderness Society does – that “saving” forests from timber production is a climate change fix. Their campaign is also deceitful because it lumps Australia’s sustainable forestry (in which trees are harvested and regenerated), with deforestation in developing countries (where trees are permanently removed for another land use). It is the latter activity which is mostly responsible for a reported 18 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions.

Australian environmentalists view themselves as an ally of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, with regards to forests, they are out of step given that in 2007, the IPCC stated that:

In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.

Deceptively avoiding inconvenient truths is almost expected of activists fixated on an ideological outcome. However, similar behaviour should be intolerable among scientists working for respected academic institutions carrying credibility for being apolitical and scientifically objective.

Unfortunately, there is a growing suspicion that the ANU scientists researching forest carbon have been less than objective since their Fenner School partnered the Wilderness Society to establish the ANU Wild Country Research and Policy Hub. The lead scientist working on forest carbon – Professor Brendan Mackey – is the Hub’s Director of Research and is responsible for its management.

The progress of the ANU’s forest carbon research thus far points to a disturbing slackening of academic process to assist the Wilderness Society’s political activism. As pointed out in an earlier article in On Line Opinion (“Blurring the lines between science and political activism”, October 30, 2008), the Green Carbon paper by Mackey et al was part-funded by the Wilderness Society. However, more significantly, the paper failed to conform to accepted academic standards when:

•  it was published without any technical data to support its findings;
•  its key findings were publicly launched by its lead author (Professor Mackey) some nine months before it was published. This was at a Wilderness Society function held at the UN Climate Conference in Bali in November 2007;
•  the pre-publication launch occurred before the academic peer review process had been completed;
•  it was able to satisfy peer review standards without any supporting technical data. thereby raising concerns about the veracity of the peer review process;
•  one of the peer reviewers was Emeritus Professor Henry Nix, Chairman of the Wild Country Hub’s Advisory Board and co-Chair of the Wilderness Society’s Wild Country Science Council of which the paper’s lead author, Professor Mackey, is also a member; and
•  also prior to publication, the paper’s findings were made available to Wilderness Society members to assist them in making submissions to the Garnaut Climate Change Review.

The key finding of the Green Carbon paper that halting native forest timber production will give superior carbon accounting outcomes fits neatly with the Wilderness Society’s position articulated in its Forests and Woodlands Policy:

The Wilderness Society “does not support the use of native forests to supply woodchips for pulp, wood for power generation, charcoal production, commercial firewood, or timber commodities”.

The recent release of a follow-up paper by three of the same ANU scientists has raised further concerns. While this new paper is more measured and does not directly advocate closing timber industries, the timing of its publication and the activities of the authors have again been integral to the current round of carbon-based political activism.

The most recent phase of the environmental movement’s carbon campaign appears to have been specifically designed to coincide with Federal parliamentary debate about a proposed carbon pollution reduction scheme. As can be seen below, the recently released ANU research is integral to this:

•  June 5: Australian Greens media release – Greens in vigorous pursuit of forests solution in climate change – announces that Senator Bob Brown has “… explained to the PM, in detail, the latest research from the ANU showing that carbon emissions from logging native forests in NSW, Victoria, and Tasmania could be more than ten times above government estimates”.
 
•  June 16: Senator Brown signifies his intention to move that the Senate:
(a) notes the findings of Professor Brendan Mackey, Professor David Lindenmayer and Dr Heather Keith of the Australian National University that Victoria’s Eucalyptus regnans (mountain ash) forests are the most carbon dense on Earth; and
(b) calls on the Government to inform the Senate by 24 June 2009:
•    whether the report has validity,
•    what government measures are being taken or considered to protect Eucalyptus regnans forests in Australia that are currently targeted for logging,
•    what area and volume of such forests are available for logging under current planning regimes, and
•    whether ending native forest and woodland removal in Australia would reduce the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 10 to 20 per cent.
 
