THE public hysteria surrounding the proposed Tasmanian pulpmill shows that the logging of native forests remains one of Australia’s hottest environmental topics. This is surprising given that sustainable wood production is now permitted within just a net 6 per cent portion of the nation’s public forests, it is highly regulated, and it is regarded as among the best managed in the world. As an environmental threat, the government’s Australia State of the Forests Report, regards logging as insignificant.
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.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I read of Bryce Courtney saying “Don’t buy shares on my behalf in those companies that cut down trees” and thought ‘What a hypocrite!” I was going to jump in here and say so when I read your next paragraph “..book authors such as Flanagan, Courtenay, and Dapin are especially reliant on paper..”
How dare they!
Good article Jen.
Incidently, I went to school with that wealthy businessman who ran against Malcom Turnbull but he wasn’t one of my Cousins.
“Don’t buy shares on my behalf in those companies that cut down trees”
my livelihood depends on polished timber floors, wall panelling etc – so why doesn’t Courtney et al publish their books electronically and put their money where their mouths are?
BTW – it appears Mark Poynter wrote the article, Jen posted it.
Mark,
That was a wonderful article, passionately expressed and has implications in a number of other areas of the environment debate.
Our democratic decission making process is less at risk from what voters do not know, than it is from what they do know that is false.
Pikey.
Well said, Mark, and many thanks Jen for posting it. I am ashamed of my fellow South African Bryce Courtney for his ill-informed rant. I know his home area there, once very nearly treeless, now deep in green plantations that make SA more or less self-sufficient in wood products including the paper his books are printed on. Similarly the likes of Flanagan castigate Indonesia and PNG for producine the timber that saves use of cement for building purposes in China whilst being wholly renewable. Almost all logging in both countries is done on a sustainable basis – use Google Earth to see if you can find logged areas that are not regenerating, e.g Kamusi and Panakawa in PNG’s Western Province, easily found in the SE corner of that province, about 30-50 km inland from the coast. That area has been logged since 1988, and I challenge anyone to send Jen a Google Earth pic illustrating “degradation” resulting from that logging. Even the ANU’s disgraceful Phil Shearman could not manage that despite his best efforts. He did show areas elsewhere of old German and British copra plantations that are now oil palm plantations but could again find no areas of “degradation”. People like Flanagan and Shearman seemingly are not aware that oil palm trees are trees, or that they absorb on an annual basis far more CO2 than Tasmania’s mostly moribund old growth ever did!
Mark and Jen, a great article. Can this possibly be sent to Keith Windschuttle and the rest of the ABC board as an argument for the need for some balanced reporting.
Spangled drongo, It would be good if you followed up with the ABC Board.
Whats your problem, Mark? Getting hate mail from the village idiot is hardly cause for concern. You really need to worry when the village idiot actually likes what you are doing because then you are obviously travelling with some pretty dubious company.
Just keep it up mate. You are obviously getting some traction. They wouldn’t take the trouble to dump on you if you weren’t scoring points. Abuse from the scumnoscenti is your friend. Worry when it is not there.
So true Mark and Jen, having worked and campaigned in the timber industry for the past 30 years, I to have been labeled as a raper and pillager of the forest. Being a keen hunter and fisherman I also get similar rhetoric from people who do not understand the need to sustainably manage our wildlife, be it native or feral.
Great article from Mark, and a fair better quality of comment than some at Unleashed although many provided living examples of Mark’s thesis.
However it is never ending, today the Tasmanian media reported former NSW union heavy weight Jack Mundey said that climate change would kill the Tasmanian economy and that unions must save Tasmania’s old growth forests such as the Florentine and the Styx. Perhaps he was not aware that Tasmania already has a million ha of old growth reserved including large chunks of the Styx and Florentine, or that forest workers have been harvesting the Styx and Florentine on an industrial scale since ANM was granted a concession in the 1930s to produce the nation’s newsprint. Or that forest workers have been regenerating the forest and planting new forest that has led, according to the Dept of Climate Change to a decrease of 25.9% of the State’s GHG emissions since the Kyoto base year. Today Liawanee recorded -4.5C for its minimum, beating the previous recorded December Minimum in 2001.
The Union celebrity was speaking at a book launch for celebrity and Macquarie network Radio host Charles Woolley, some might remember his 60 Minutes report on the Styx Valley in the lead up to the 2001 Federal election when he reported that trees as old of 500 years were about to be woodchipped. Today he is quoted that Tasmanians “destroy our environment and get nothing back”.
When in fact after 70 years of management by professional foresters, most IFA members, forests like the Styx are still described as “the wonderful unique forests of Tasmania.”
But it is great to see the ABC, at least on its internet site, publishing the article. Lets hope that they balance all those outrageous stories they did last year on the 7.30 report and other current affairs programs about the pulp mill, by publishing stories like Mark’s latest.
