This is a similar story to the pristine ancient ‘Tarkine’ rainforests in the North Western of Tasmania. The Australian Heritage Commission used a transliteration and bastardisation of the name of the family group that lived near an area on the coast now known as Sandy Cape to name this ‘wilderness’.

This group and other groups of the North West tribe each year journeyed inland and east of Sandy Cape to an area south of the modern city of Burnie to red ochre mines for ceremony.

They burnt the vegetation as they went, so as on their return walking and hunting was easy as the new green pick attracted the food animals.

It was not until the removal of this tribe by European settlers in the 1830/40s that the practice stopped and the rainforest was re-established. The Federal Government has allocated a million dollars for a bush walk in this area at the urging of the WWF and local environmental pressure groups, perhaps the walk could follow the original aboriginal ‘road’ that may have been used for tens of thousands of years.

As you well know, the Amazon has been identified as the “lungs of the planet.”

That’s what the gang-greens call the Amazon, but what they don’t tell you is how accurate that depiction is.

Hardly none of the Amazon is used for timber, which means the rotting vegetation (via microbes) inhales O2 and exhales CO2 in vast quantities.

Trees have also been found to contribute significantly to urban smog.

What’s more, it used to be that the Amazon was home to some significant urban landscapes. See
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080828-amazon-cities.html

Someday, someone will discover that this planet is a pretty durable thing, and even discover that life thrives quite a bit here.

I wonder who will make that discovery? And will they get a Nobel for discovering this odd fact?

Tasmania is one of three cool temperate western maritime climates in the southern hemisphere and thus is ideal for growing forests. But like the rest of the developed world has been subject to Deforestation, so much so that on December 5, the State Forests Act passed to halt the wholesale clearing of forest and the new law led to the appointment of G. S. Perrin as the first Conservator of Forests.

Like most of the developed world this was over 130 years ago in 1885. Today in modern Tasmania, official figures published by the Commonwealth show that there has been no deforestation since 1996.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) deforestation is occurring in the tropical regions and as a result the World Resource Institute estimate 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions is occurring due deforestation, see map and chart at http://www.tasmaniapulpmill.info/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/Greenhouse_tas.119212413.pdf

Sustainable forest management, reforestation and afforestation is either neutral or positive in reducing emissions, so misinformation such as the Flanagan article that seeks to close down sustainable forestry and devalue temperate forests is likely to increase emissions.

So too are attempts by the green political movement in Australian to hijack the United Nation’s REDD program, such as the recent ANU/Wilderness Society manifesto. REDD or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in developing countries aims to introduce sustainable forestry into these tropical areas.

The IPCC has identified 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”

There is bound to be more comments about our adaptation to climate change in agriculture and forestry with carbon trading in mind after this conference

http://www.crawfordfund.org/events/conference08.htm

“Blogs are a very poor substitute for literature…”

You sure like to post frequently in them.

He he …..

John Curtin before becoming Prime Minister was the head of the Australian Journalists Association, which is now part of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance that continues to promote ethical principles of journalism by advocating that respect for truth and the public’s right to information, are fundamental principles of journalism.

Surely the criteria for any award for excellence in journalism should be the principles set by the union in their code of ethics. The Flanagan article fails miserably, and the judges must be questioned on their failure to check the error riddled and twisted “facts”.

The MEAA should be demanding that the Victorian Premier act to protect the memory and achievements of this icon of the ALP, or is this part of the grubby preference deals that the ALP has done in recent years with the greens?