•  June 16: ANU Media Release – Australia home to forest carbon winner – announces that Victoria’s Central Highlands are the most carbon-dense forests in the world according to a paper by Dr Keith, Professor Mackey and Professor Lindenmayer published in the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
 
•  June 16: an article appears in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper – “Mountain ash the best for carbon” – referring to the Keith et al paper;
 
•  June 16: Professor Mackey is interviewed on ABC radio’s AM program. The program includes a supporting interview with Dr James Watson, University of Queensland. Dr Watson was formerly a key figure in the Wilderness Society and is thought to have played a role in obtaining funding for the forest carbon research.
 
•  June 16: an article in the Brisbane Times extensively quotes Wilderness Society campaigner, Virginia Young, who believes that the latest ANU research outlines “a huge opportunity for the government to help solve the climate problem through protecting and restoring native forests”.
 
•  June 22: The Wilderness Society’s Gavan McFadzean has an 800-word opinion piece published in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper – “Preserving old growth forests is vital to saving the planet” – which draws extensively on the ANU research.
 
•  June 24: Professor Mackey, Dr Keith, and Professor Lindenmayer conduct a public lecture at ANU to explain their latest research.
 
•  June 24: the ANU paper so extensively promoted in the media since June 16 is finally published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
 
•  June 25: the Senate defers a vote on the introduction of an emissions trading scheme until August.
 
•  July 1: an article written jointly by Wilderness Society campaigner, Amelia Young, and the Australian Youth Climate Coalition’s, Lucy Manne, appears in On Line Opinion – “Forests – the essential climate fix”.

It is a concern that the ANU’s latest forest carbon research paper was for most of the time unpublished while its findings were being promoted as published fact in the media. This raises the question of whether this is a deliberate ploy to stifle debate by denying critics (and journalists) the opportunity to examine the veracity of the science.

It is also curious that the paper was published only during June 2009, despite being received by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences almost a year earlier.  In light of earlier events, this raises suspicions about whether publication was delayed at the behest of the authors to fit the Wilderness Society’s campaign requirements.

Superficially, it may seem reasonable to cease timber production by placing all forests in national parks so they can grow old and store maximum levels of carbon. However, when considered in context with the natural prevalence of bushfire and the carbon-value of wood products, it would be counter-productive to the effort to mitigate climate change.

It had been hoped that the 2009 “Black Saturday” bushfires would finally show environmental activists that fire – not timber harvesting and regeneration – is the ultimate arbiter of Australia’s forests. Sadly, their forest carbon campaign shows they have learnt nothing.

Mark Poynter, Melbourne

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This article was first published by Online Opinion: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9170&page=0 

The photograph of the tree trunk was taken in Tasmania in May 2005.

Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 30 years experience. He is a member of the Institute of Foresters and the Association of Consultant Foresters, and author of the book Saving Australia’s Forests and its Implications (published in 2007).

Despite this, it has become politically incorrect to support native hardwood production as a sensible and responsible use of a naturally renewable resource. Those who do so are routinely vilified as I was last week when a letter I had published in The Age newspaper drew responses that scorned me as an “industry apologist trying to keep us in the dark ages” and a “spin doctor” who “relies on the public being fools”.

In the past, I have also been described as a “mouthpiece for the logging industry” or the “pro-logging lobby”, which is apparently “blind to the bigger picture of global crisis”. I have been called a “forest raper” and a “pro-logging, anti-life person”. Others believe I am “motivated by short term greed” and “headed towards my own demise”. I am apparently one of those “people who can chop, hunt, maim, kill, exploit, dominate and destroy in the name of progress and jobs” and I have been likened to “the captain of the Titanic refusing to believe that your enterprise is fatally flawed”.

When I have made the point that wood production is planned and controlled by foresters on a scientific basis, my professional discipline has been described as an “anti-science rooted in greed and domination” and a “science that fosters death”. Although the facts about forestry are readily accessible from government sources, my critics have described them as “twisted deceptions, cover-ups, hidden agreements between power brokers who care little for the welfare of our planet”. They are apparently “nothing but justifications for an evil that is supported by governments, corporations, and those who cannot see beyond their own narrow interests”.

I am no “logger”, but a forest scientist with five years of tertiary training including a university degree, and additionally, close to 30 years of experience including the last 13 years as a self-employed consultant involved with both plantations and native forests. However, despite this extensive grounding, any attempt to add an informed and rational voice to the forestry debate is met with a stream of personally vindictive bile.

