On Saturday I attended a conference at the State Library of New South Wales sponsored by the Independent Scholars Association of Australia, NSW Chapter, entitled “Looking for Forests, Seeing Trees: A Continent at Risk”.
Senator Bob Brown of the Australian Greens was the keynote speaker.
It soon became apparent that many of Sydney’s ‘Independent Scholars’ hold Bob Brown in the highest of regard. The audience was clearly enthralled as he told the story of Recherche Bay – Tasmania’s equivalent of Sydney’s Botany Bay but still essentially a beautiful wilderness area of incredible historical significance according to Bob Brown.
He told of the first friendly encounters between French scientists and the local Aboriginals in 1792 and how now – shock and horror – timber company Gunns Ltd was going to clear fell the forests of Recherche Bay. And it was all for woodchip that would be sold to Japan for $10 a tonne.
We were repeatedly told that Gunns Ltd turns 90% of the 200 year old trees it fells into woodchip which are then sold to Japan for $10 a tonne. We were told it was the same across Tasmania. There would soon be no old growth forest left in Tasmania if the ruthless company Gunns Ltd supported by the horrible Howard-government had their way – and all for $10 a tonne. He described the situation as “a holocaust”.
During question time I asked Brown a question that went along these lines. Wasn’t 80% of old growth forest in Tasmania reserved, as well as 70% of the original extent of forest still being in existence? Hadn’t Recherche Bay already been logged? So to suggest that the last tree was about to be cut down in Tasmania was, to say the least, an exaggeration.
He responded along the lines that there are statistics and statistics (you know: ‘lies, damn lies and then there are statistics’) but the bottom line is that as more is logged, “the percentage protected increases and eventually all will have been logged and then they (Gunns Ltd) will claim that 100% is protected”.
The audience loved Bob and it was with gushing praise he was cheered off the stage and then departed the conference.
Maybe I should have asked a question about the $10 per tonne. I thought it was more like $150 per tonne, but I wasn’t sure.
I have just checked some sources tonight.
Brown is not alone is claiming a low price for woodchip. Jared Diamond in his much acclaimed book ‘Collapse’ quotes $7 per tonne (pg. 404).
When I queried this figure with Alan Ashbarry from Timber Community Australia early in the year he emailed me a copy of the Woodchip Settlement Price dated 18th February from Gunns Ltd for 2004 showing the price per tonne at $159.00 (Download file) and the note:
“Diamonds un-referenced figures on the value of export woodchips do not stand scrutiny. The current price for woodchips is the leading Australian Hardwood Chip Exporter (LAHCE) benchmark price settled at AUD 159.00 per BDMT (bone dry metric tonnes). This equates to US$120, it takes two bone dry metric tonnes of chip to make a tonne of pulp used in paper manufacture. The price for paper quoted by Diamond is overstated when compared to international benchmarks.”
I have checked this value against the value in the most recent publication from ABARE, see http://abareonlineshop.com/PdfFiles/PC13135.pdf (pg. 51).
The most recent figures here are for December 2004 with a total volume of 1,413,300 tonnes exported to Japan at a value of $214,147,000 which gives a value of $152 per tonne. This confirms the value of $159 to be about right and suggests the value of $10 per tonne to be complete rubbish.
I did suggest at the conference that they should check the price for woodchip. I hope that there were some independent and scholarly enough in the room to do so. If Brown could get something so basic, and readily available, wrong, as the price for woodchip, can you rely on much that he says?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
That the Greens believe the fanciful price of $10/tonne shows how out of touch with the real world they are. One can’t cart the wood from the forest, chip it, stockpile it at a port and load it on a ship for $10, so why would anyone accept a price of $10?
I doubt if you could cart it for $10/tonne (thats ~ $5/m3) let alone cut, chip, load etc. Plus licenses, royalties etc.
I guess Independent scholars are the endangered species. I know a few Greens who have been to Tassie and visited various logging “sacred sites” and return fired with “The Passion”.
New term for Greens; passionfruits.
It’s possible the stumpage (price paid to the forest/plantation owner for the wood standing in the bush) is $10 per green tonne which would equate to around $20 per dry tonne, but I don’t know this for a fact. It would be about the right order of magnitude. It may not sound much, but there are many tonnes per hectare and it is a profitable form of land use for the land owner.
I thought the land in question in Tassie is private freehold.
To harvest, extract, chip etc and put it in pile at the port would probably cost in the oder of $30-$50 per tonne green tonne ($60-$100 per dry tonne)of delivered chip and not all of the log will make export chip. Costs very a lot according to circumstances. When you get into the details and allow for green vs dry tonnes, what sounds like a vast amount of money turns out to be a relatively normal, profitable, margin for Gunns or other timber operator.