Jen,
There doesn’t seem to be access to the board so I lodged a complaint with Audience and Consumer affairs, directed them to this website and asked for a written response.
Spangled drongo, thanks for making the effort. make sure you follow up – that you get a response.
Spangled drongo, the ABC Board Details and contacts are at http://www.abc.net.au/corp/board/board_members.htm although the complaint idea is a good alternative, as the ABC publish quarterly reports on their complaint handling. These are also available on the corporate site that takes a bit of finding.
Well done Spangled drongo.
Now why don’t we all do the same?
I will.
Pikey.
So does Mark ever hang round for the debate? Or does he just fire off his tired and emotional hit and run missives in the hope of spruiking a bit of business for his consultancy before doing a runner to his next meal ticket?
I’d like him to explain how clearfelling three hundred year old biodiverse forests that are the product of 4 billion years of evolution and then replacing them with monocultural woodlots that are logged in 80 year rotations is ecologically sustainable?
Then again, he’s a forester so he wouldn’t know what ‘ecological sustainability’ was if it fell out of a tree and hit him on the head.
Martin,
Excuse me for not spending too much time looking at comments anymore – I have become somewhat desensitised to the many personal attacks that my occasional writing generates from the likes of you, but still prefer not to read them.
In any case, I have learned that when someone attacks me rather than the article, I could waste an hour trying to be rational with someone who is incapable of any critical thought about the issue – they already have all the answers and no-one can tell them otherwise!
Some questions for you to ponder though:
Hasn’t man played a substantial role in shaping or ecology over the span of time?
How ecologically unsustainable is it to cyclically log and regenerate a very minor portion of our forests for human use?
Given the prevalence of degrading agencies such as introduced plants and animals and unnatural fire regimes, how ecologically sustainable is it to simply put huge areas in parks and leave them?
How sustainable are old growth eucalypt forests if they are just left to die, fall over and revert to rainforest?
You may deride my foresters, but they are probably unique in being able to view nature in a holistic sense in order to balance a range of values and uses. This is surely an important trait in a world with increasing population – we realistically can’t just close everything off and keep out all people.
I’m glad you could make it Mark. And I understand why you would choose not to answer my question. Still, I’m up for a challenge so I’ve answered your questions.
“Hasn’t man played a substantial role in shaping or ecology over the span of time?”
Obviously we have modified and destroyed ecological systems but how does that justify further modification and destruction of natural systems? When you consider that humans still cannot create artificial environments capable of sustaining human life indefinitely, then any sentient being should sense the danger in compromising the natural systems that make Earth habitable for our species. At some point, a conservative minded person hedges their bets and protects from further exploitation the remnants of the natural systems that gave rise to, and gives life to our species.
“How ecologically unsustainable is it to cyclically log and regenerate a very minor portion of our forests for human use?”
Well that would depend on the area of forests that have already been cleared, the types of forest and the proportion of that forest that is targeted for logging, and the systems deployed to extract timber and fibre.
So, if we target under-represented/depleted forests types, log them in cycles that exclude the majority of species that would have inhabited that forest previously, and log them with methods that compromise the pre-existing ecology, the soil and water quality, and also the quantity of water produced, then I would suggest the regime was ecologically unsustainable. Do you agree?
“Given the prevalence of degrading agencies such as introduced plants and animals and unnatural fire regimes, how ecologically sustainable is it to simply put huge areas in parks and leave them?”
I don’t have a problem with managing weeds and feral animals in parks. As for “unnatural” fire regimes, well where do we start? Sixty five million years of Eucalypt evolution? 50,000 to 100,000 thousand years of Aboriginal fire regimes? If people think broadacre fuel reduction burns are the answer then they will make the problem worse. Fire adapted species will dominate and the natural barriers and mechanisms that have limited large scale fires will be lost.
“How sustainable are old growth eucalypt forests if they are just left to die, fall over and revert to rainforest? ”
That’s a funny one Mark! I didn’t realise South East Australia was covered in rainforest prior to the introduction of industrial forestry. That’s the corollary of your rhetorical question. Forester’s humour aside, I think succession in Eucalypt forests is entirely sustainable. Can 65 million years of evolution be wrong? And just think how useful those rainforests would be in fire mitigation if they were as aggressively expansionary as you suggest!? No, I think we’re pretty lucky to have the little biologically rich Gondwanic rainforest that exists today and that’s why I wish you and your mates who “view nature in a holistic sense in order to balance a range of values and uses” would stop compromising the viability of these small remnants by clearfelling the Eucs in the ecotones. What do you reckon a dollar value would be on the role rainforests play in slowing the fires that have been toasting your beloved stems/tons per hectare?