It would be surprising if any other scientific discipline has endured such public disrespect and vitriolic contempt as forestry. This mostly emanates from career activists who – through “green” conservation groups – have engendered a supporter base that is largely drawn from an inner urban populace who know little about forestry. These include our brightest, most articulate, and highly educated people who are not normally prone to follow populist causes without firm justification. Remarkably though, when it comes to environmental issues, many need only the flimsiest of evidence to drop their rational reticence and morph into self-righteous and emotional “save-the-whatever” advocates.

This over-the-top and largely irrational support for environmental causes is increasingly being enhanced by enthusiastic, but ill-advised celebrity activists with ready access to a fawning media. This is a social phenomena that has been magnified in recent weeks by the near hero-worship of Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan for his efforts in opposing forestry and industry development in his home state. This was the subject of a recent episode of Australian Story on ABC television (November 3, 2008) and was informally discussed in a follow-up appearance on ABC Radio 774 Melbourne (November 12, 2008).

Richard Flanagan is undoubtedly an intelligent and passionate man with a great love of the environment. A Rhodes Scholar and skilled wordsmith, he is admired for publicly standing-up for beliefs that are in equal measure as unpopular as popular in the stifling hot-bed of emotion which continues to swirl around the forestry debate in both his Tasmanian community and beyond.

For this, Flanagan is feted among the literati, the media, and the intellectual elite; particularly in the urbane mainland states which are farthest removed from the issue. Despite having no scientific training or experience in forest management, he has for many Australians, become the oracle on Tasmanian forestry and all its perceived or actual social ills.

That his every pronouncement on this issue has for many become an undeniable truth, was effectively confirmed at the recent 2008 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards when his 4,000-word essay, “Out of Control: The Tragedy of Tasmania’s Forests”, was awarded the John Curtin Prize for Journalism.

“Out of Control” was published in The Monthly in May 2007 at the height of the Gunns pulp mill debate and was heavily publicised during the 2007 federal election campaign when a wealthy businessman used it as part of his personal mission to unseat then Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull. In assessing the essay, the award judges correctly described it as a “piece of advocacy journalism with no pretence at balance”, but substantially erred in describing it at the same time as a “fact-rich piece … full of great anecdotes and telling details”.

If Flanagan knows the facts about Tasmanian forestry he has never publicly acknowledged them nor allowed them to get in the way of a good story. Indeed, after the publication of “Out of Control”, the then federal Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, Senator Eric Abetz, noted that it contained some 70 “deliberate or inexcusably negligent errors of fact, selective citing of fact, or twisting of facts”.

This included ignoring the most basic information, such as that 47 per cent of Tasmania’s native forests, including 79 per cent (or about 1 million hectares) of its “old growth” forests, are contained in parks and reserves where wood production is excluded, whilst a substantial part of the balance is unsuited to timber harvesting. Recently, the United Nations World Heritage Reactive Monitoring team concluded that tall Eucalyptus forest in Tasmania is “well-managed for both conservation and development objectives”.

Flanagan’s reluctance to discuss Tasmanian forestry in its proper perspective in “Out of Control” is understandable because it would have invalidated his essay’s central theme that “the rape of Tasmania will continue until one day, like so much else that was precious, its great forests will belong only to myth”.

This studious neglect of the full story of Tasmanian forestry is ironic given that in an interview with the ABC”s Ramona Koval last January, Flanagan complained that his most recent book was written “with a sense of growing distress about what had happened in Australia, the way that anything seemed to be able to be said except the truth, that we were in a prison with these terrible lies, … and we couldn”t break out of it”.

The lauding of Flanagan says much about the media’s unhealthy preoccupation with celebrity and the extent to which writers, actors, artists, chefs, gardeners, film directors, rock stars and sports persons are given opportunities to influence public thought, whilst those who actually know more and work with the issues are largely ignored.

In addition, forestry is one of a number of environmental topics where some elements of the news media have become activist advocates rather than objective reporters from whom we can expect balanced commentary.