Also of interest might be the stumpage paid for saw logs from the same bush. This would be much greater than chip log stumpage – at least double I would expect. Green sawn wood at the sawmill would probably be in the order of $1000 per green tonne (about 40% moisture content), though the recovery of sawn wood is about 40-60% of the log. The opponents of forestry argue that good logs go through the chip mill. If this is the case, Gunns or their equivalent are apparently prepared to pay twice as much for sound saw logs and then chip them and sell the chip for a fraction of the value of sawn wood.
Never let the facts get in the way of a passionate belief.
The other outrageous lie, damned lie, and every word that proceedeth from the mouth of Bob Brown, is the one about the lack of value adding in wood chip. There is tremendous value to be captured in the woodchip value chain but the greens have gone to great lengths to prevent us from capturing it. That is, they have gone out of their way to prevent pulp mills and paper mills here in Australia on water pollution grounds. This is despite the fact that the technology has been available for more than a decade to run these operations on a closed loop water cycle.
So what is the extent of the value adding?
Most chip logs are not of sawlog quality so their standing value is only $10 to $15/tonne.
It takes 2 tonnes of green wood to produce a tonne of paper worth $1,000 per tonne. This is a 50 fold value increase which is actually better than the value increase from most sawn timber.
But Bob Brown has ensured that we capture only 16% of this value chain. The cost of his sabotage is huge. If the woodchips have a value of $214 million then they produce paper worth $1,346 million or a net cost of Brer Brown of $1,132 million or $23,600 for each of his Tasmanian Senate voting quota. He costs every Australian $56 each ON THIS POLICY ALONE.
Of course you could just leave the non sawlog quality trees in the ground. The value of trees is not only in their value either chipped up or made into furniture.
Their value is what they contribute to the carbon cycle and stabilising the soil. Ascribing a value only when cut down is missing the point entirely.
What is the profit per tonne for Gunns and how much of that goes to Australia?
How much tonnage of whole tree makes one dry bone metrics tonne of woodchips?
What price should we set for the desecration of our natural heritage?
Those are the questions a real researcher would ask.
The $10 possibly refers to the royalty (stumpage) paid to the Tas govt.
Gunns are a publicly listed company code GNS:AX and trade on the Australian stock exchange and profits would be returned to shareholders.
Gunns own 175,000 ha freehold land and manage in excess of 90,000 ha of plantations.
If trees are converted to paper (and later converted to mulch) or to furniture etc is that not locking up carbon?
And as well all know, new growth forests extract carbon from the atmosphere at an enormous rate, far greater than old growth.
rog – because unlike furniture trees grow. The mulch releases CO2 as it decomposes as it is taken out of the natural carbon cycle.
So rog are you saying we should cut down all the old growth forests and plant it with new growth just so you can drive your 4WD or have your airconditioner?
What high value product(s) does the said woodchip end up in? Genuine question ?
To Rog – on the CO2 story – SIGH … and it will take some time for the new forest to mop up all that darn CO2 you liberated in clearing the old one. Unless you’ve discovered Jack’s Beanstalk somehow … you only get into net sequestering if you convert pasture into forest.
Paper and mulch have relatively short lives. The furniture might have a long life – but not if its made from chipboard….
(omigawd here we go again)
*So rog are you saying we should cut down all the old growth forests and plant it with new growth just so you can drive your 4WD or have your airconditioner?*
Yes please! and a new jet ski!
rog – yes if you post stuff you have to expect replies.
*The mulch releases CO2 as it decomposes ..*
It does? How so?
It is a well known fact that organic matter whether through mulch or compost increases soil carbon levels and improves soil texture
“Emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane from soil, and soil quality indicators were determined four years after manure and compost application had stopped. ”
“Residual effects of manure and compost on emissions of greenhouse gases were minimal and their benefits on soil quality indicators were more favorable than that of N-fertilizer. ”
http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=133062
rog – just thought I would join the club of unsubstantiated claims.
Selectively quoting a US agricultural soil in a system using disk ploughs and N fertiliser with ready applications of compost and manure is hardly comparable.
Forest clearing will cause a run-down in soil carbon !!
You guys just hate it when I prove that I am right – again!
I believe for every tonne of wood used in construction, the net amount of carbon sequestered is about 200kg, allowing for the energy expended in producing the wood from the forest. All other substitute construction materials such as steel, plastic and concrete emit more carbon than they sequester.
If you regrow the forest post-harvest, you are effectively transferring carbon from the atmosphere to a long term use which is an effective storage. Furthermore, you substitute some other material which would be a carbon emitter.
A study done in the UK concluded that if used paper was burnt, so substituting coal for electricity production, this would cause fewer carbon emissions than recycling paper back into paper products. Provided that the forest/plantation that is the original source of fibre is regrown.