Martin,
A few comments on your comments:
Re the ‘sustainability of old growth eucalypt forests” – you missed the point of this a bit. I agree that Old gowth occurs in many forms but the form that anti-logging protests are invariably focussed on is the wet sclerophylle eucalypt type which if left undisturbed and therefore fails to regenerate, invariably reverts to rainforest. These protests – and your words echo this – suggest an expectation that these eucalypt forests will be lost unless they are ‘preserved’. My point is that the opposite is the case – they will not be eucalypt forests in the future if they are just left untouched forever. As eucalypt forests, they are not sustainable unless they are disturbed.
Like so many of ‘your mates’ you deny any sense of proportionality, which is absolutely critical to a discussion like this. Almost all existing old growth forest (about 96%) is now in reserves – that’s around 4 million ha in Australia, so yes some are going to be used, but nearly all are not.
Like so many others you also forget that trees actually grow. There are millions of hectares of mature forests that are now in reserves that are growing towards the old growth stage (subject to fire). For example, East Gippsland in Vic has 220,000 ha of old growth, about 95% in reserves, plus another 120,000 ha of mature forest in reserves that is expected to be old growth in 50 years. So yes, some old growth forest is still used, but there is a large net increase in old growth happening which ‘you and your mates’ simply refuse to acknowledge as you spout doom and gloom.
Another problem that ‘you and your mates’ have is in your consideration – or lack of – about fire. You seem to think that if we’d never had logging, all our forests would be in some pristine state that existed when Europeans first arrived. Nearly everywhere has been burnt since then, so those forests that are to be used for long term sustainable timber production (about 6% of Australia’s public forests) have all almost all been disturbed by fire or past logging at some point in the past.
You seem to be unaware that since the RFA process, Australia has a conservation reserve system that meets the nationally-agreed JANIS criteria as being comprehensive adequate and representative (CAR), so timber production is limited to areas that do not threaten rare ecosystems.
Your attitude to fuel reduction burning is a real worry and make it obvious that you have never been involved in fire or even know much about Australian ecology. Perhaps you should read some of the various government enquiries that have been undertaken in recent years after the massive fires of 2003 and 2006/07. You will find that the sort of attitude you display is the greatest threat to the ecological integrity of Australian forests.
“….the wet sclerophylle eucalypt type which if left undisturbed and therefore fails to regenerate, invariably reverts to rainforest.”
Isn’t it somewhat disingenuous to conflate natural processes with industrial forestry practices Mark? My heart bursts with pride to know that legions of brave foresters are staunchly defending Western civilisation from the onslaught of the rainforest menace. If we use a forester’s definition, we have about 15,000 hectares of rainforest in Victoria. If we utilise an ecological definition that includes the ecotone with emergent Eucalypts (that would be a scientific definition rather than that of a glorified bean counter) that area stretches to 40,000 hectares. Apply a 200 meter buffer on these ecotonal forests and we might get around 70,000 hectares of spectacular and biologically rich forests. I can understand why Victoria, a state of some 23.7 million hectares, must spare no resources in the desperate struggle to contain this rampaging environmental catastrophe. I’m wringing my hands in anticipation of your epic battle. After millions of years of boundary flux based on rainfall, climate, soil type and bushfire (limiting the expansion of the rainforest), your bulldozers and chainsaws will give the beast its final comeuppance!
“These protests – and your words echo this – suggest an expectation that these eucalypt forests will be lost unless they are ‘preserved’. My point is that the opposite is the case – they will not be eucalypt forests in the future if they are just left untouched forever.”
Again conflating industrial forestry with natural processes.
“As eucalypt forests, they are not sustainable unless they are disturbed.”
How many times do you propose to reiterate the same misinformation? I can show you Mountain Ash forests with three distinct age classes. The Ash forests can regenerate without apocalyptic fire events. At least two of those age classes were regenerated after cool temp burns. So why does the timber industry continually try to imprint on the collective Australian consciousness that all Australian forests need cataclysmic fire events to regenerate? Something to do with justifying the clearfelling culture?
After the ’03 and ’06 fires the forests didn’t turn into barren wasteleands. In most cases epicormal shoots appeared in weeks or months. Many older trees survived and the ash beds produced another generation of trees.
The facts on the ground blow a big hole in industry propaganda.
“Like so many of ‘your mates’ you deny any sense of proportionality, which is absolutely critical to a discussion like this.”
Proportionality is the kernel Mark. How much is enough? For two hundred years we have hammered the ecology of this land and now the environmental chickens are coming home to roost. If you’re operating on sustainable eighty year rotations (that make forests look like plantations), why are you still chopping down undisturbed three hundred year old forests on Brown Mountain?
“Almost all existing old growth forest (about 96%) is now in reserves – that’s around 4 million ha in Australia, so yes some are going to be used, but nearly all are not.”