The easy media accessibility enjoyed by Flanagan is obvious to anyone who watched Australian Story. Heaping him with praise were two veteran journalists – Martin Denholm (of The Australian) and Charles Wooley (formerly of Channel Nine); as well as Maurie Schwartz (owner of The Monthly), and internationally-acclaimed filmmaker, Baz Luhrmann. The program’s only dissenting voice belonged to former Tasmanian Premier, Paul Lennon, who has been so denigrated on previous ABC programs that his views were effectively discredited even before he spoke.

The unquestioning support for the celebrity view of Tasmanian forestry is also evident in the following exchanges from ABC Radio 774 Melbourne – the Conversation Hour (November 12, 2008):

Flanagan (referring to Tasmania): There is a great crime that has taken place and continues to take place there. I’m no hero, and I don’t actually do that much, but …. I’d feel ashamed if I didn’t do my bit.

Libby Price (ABC Presenter): You have done enough though. You copped it big time from the former Premier Paul Lennon. I was really taken aback at how venomous he was in “Australian Story”.

Bryce Courtenay (author): You said it Libby, that was a wonderful adjective. As though there was some ulterior motive there, when the only motive was to keep the most beautiful island on earth pristine.

Libby Price: It really was extraordinary, and he almost accused you of using your power of language to give a false impression. He doesn’t like you much.

Bryce Courtenay (author): I can’t understand why people don’t get onto their websites, get onto their superannuation funds and say “Don’t buy shares on my behalf in those companies that cut down trees” We could stop it that easily.

Mark Dapin (Program co-host and author – referring to his first visit to Tasmania): I was astonished driving through hills denuded of forest cover. I’d never seen anything like that in my life. I couldn’t believe that people had allowed that to happen. I can still remember the feeling of rage now. ….. Chainsaw graffiti.

Given Australia is among the world’s top five consumers of wood and paper products, and that book authors such as Flanagan, Courtenay, and Dapin are especially reliant on paper; their views on forestry are incredibly ironic and display a naïvety and lack of consideration for the consequences of what they are espousing.

In so far as public policy is to a large extent determined by popular opinion, this type of media coverage is extremely damaging. There is no opportunity to respond. It is almost inconceivable that a forester or industry representative with day-to-day practical knowledge of the issues could ever get the media opportunities of a Richard Flanagan, let alone the many opportunities available to media presenters to subtly peddle uninformed personal agendas.

This raises an important question of public interest given the capacity for agenda-driven celebrities to create a flawed conventional wisdom that can lead to poor outcomes precisely because they do not understand or care about the consequences of what they are striving for. Even something so apparently benign as closing the native hardwood industry is ill-advised because timber is the most environmentally-friendly building material and reducing its availability will have such effects as:

1. Increase demand for substitute rainforest timber imports given that we have few hardwood plantations capable of supplying sawn timber of equivalent quality. We already import a quantity of tropical timber products from suspicious origins (i.e. presumed to be illegally logged and unsustainable) that in round log equivalent is approaching the combined annual native hardwood sawlog harvest from Tasmania and Victoria;

2. Weaken the acknowledged link between the strength of the rural sector and the capability to manage fire, which is by far the greatest threat to the ecological integrity of Australian forests and its associated values, such as water; and

3. Increase demand for substitute products such as steel, aluminium, and concrete whose production and manufacture involves greenhouse gas emissions up to hundreds of times greater per unit.

On Australian Story, Richard Flanagan drew a close to his active opposition to Tasmania’s forest industry citing personal and family stress. However, it is difficult to feel much sympathy given that he has played such a major role in helping to create a grossly distorted negative view of Tasmanian forestry and, some would say, Tasmanian life in general. This has provoked considerable insecurity among those thousands of people who work in jobs that are threatened by little more than false premises. They stand in stark contrast to the secure and relatively luxurious lifestyles of those celebrities who continue to be ill-informed, but outspoken critics of Tasmanian forestry.

The media’s preoccupation with celebrity activism will always feed ill-informed populist views that ignore proportionality and lack perspective, and will ensure that natural resource conflicts are resolved by media opportunities focused on conflict rather than facts and achievements. The merit and morality of shaping critical environmental policies in this way is a theme that the media really should explore.

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Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 30 years experience. He is a member of the Institute of Foresters and the Association of Consultant Foresters, and author of the book ‘Saving Australia’s Forests and its Implications’.