A mature forest is carbon neutral, but it is not accumulating carbon. The rate of decay (a carbon emission) must equal the rate of carbon intake by photosynthesis. Any forest ages to the point of collapse, and then typically a wildfire would complete the cycle (massive carbon emission) and a new forest would regenerate. The area that undergoes this collapse and regeneration in any one event varies with the forest type and local conditions, but in total, a wild forest is in state of dynamic equilibrium. The impression that forests are ancient and permanent is an illusion caused by our own very short lifespans.
The accusation of profligate consumption levels levelled by opponents of (insert your favourite cause here) is nearly always hypocrisy. Unless you are living a truly ascetic existence, in which case you would not have your computer or be chatting on this blog, your consumption is pretty much the same as those evil-doers who log forests to generate the basic materials and export income required for your comfort.
Provided a forest is grown and logged according to the principles of forest science, and there is no loss of biodiversity, I invite anyone to nominate a land use that causes less harm than commercial native forestry over a period of several centuries. The “we don’t have to use every hectare” argument doesn’t wash – we now import twice as much sawn wood from SE Asian forests as we saw from Tasmanian forests. Your impact has to fall somewhere. Checked under your house for biodiversity lately?
Just back in from washing the sack cloth and tending the vege garden …
How much of our Tasmanian forests goes into producing the rubbish that our society loves – to put into chipboard to fill up Harvey Norman & A-Mart ?
How much goes into high quality pieces of furniture.
Acres and acres of new home sites with piles of off-cuts and wasted timber…
Do we have any serious data on biodiversity – pine forests and much plantation hardwoods don’t seem to biodiverse to me – they’re tree crops… that’s cool – its agriculture with trees. But lets not have ourselves on to much. We’ll be claiming coal mine revegetation is wonderful soon too.
But do we have to level all old growth forests when we have so much clapped out dairy country we could replant.
This idea of knocking it all down to “do it good” is very loopy from a greenhouse point of view.
Do you guys like living in parking lots and sleeping in bulldozers…
Anyway back to feeding the free range organic chooks …
(And I reject SE Asian forest timber as a profilagate consumer too).
You got a problem with particle board Phil? It efficiently uses all timber not just the select grades so that product can made available to more people, not just the elite.
Plywood is not only an efficient user of timber it is stronger than say planks, especially structural or marine ply.
A lot of *clapped out dairy country* has been bought up by plantaion foresters eg Great Southern Plantations, Timbercorp, Willmott, Gunns (woops, they are the baddies) – you should buy some shares in these companies!
As for waste timber on building sites, all frames and trusses are prefabicated from stress grade timber and delivered on site, any scraps laying around are probably rubbish grade used in packing. Maybe you prefer steel frames?
Yes I think I do – I’ve seen so much of it fall apart over the years. And maybe if we made some furniture products out of decent timber instead of the profiteering that goes on now with the rubbish we’re served up. Why – because that’s what we’re going to give you… market failure.
No – it’s not rubbish – the building industry are incredibly wasteful. That’s because they’re not paying enough for the product. Particularly if it’s pine trees which acidifies the soil beyond redemption.
And they should be planting out more clapped out dairy country and not be into old growth forests. Surely there’s been enough by now. As I said – do you want to live in a car park.
And for heavens sake Rog – don’t mention anyone’s name or you’ll be sued !!
And I’m glad you’re so loaded with cash that you can do a tax dodge with plantation forestry. You must have your tax bill screwed to almost zero.
All negative gearing and farm forestry/almonds/grapes etc tax investments should be banned – that’s what is wrong with this country. Howard needs to wake up.
And yes despite the embodied energy I think steel is a vastly superior product. We should stop supporting the timber industry an convert to alternative building products. Timber should only be used for high quality furniture, not Japanese building form-work and chopsticks. At least the termites wouldn’t recycle it into methane.
Silence from Ender and confusion from Phil.
Remember that scene in “Animal Farm”, where Boxer the loyal horse goes outside the barn, to find that the slogan painted on the outside of the wall “Four legs good, two legs bad” had been changed to “Four legs good, two legs better”?
Well guys, now you know how puzzled and confused Boxer felt at that moment. If you’re going to follow the pigs, you really need to keep an eye on them.
If you wish to address biodiversity Phil, I won’t try to give you a list of the thousands of species that survive logging, I would like you to nominate one that hasn’t. I won’t be all that impressed by species that have been exterminated by clearing for agriculture, or fox and cat predation.
If you look at regrowth forests all over Australia, you may find that those forests are the final refuges for a number of endangered fauna. It’s not that commercial forestry has no impact, there are impacts from logging; my point is that every other land use is worse. By all means, keep a critical eye on forest management practices. But in general you’re looking in the wrong direction, and you’re taking the word of the pigs at face value.