This article was first published on the ABC Unleashed website on November 24, 2008, then at On Line Opinion on December 2008.

The photograph was taken in the Huon Valley in May 2005 by Jennifer Marohasy.

Deforestation and the degradation of native forests account for an estimated 20 per cent of Australia’s annual net greenhouse gas emissions. Most of the degradation occurs via (wood) chip exports …

Pardon? This is completely at odds with the Department of Climate Change (formerly the Australian Greenhouse Office) whose website quotes figures based upon the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) showing that emissions from the “land use, land use change and forestry” sector comprise just 2.5 per cent of Australia’s annual greenhouse emissions.

Dr Ajani’s paper (ANU E-press, Agenda, Volume 15 No. 3) goes on to explain that her estimation of annual emissions from forest “deforestation and degradation” is compromised of 11-13 per cent from land clearing for agriculture, with 7 per cent (or 38 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent) from logging native forests.   However, this latter figure studiously excludes carbon capture by regenerated forests and, while said to be based on AGO figures, has actually been calculated by prominent “green” activist Margaret Blakers using a briefing paper from the Wilderness Society.

In reality, according to the Australian Emissions Information System reporting for 2006 against UNFCCC categories, harvested wood products and forest land are the only Australian sub-categories where carbon sequestration and storage outweigh emissions.

In view of this, Dr Ajani’s claims are quite extraordinary. Particularly given that logging largely involves transference of stored carbon from trees into the community via usable products; and that the forests from which these products are derived are being sustainably managed as a renewable resource that continually sequesters and then stores atmospheric carbon.

However, it appears that the major aim of Dr Ajani’s paper was to build-on an earlier paper, also published by ANU E-press, entitled Green Carbon – the Role of Native Forests in Carbon Storage – Part 1 (August 2008). This was authored by four ANU scientists, also from the Fenner School of Environment and Society, led by Professor Brendan Mackey.

Both the Mackey et al and Ajani papers advocate supposedly superior carbon accounting outcomes if native forest timber production is ended to enable forests “to regrow their carbon stocks towards their natural carrying capacity”. This mirrors a message that Australia’s mainstream environmental movement have adopted since climate change has gained political prominence.

In recent years, the environmental movement has sought to gain scientific credibility through developing close links with academia. This is evident in the Wilderness Society’s partial funding of the Mackey et al Green Carbon paper and the joint development and funding of an ANU Wild Country Research and Policy Hub based on the Wilderness Society’s Wild Country Vision. Professor Mackey is the current Director of the Hub, while Emeritus Professor Henry Nix chair’s the Hub’s Advisory Committee.

In return, the university supports the Wilderness Society through the provision of academic input to its Wild Country Science Council. ANU Emeritus Professor Henry Nix is Council Co-Chair, while Professor Mackey is a Council member.

The existence of these linkages raises questions about the influence of the Wilderness Society in the preparation of the Green Carbon paper, particularly given its uncompromising opposition to native forest logging. This is emphatically articulated in its Forests and Woodlands Policy (revised September 2005) which states that:

The Wilderness Society “does not support the use of native forests to supply woodchips for pulp, wood for power generation, charcoal production, commercial firewood, or timber commodities”.

Further to this, it “believes that all of Australia’s pulpwood, commercial firewood, and timber commodities should come from extant plantations of softwood and hardwood”.

In the latest edition of the Wilderness Society’s magazine, Wilderness News, an article describing the organisation’s Wild Country Vision for Victoria states that “securing our future starts with protecting our forests, one of the world’s biggest carbon stores;”… and “removing threats like woodchipping”.

Indisputably, the findings of the Mackey et al Green Carbon paper, and the more recent Ajani paper, fit neatly with the Wilderness Society’s vision for the future of Australia’s native forests – a future without a native hardwood timber industry.

Presumably, this is why scientific findings from the Green Carbon paper were launched at a Wilderness Society function in Bali during last December’s UN Climate Conference – some nine months before the paper was formally published on ANU E-press. Lead author, Professor Mackey was reported as presenting “new scientific research highlighting the critical role of forest protection in addressing climate change”.