Phil
On the area planted to plantations, no there is nowhere near enough. Wood and wood products are our third biggest import.
Most plantations going in now are for paper pulp. The problem is going to get worse, not better in relation to solid wood. I don’t like this situation, but we consume the paper that the plantation owners grow.
Generally you are advocating increased use of energy intensive substitutes for wood and fewer plantations. I thought you were concerned about the environment?
And again, a plantation put in today will produce a final sawlog harvest in about 25-30 years for the evil pine, longer for other species.
What do we do for the intervening few decades? And how do we get the nation to invest in long term wood production while there is the risk that at maturity, the plantation will become the subject of a debate about high conservation value forest? We even have pine plantations that are unavailable for harvest now for pretty much that reason.
getting back the points at issue:
1. price of woodchips ex Tasmania is currently A$160 per bone dry tonne (net of water content), which equates to about $83 per tonne – not $10. This includes payment of stumpage to the forest owner, costs of logging a transport, conversion to chips, losses in the process, loading to ship, and of course profit margin – from which are paid the taxes to support scholars, independent or otherwise!
2. the land in question at Recherche Bay is private land, so what the greens are trying to do is remove the ability of owners of a private asset to realise some value on that asset in full accordance with the law. The landowners have agreed to leave substantial areas untouched along the coastline, and that all logging will be selective, not clearfall. Brown would have mentioned none of this. Never let the facts get in the way of a lie!
The question is – to what uses are our Tasmanian regrowth forests being put ? What is the fate of export woodchip. To be used for ??
Feeding Japanese consumerism with a bad habit of importing resources from the rest of world for their selfishness – see history of logging in Oceania for example. Why don’t they cut their own forests down – but they keep them for aesthetic purposes don’t they ? Anyway we’re happy to get the Toyotas back to drive around the forest tracks eh ?
“Final refuges of endangered fauna” – do you realise what you’ve written in that… I suppose you will blame agriculture. Maybe that’s true. To some extent. Feel free to blaze away at foxes, cats and pigs – no problems there.
Selective logging is probably OK – but a lot of logging that I’ve seen over the years doesn’t look that selective to me. The lack of refugia are one aspect.
I think as Australians we have a right to suggest that we have levelled enough old growth systems. When is enough enough. When are we going to move towards greater planting of native plantation systems. And we should have seen all this coming but have taken the easy road.
How long will the resource that we are now chomping into last ?
Sorry Phillip, I think Rick just won the Test Match by ten wickets. You need to sharpen up your bowling.
It is interesting that very little of this “debate” centres on an examination of fact and truth. It is of course about values, rejudices and most of all, political spin. It is why the debate will never go away no matter what “agreements” are struck or imposed.
Its all a real pity because most people are really sick and tired of the endless forestry controversy. All they want are forests, timber harvesting, a building and furniture industry using Tasmanian timber. They will accept a level of woodchipping related to source and a level of plantation or agricultural forstry.
No one likes acres of clear felled trees whether they be natural forests or plantation (but it is interesting that clear felled plantations are rarely promoted as the eyesore which they are – and in full view of highway travellers) yet most people seem quite happy to clear trees to build houses and towns and roads etc.
But unfortunately it is impossible to have a sensible and fact based debate on the issues.
Davey – I’ve asked some questions and have been told we all like timber very much, Australians don’t care about forests (maybe not …!) and the price of woodchip …..
I’ve also been told that’s what people want so bad luck …
And are we only to have debates on selected issues …
I’m willing to be educated with some answers…
Now lets look at this with a few numbers.
In 2000 – 2001 the total value of all exports from Australia was $119,539 million dollars(ref1). The total value of forest products in the same period was $1,812m (ref 1), of which 41% were woodchips and 29% paper and paperboard products. The proportion of export wealth from forest products versus total exports is therefore 1812/119539 = .015 = 1.5% of total exports earnings. Rick and later poster are correct there is a deficit in forest products however the scare tactic that the imported timber is native SEA rainforests is easily refuted by ref 1 which states ” Imported sawn timber is mostly Radiata pine from New Zealand and Douglas fir from North America.” So lets put that one to bed. If the forest industry was stopped today Australia would lose 1.5 or 2.0% of its export earnings. Again from ref 1 Australia imported $3,834m, of which 54% were paper and paperboard products and 11% sawnwood. Total imports at the same time was 118 264 million dollars so the claim that paper products are “our 3rd biggest import” is patently false.
Having said all this ref 1 provides a strong argument for forest products “Australia’s wood and paper products industries are important components of Australia’s primary and secondary industry sectors. They are particularly important in providing economic development and employment in many regions of rural Australia” which I agree with Rick and rog however I still do not support woodchipping native old growth forests. Plantations can provide all the necessary wood and paper products without disturbing native forests.
Now a quote from ref 4
“The logging operation at EP074D represents the loss of significant present and potential economic opportunity for the state of Tasmania. The minimum estimated value of the timber remaining in the coupe is $685,000 in royalties. This value would be significantly higher if the timber were downstream processed in the State.
In terms of special species timbers, the logging operation at EP074D is clearly not ecologically sustainable. Fire sensitive species are eventually eliminated in subsequent logging rotations (90years) thereby diminishing the diversity of the forest and the potential supply of quality timbers in the future”
Clearly clearfelling for woodchips not only reduces the biodiversity of the fauna but even the future operation of logging. All this for $146.00 per ton. If you read ref 5 then it says in the Executive Summary “the study concluded that logging old growth forest in the Weld Valley significantly alters the diversity and abundance of the plants and invertebrates” So Rick you can make as many claims as you like however the science will always get you in the end. Practically all studies that I looked at agreed that logging old growth forests reduce biodiversity when studied scientifically by independent investigators. However of course all university professors are just left wing radicals anyway so what would they know.
A mature forest can be carbon neutral however when it is put under stress it can actually emit CO2. Also please provide a scientific reference for where you claim “Any forest ages to the point of collapse”. I could not find ANY references to ‘forests collapsing” at all. They change in response to climate and they do burn however left alone they do not collapse. Perhaps this is another of your little porkies. The total forest ecosystem of which the trees are a vital part is timeless and ageless. It adapts. Trees come and go, as you say, however to think to use this as an argument to diminish the value of the forest is ludicrous. Old growth forests provide the habitats that are vital for survival of many species. They have the niches and hollows that animals use for shelter that new growth forests do not have. When you cut down an ancient tree you are really cutting down an animal skyscraper and causing thousands of animals to be left without protection to die.
A detailed critique of the greenhouse effect of forests will follow.
So lets summaries. In earlier posts you tried to claim that without forest products the Australian export industry would collapse however the reality with real numbers is that it is about 1 or 2% of Australian Exports. Then rog tried to claim that paper and wood products were our 3rd biggest import which is also false. Then you tried to say that the deficiency in sawn timber comes from SE Asia and even that is false. Your last try was that logging does not reduce biodiversity however this ignores the fact that the scientific evidence shows almost the exact opposite.
References
1.http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/D00760E9617A805BCA256CAE0015CAB0
2.http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/stats-pubs/pmp_2003_04_analysis.pdf
3.http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/B8F0356D3723562ECA256B36001BFB48
4.http://www.twff.com.au/epo74d.pdf
5. http://www.twff.com.au/weldreport.pdf
First of all Ender I did not say that which you have attributed to me; lets try to keep to the facts.
From the Australian Greenhouse Office comes the following CO2 figures per manufactured commodity;
timber per tonne 370 kg
steel per tonne 800 kg
concrete per tonne 2,300kg
aluminium per tonne 17,700kg
Obviously timber is most ‘environmentally friendly’ of the products.
The bulk of pine is imported into Australia and used in house frames, furniture etc.
Australian hardwoods are used for furniture, joinery, flooring and panelling.
I agree with Brian Austen, most people are sick to the back teeth with whingeing Greenies.
Rog – my man – is that you there quoting the CO2 manufacturing costs …
Didn’t we agree that global warming was nonsense ? hmmmm… careful Rog you’re becoming captive of the debate.
I don’t mind seeing cleared plantations – that’s what they’re there for – to be eventually harvested. And I do think the relentless spread of suburbia into bushland is also an issue so housing isn’t exempt from analysis.
My questions rephrased are this: (a) are we sure we are getting the best value for harvesting old growth forests and exporting it as wood chip (b) how long can it continue before plantations are necessary.
Maybe I’m not a whinging greenie either. Maybe just an ethical investor considering one of those fine “tax effective” investments in some darn fine forestry. I am flicking through the prospectus here ….
rog – I did not say that you said everything. When I quoted what you said it was straight from your posts.
Whinging greenies can be a problem expecially when they quote accurate facts and figures that refute just about everything that you say.
*Then rog tried to claim that paper and wood products were our 3rd biggest import which is also false.*
Show me where I said that and I’ll eat my hat.
Sorry rog you are quite correct I made a mistake in attributing that to you. My apologies. Your hat is safe.
Rick said it “… Wood and wood products are our third biggest import…..” Posted by: Rick at August 30, 2005 09:22 AM
It maybe a small point Ender, but it is a significant trait – you dont check your facts and even when first alerted to your error you still did not check.
*When I quoted what you said it was straight from your posts.