A blog of Mackey’s Bali presentation by the Zero Emission Network gushed that his new research showed that “if the forestry sector was included in a carbon pricing mechanism …. the native forest industry would collapse overnight”. It also noted that “the report is only in limited release, but people interested in it should contact the Wilderness Society”.

The Green Carbon paper was at that time undergoing peer review, but the authors seemed to have no qualms in publicly releasing its findings. This smacks of a departure from normal academic process specifically to serve the requirements of political activism. The additional implication that the Wilderness Society was distributing the draft paper casts further doubt on the authors’ commitment to academic integrity.
In recent weeks, the timber industry has publicly questioned the scientific objectivity of the Green Carbon paper. This has included speculation about why ANU E-press published the paper without the accompanying technical data that underpins its findings. The paper itself explained that this was because “a technical paper that details the source data, the methods used and the full results is being prepared for a scientific journal”.

Whether or not this eventuates remains to be seen, but the absence of supporting technical data has certainly created difficulties for those wishing to critically analyse the paper’s scientific findings. It has also raised questions about ANU E-press acting as a conduit for incomplete or poorly conducted “psuedo-science”.

The university has vigorously defended ANU E-press as being an online publishing facility that is on the Federal Government’s register of Acceptable Commercial Publishers and one that requires independent review of all published works. ANU E-press has since confirmed that the Green Carbon paper was peer reviewed by three academics including one from outside the university.

Last month, the paper’s authors revealed that its two ANU referees were Dr Michael Roderick, who specialises in environmental survey and monitoring; and Emeritus Professor Henry Nix, who has been described as a pioneer in computer-based land resource inventory and evaluation. As mentioned earlier, Professor Nix is Co-Chair of the Wilderness Society’s Wild Country Science Council on which the paper’s lead author, Professor Mackey also sits.

The involvement of Professor Nix casts some doubt on the independence of the review process. On the question of whether the paper’s supporting technical data was deliberately excluded from publication, one would have thought that if it was part of the peer review process it would have been suitable for publication. On the other hand, if it was not part of the peer review process, there should be serious concern over the value of that process.

Further doubts about the veracity of the ANU E-Press review process are raised by Dr Ajani’s paper. She acknowledges and thanks seven reviewers, plus two anonymous referees for their input. Among the reviewers are three of the four authors of the Green Carbon paper, including Professor Mackey, as well as Margaret Blakers and Naomi Edwards.

Ms Blakers, who was mentioned earlier, is a well-known environmental activist who has worked for Greens Senator Bob Brown and latterly founded the Greens Institute. Ms Edwards assisted The Wilderness Society during its campaign against the proposed Gunns’ pulpmill. She was described by The Age newspaper in April 2006 as a “former high flying Sydney actuary who threw in the towel …. to became a mini-skirted performer and forest activist in the hippie community of Cygnet in southern Tasmania”. Neither would appear to have the ideological independence needed to objectively review Ajani’s paper.

It is particularly significant that although both the Ajani and Mackey et al papers are about forests, there is no evidence of input from forest scientists who are surely experts in this field. Unsurprisingly, both papers display a poor understanding of basic forestry concepts. This is amply demonstrated by the Green Carbon paper which:

1. Seriously overstates the extent of current and future timber production in SE Australia;
2. Displays only a simplistic understanding of what logging is, and what its variations and components mean in terms of carbon accounting;
3. Wrongly presumes that every forest left untouched by human disturbance will develop into “old growth” with maximum carbon storage;
4. Seriously understates the inevitability and severity of natural disturbances that affect forests, such as wildfire, and their impact on carbon accounting;
5. Misunderstands the role of lightning, access, topography, and suppression capability in shaping where the largest and most destructive fires occur;
6. Is unaware of the acknowledged link between forest use and the capability to effectively manage landscape-scale fire which has the greatest impacts on biodiversity and water, as well as carbon storage;
7. Does not understand that management expenditure and effort in particular parts of the forest provide flow-on benefits for other parts of the forest estate;
8. Draws a seemingly illogical distinction between the ecological resilience of regrowth after logging and fire even though the regenerative processes are the same;
9. Appears to ignore the ecological implications of totally avoiding disturbance which can ultimately result in the replacement of eucalypt forest by other vegetation; and
10. Fails to address the carbon accounting implications of not harvesting native forests – such as more imports and greater use of steel and concrete – given that its favoured plantations “solution” is unviable due to insufficient hardwood plantations capable of producing sawn timber.