Whinging greenies can be a problem expecially when they quote accurate facts and figures that refute just about everything that you say.*
I always knew my hat was safe.
rog – so you are using the standard tactic of seizing on one small error and using this to somehow refute the whole thing. I admitted my mistake when I realised it. At first when you posted I thought you meant that this statment was not said. I did not at that point check the poster. I double checked when you said it again and discovered my mistake. Yes it is embarrasing to make a simple error like this when I said what I did say next however things like this happen.
Take note that you have not attacked anything I did say other than this. This is pretty much your MOA.
A significant item missing from your posts is any real information. You have not replied with ANY details to the many questions that have been posed to you other that vague references to “mark my words”
I do make mistakes and wherever possible I correct them.
Its not a personal attack Ender its a correction, if you make the claim that you “quote accurate facts and figures” then you should be able to stand by that claim.
What is significant is that the first time I alerted you to an error you neglected to check the claim for accuracy and proceeded with a rebuttal.
You have made several errors on this thread eg *The mulch releases CO2 as it decomposes ..* when do we get to read your correction?
I am betting that Recherche Bay has been harvested and/or cleared at some stage in the past, and that the current proposed harvesting is not likely to impact significantly on the values that everyone is is so concerned about.
I would also like to add that it is probably not the prefered option to export woodchips, but if there is no industry locally that wants the product, you are left with a choice of taking it or leaving it. Bearing in mind that some of the best sawn material is sourced from olgrowth as well, and as all of you know it is very difficult to manage selective harvesting in wet forest, due to the difficulty in regenerating eucalypts under a canopy, and managing the risk of fire from the high fuel loads generated from the logging slash.
Why am I not surprised that Bob Brown told so many lies at a conference at the State Library of New South Wales sponsored by the Independent Scholars Association of Australia, NSW Chapter, entitled “Looking for Forests, Seeing Trees: A Continent at Risk”? I doubt that Bob Brown can speak at all without lieing as he has clearly become addicted to it. What does surprise me is that the audience where prepared to accept his lies.
Bob Brown will stop at no lengths to try and prevent the forestry operations on the Vernon’s property at Recherche Bay. The real reason for this is not that he considers that any historical areas of interest will be destroyed (as this will not happen because all speacial value areas are captured within reserves provided for in the Forest Practices Plan), but because he does not want to allow yet another fantastic opportunity to prove yet again that forestry and tourism can and do work very well together. As for Bob’s allegation that the property will be clearfelled as Bob knows this is also yet another of his lies. The Forest Practices Plan clearly states that the areas within the property which will be harvested will be selectively cut.
Bob Brown might think he will stop this ligitimate management of the Vernon’s going ahead but I have news for Bob……think again, fair dinkum honest Tasmanians will ensure that it does. Not only will it happen but it will be completed with great care and sensitivity and will prove yet again, that Brown and his eco-terrorist hangers on are the greatest liars of this century!
Ender – I also had a quick look at the Weld study, and while it makes interesting reading it is not just based on science. There is a very green element coming through via the ‘Timber Workers for Forests’ who wrote it. I am not saying that it is completely wrong, but if you are using it as conclusive evidence then your argument is seriously flawed. Harvesting timber has an impact on the environment, along with just about everything else we do. It all depends on how much impact is too much. I think some others here have summed it up well, but I know that where my house is (constructed from timber of couse) there used to be a forest, and I’ve looked underneath it for biodiversity, but there isn’t much there. I am pretty confident that there is going to be a hell of a lot more bidiversity in the weld valley even after the area has been raped and pillaged by those forestry bastards, regardless of whether it was exported for woodchips at $10/tonne or not.
Jen – as our Blog team leader you should send a fax to Bob asking him to clearly state his position. As an elected senator surely we are entitled to his considered reply.
rog – about the same time you explain where all the oil is going to come from.
However you might want to read this
“Carbon in organic matter in soil may also be oxidised and lost to the atmosphere as cultivation continues, especially if the soil erodes at the same time. The effect is reversed when trees and forest grow again on abandoned land, but no one is sure how much regeneration is going on.
from
http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/globcat/globwarm/carbon%20cycle.htm
Burning vegetation plays an important part in the global carbon cycle, although fire often merely speeds up the release of carbon that would otherwise be produced later by decomposition.”
002 – fair enough – I also read a couple of critiques of the Weld Vally study but I thought it was significant enough to include.
Some more references
read the abstract
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1523-1739.1998.96480.x;jsessionid=eROw23E3-laemRKghy?cookieSet=1&journalCode=cbi
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1365-2664.2001.00645.x?journalCode=jpe
Did an ecological survey under the house – 1 frog (green), some brown ants, 1 cricket, 3 different spider species.
My comments for EP079D would be that if the timber left was so valuable why is it so hard to sell. I think it’s because not many people are prepared to pay much for it. It’s also a bit like the one tree arguement, yes you can make lots of products from one tree, but who is going to buy them. The market is very limited. I think that there is a point in not wasting what we have, but we need to be realistic. There must be a way to get the balance between what we need and what we can sell. I think Graeme Green and the Timber Workers for Forests are idealists, with a relatively narrow view on forest management. If they have such a passion for it, why aren’t they managing the forests. Why can’t they put their expertise to good use by leading from the front. I think it’s because it’s easier to pick up on other peoples mistakes, than it is to do a better job yourself. But I could be biased!!!
I can’t get under my house, so I can’t comment. Termites under the slab at best.
Biodiversity
If you go to http://www.nafi.com.au/faq/index.php3?fact=2, and click on “biodiversity” there is discussion about plant species lost due to forestry and other land uses, with references. In summary, grazing 34 extinctions, agriculture 44, and forestry 0.
A salinity report (State Salinity Action Plan) prepared a couple of years ago for the WA wheatbelt forecast the future loss of plants due to rising water tables (agricultural clearing) to be 450 species. These could be saved by seed banks and similar, but it’s not a good outlook. Many species of invertebrates are also expected to go and as the taxonomy of these fauna is not understood, the numbers are not known and saving them will be difficult. I’ll chase up the reference if you want it.
From personal experience, friends of mine did ground breaking research several years ago on the chuditch (Western Quoll?) which has contracted from the western half of the continent to the forests of the SW of WA. Their work was done in the forest around Dwellingup, which is all regrowth forest. Another eaxample would be the numbat, also found in regrowth forest and previously widespread. The numbers of all these medium sized forest animals has increased significantly with the introduction of aerial fox baiting in the forest.
I’m not happy picking agriculture out all the time, because I know where my food comes from. What I suggest is that you don’t appreciate how much wood you use all the time. If you want to identify the real culprits to the loss of biodiversity, its all of us. We have to try to minimise the damage, but you’ll never stop it.
My stats on forest imports I haven’t been able to substantiate so I’ll back down on that for now. The information I mentioned came from a forest industries newsletter from about three months ago (imported sawn wood from SE Asia now double the sawn wood harvest from Tassie) and the 3rd biggest import (for wood and wood products, not just paper) was from a Forest Industries Federation display I saw a few years ago. The ABS site you mentioned Ender dates back to the 2000-01 data. As the harvest of wood has fallen with the introduction and overturning of the RFA’s, I think we would have to be importing more wood than we were 5 years ago, and the sources may have also changed. It’s a fluid global market. If we have a net import of wood fibre, then we must be consuming someone else’s forests. We are capable of being net exporters, but that is socially impossible.
I can understand the point that if you clearfell a coupe of 30ha, it looks like a masssive hole in the forest and probably extends to the skyline, which creates the impression that the same condition goes on indefinitely. Local impacts may be severe but in the context of the forest as a whole, this disturbance is relatively small. If that forest is not re-harvested for a century, in that time the pre-existing vegetation complex re-establishes itself.
Many of the forests now held up as icons of their type by opponents of commercial forestry can be dated back to a clearfell, perhaps in the 19th century. Or a wildfire, such as much of the mountain ash in Melbourne’s water catchment forests which were, I believe, burnt to the ground in about 1935.
I used the word collapse for brevity. Taken at the very small scale, a hillside exposed to a prevailing wind on a hot day with an extreme wildfire running upslope will suffer so much damage that it is effectively killed. This may be only 10’s of hectares, but it is a collapse. It is well established by forest science that tree seedlings in wet schlerophyll forests, such as mountain ash and karri, are not able to successfully establish themselves under an intact forest canopy. This is the reason why these forests are clear-felled, because if you selectively log them, all that happens is the density of the overstorey declines. The reason why those old growth wet forests look so appealling is their even aged uniform stand structure. In those forests, you get that structure from what “wheatfield” even aged regeneration, which is the forest response to a cataclysmic event, such as extreme wildfire or logging.
Rick – Fair enough. I used the stats from 2000 because thats all I could find without paying for it. I fully realise that it could have changed between then and now however I an not so rich that I can cough up the money for the current stats.
I also never meant to imply that just because forest products are only say 2% of our exports they are not important. I really meant the second paragraph and coming from a small country town I realise how important local industry is.
If you could organise a local sawmilling and plantation group that was committed to the local community and was committed, as I believe you are, to the local forest, I do believe that you could manage that forest sustainably and provide in a sustainable way the wood products that we really need.
I do not however, believe that large national and multinational corporations that run clearfelling and woodchipping really have the local community in mind. As far as I see it they are the same as any large corporation and are totally focussed on their share price. To them sustainability and waiting for plantations is totally against their quarterly profit cycle so they go for the quick buck and clearfell and woodchip.