It is clear that addressing the above matters would have severely weakened, if not invalidated, the paper’s central assertion that not logging forests will massively increase carbon storage. A cynical view is that in recognition of this, Mackey et al may have chosen to avoid informed scrutiny of their paper so as not to compromise findings that fit a pre-ordained agenda.

In view of the doubts surrounding its objectivity and veracity, it is very disappointing that the Green Carbon paper has gained such traction in the media and in some scientific circles. In particular, its infiltration into the Garnaut Climate Change Final Report is unfortunate given the likely influence of this on future government policy.

This was apparently driven by representations by the environmental movement during the public consultation phase which ended in April 2008. In the latest Wilderness News, a text box attached to an article entitled, Green Carbon, by Dr Heather Keith (one of the co-authors of the Green Carbon paper) states that:

The Wilderness Society made an organisational submission [to the Garnaut Review] that spells out the compelling science about forests and carbon. And we co-ordinated thousands of Australians to have their say on this critical issue by making their own submissions.

This shows that even before it was published, the Green Carbon paper was being commandeered for use in submissions to the Garnaut process. This would seem to further confirm the strength of linkages between some ANU scientists and the environmental movement.

In a recent media release, the ANU claimed that it was “proud of researchers who challenge current views and develop new ways of understanding our environment”. If this means supporting scientists who willingly compromise objectivity and academic process to serve the political agenda of a financial backer, the university may have a problem.

It is important to appreciate that conclusions being drawn from the Green Carbon paper are out of step with the international view of the role of forests in climate change. In 2007, this was articulated by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which stated that:

In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.

Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 30 years experience. He is a member of the Institute of Foresters and the Association of Consultant Foresters, and author of the book ‘Saving Australia’s Forests and its Implications’ (published in 2007).

This article was written on behalf of the Institute of Foresters of Australia was first published at On Line Opinion and is republished here with permission from the author.

Why anyone would oppose the sustainable harvest of such a small percentage of Victoria’s extensive native forest estate is difficult for me to understand. Then again I see both environmental and economic benefits in growing and cutting down trees as part of the active management of a native forest.

In ‘Campaigners can’t see forest for trees’ Mark Poynter* expains the value of logging in terms of carbon sequestration:

“Sustainable logging in Victoria’s designated wood production zones produces about 1.5 million cubic metres of hardwood sawlogs and residual logs a year from an estimated total harvested biomass of about 2.1 million cubic metres, including roots, bark, branches and foliage. The concept of sustainability dictates that annually harvested amount is replaced by an equivalent volume of growth.

Carbon sequestered each year in new biomass growth in Victoria’s production zones is estimated to be equivalent to saving 2.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. This is net of emissions from fuel and power use inherent to timber production and emissions from the regeneration process. It is also additional to the carbon that could have been sequestered if the forest had alternatively been left unlogged.

Putting this into perspective is that clean energy produced from Victorian wind farms has been estimated to save 250,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year. Put another way, if anti-logging campaigns were to close Victoria’s native forest timber industry, 10 times as many wind turbines as now exist would be required just to make up for the carbon sequestration lost by “locking up” wood production forests.

Enhanced carbon sequestration is only part of the “greenhouse” benefit of sustainable logging. Australian domestic hardwood production also offsets imports of tropical hardwoods and the use of steel, aluminium and concrete that offer poor environmental outcomes.”

Read the full article, click here .

If 10 times as many wind turbines would be required to offset the locking up of wood production in the 10 percent of the forest that is still harvested, how much more carbon could be sequested if government allowed logging in say 30 percent of the forest estate? Not to mention the potential environmental and economic benefits.

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Mark Poynter is a forestry consultant, member of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and a member of the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF). His slide show entitled ‘Saving Australian Forests, A Counter-Productive Indulgence’ given at the recent AEF conference can be viewed by clicking here.