One possible future, if you are a timber worker, is to work with us ‘radical’ greenies to implement a sustainable future for your local community. It could also include emission free paper mills powered by renewable energy and very selective logging in old growth forests for high value specialty timbers. What you will not get however is a quick return. You may get a vibrant local town that is self sufficient and that local children want to return to instead of running to the city as soon as they are 18.
Listen to this audio interview and see what one person did in his community
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/434
Ender for any business, be it a mums-n-dads concern or a multinational, to abandon its primary function (return a dividend to its stakeholders) would be fiduciary negligence.
Management by a collective for a collective has failed dismally and utterly, internationally and locally, OK?
Marxist forestry is a daydream of the idle. Ideology has no place in the market.
ps,
$oil headed south, the speculative bubble will burst and market forces will prevail.
You know rog the more you post the more you sound like Loius.
rog – no-one said anything about marxism. Families and local communities have been running farms and resources for thousands of years.
What is new is corporate factory farming and thousand mile ceasar salads – that is a product of the industrial revolution and fossil fuels. Quite possibly it will end when the fossil fuels become uneconomic.
Ender
I appreciate your concern for small rural communities, but when push comes to economic shove, the market is dominated by companies big enough to keep the costs down and operate profitably on small margins. A craft wood worker uses a couple of cubic metres of wood a year and may make wonderful furniture with it. However the sum of all those small operators is a very small proportion of the wood consumed by our society.
And in the end, no matter what size the individual wood harvesters and processors are, the total volume produced, relative to the global demand for the fibre in its many forms, is the main issue.
I could talk about this for weeks, but perhaps we have worked it over well enough for now? Email me if you want to continue.
I got as far as 3 minutes Ender, that botanist was saying that after 9/11 when planes were stopped for 3 days the temp dropped therefore……..I better go and tend my animal farm.
And that’s exactly right – it did Rog …. haven’t you kept up with the the fact that radiation levels have fallen … (and there was some very conservative Aussie scientists on the evaporation pan/radiation story)
It’s interesting though seemingly impractical Enders ideas may at times seem to us locked into our current world – I am much more shocked how closed your mind is to anything else than what’s in front of your nose… and what you now know. How much has the world changed in the last 100 years and last 10 years… and I bet the dinosaurs thought they knew absolutely everything for certain too until the change came … (and I’m not trying to be insulting either)
Phil, I reject Ender’s’ hypotheses because, as you so correctly observed, they are impractical.
Shocking as it may be to some there is more than enough to contend with in the real world without speculating on a world that does not exist.
As for dinosaurs, I’ve absolutely no idea what they thought but I feel comfortable with the hypothesis that it would be entirely focussed on what or who is for dinner?
rog – well thanks for trying. Global Dimming is based on some solid and peer-reviewed Australian science.
As I ususally end these conversations – time will tell.
Rick – I guess we have discussed it to death however that you for the discussion.
The point I’m making is that lots of things seem impractical before their time – steam engines, motor cars, aeroplanes, space flight, colour TV, antibiotics, vaccinations for major diseases, mobile phones, internet – self serve shopping, fill your own car with petrol, the GST, pollution controls in vehicles, lead free petrol, bans on smoking, etc etc … we have changed and will change in the future. I seriously believe that paradoxically global warming and restrictions on plentiful mobile energy (oil) will change our way of life in the next 10-30 years. This is like – NOW ! and we will need to make changes …
we don’t have to have the world as it is now.
Before we had an economy we had a society and before we had a society we had an ecology.
So I would have thought this hallowed blog was about exploring some of that – rejecting the extreme environmentalism – trying to steer a path through and do things better. One underlying thread in this forestry theme is about doing things better. Forestry can do better. We can expect some conservation of old regrowth systems with inherent aesthetic and ecological value while demanding more plantation timber. Just saying – well that’s what the market wants and what we do now is not how an enlighteded society should operate. And I don’t think foresters are bastards, or the industry are bastards or the workers are less than decent people either.
And we don’t have to run the future as some lefty marxist collective either (apologies to leftie marxists out there)….
(Hey Jen – how about editorial on what you want this blog to achieve – besides hone up IPA’s argument skills {he says cynically} 🙂 I mean for the look of it it seems to be pretty well right up any environmental proposition – are you proposing a middle or different course ?? …)
P.S. Yes Rog the global dimming stuff appears to be true – radiation levels have fallen but temperatures are up. Meaning that if we cleaned up pollution we might have more warming apparent.
Hey Phil, Belated response: This blog is a forum for discussion and somewhere for me to post information and ideas. I invite summaries of threads and correspondence to politicians from blog readers – if they copy the same to me I will likely post their writting as a guest post.