What a furphy! When Europeans came to Australia all the ecosystems were pristine for all intents and purposes. After hacking away at the forests for a few hundred years, the penny drops and we decide to protect some of it. Do we decide to focus on managing the degraded areas so that ecology is restored while maintaining some productivity? No, we say we’ve lost ninety per cent but we’re going to save 90% of what’s left. What’s wrong with this picture?
“Like so many others you also forget that trees actually grow. There are millions of hectares of mature forests that are now in reserves that are growing towards the old growth stage (subject to fire).”
And how much of that forest has been modified by human activity in the last 200 years? And how much of that forest was of no interest to the timber industry anyway? What was inaccessible? etc., etc.
” For example, East Gippsland in Vic has 220,000 ha of old growth, about 95% in reserves, plus another 120,000 ha of mature forest in reserves that is expected to be old growth in 50 years. So yes, some old growth forest is still used, but there is a large net increase in old growth happening which ‘you and your mates’ simply refuse to acknowledge as you spout doom and gloom.”
Undisturbed ecological systems? What a fantastic legacy for future generations! I note that plenty of areas were turned into parks and reserves after they had been heavily logged for long periods, e.g. Croajingalong National Park. How many hundreds of thousands of hectares have been previously logged in East Gippsland and why isn’t the timber industry keeping its destructive practices in the forests it has already modified?
“Another problem that ‘you and your mates’ have is in your consideration – or lack of – about fire. You seem to think that if we’d never had logging, all our forests would be in some pristine state that existed when Europeans first arrived. Nearly everywhere has been burnt since then, so those forests that are to be used for long term sustainable timber production (about 6% of Australia’s public forests) have all almost all been disturbed by fire or past logging at some point in the past.”
I have no problem with fire in the Australian landscape. What I do object to is a “one-size-fits-all” application as evidenced in broadacre fuel reduction burns. I would like to see an intelligent policy that reflected the nuanced application of fire that was used by Aborigines. Every site needs a unique treatment based on fuel loads, season, geography, topography, plant communities, vegetation densities and composition and forest structure. A knee jerk reaction to a complex issue will only result in loss of the natural barriers that have helped to limit fire intensity and extent.
“You seem to be unaware that since the RFA process, Australia has a conservation reserve system that meets the nationally-agreed JANIS criteria as being comprehensive adequate and representative (CAR), so timber production is limited to areas that do not threaten rare ecosystems.”
Arbitrary unscientific nonsense. Why only protect 10% of natural systems, why not only exploit 10%? If people didn’t challenge stupid orthodoxies foresters would be in the stocks getting pelted with tomatoes.
“Your attitude to fuel reduction burning is a real worry and make it obvious that you have never been involved in fire or even know much about Australian ecology. Perhaps you should read some of the various government enquiries that have been undertaken in recent years after the massive fires of 2003 and 2006/07. You will find that the sort of attitude you display is the greatest threat to the ecological integrity of Australian forests.”
I think they call this “projection”.
MartinAs I expected, you have rapidly reached the point where it will soon be pointless continuing this dialogue because you just refuse to acknowledge the importance of perspective and proportionality which is indeed the ‘kernel’ as you put it.
Your arguments may be highly valid when you simply ignore these things, but when you consider proportions and consequences, a different picture emerges. The whole point of my article is that the deliberate avoidence of proportionality and perspective by the environmental lobby and its spokespersons (such as Flanagan) are creating a massively distorted view of Australia’s forests. Your comments here are only proving the point.
Most of what you want is already the case. Australia has reserved formally or effectively (due to topography and forest type) around 94% of publicly-owned forests from timber harvesting. In Victoria, the figure is around 91% – so there are already huge areas of the ‘spectacular and biologically-rich forests’ which you crave.
Oh, but they’re no good because they’ve been disturbed in the past. Again, if you put this into perspective, most forests have been disturbed in some way, and yet many have developed high conservation values. Realistically, we can’t undo what happened as the country developed – without clearing forests and harvesting timber from other forests we wouldn’t have developed.
OK, so you think we shouldn’t harvest any native forest. Well there is a demand for our unique solid hardwood timbers that are not available in plantations which are (mostly) being grown purely for woodchips. Of course, we have plenty of softwood plantations that produce a different far less durable product that is not suitable for many of the hardwood uses.
What you are effectively suggesting is that a country that has the sixth highest total forest cover of any in the world, and the fifth highest per capita forest cover should not produce anything from its forests. Don’t you think this a tad irresponsible, or aren’t you concerned about deforestation in SE Asia where there are fewer effective controls – because that is from where we are effectively and increasingly meeting our hardwood demand. Or we can simply use more steel, aluminium and concrete – products which have higher (up to massively higher) carbon footprints. I thought you’d be pretty concerned about that.
Yes, a small portion of ‘old growth’ is still being harvested and you are violently opposed to that. But again if you look at that in perspective, if almost all old growth is not going to be logged, is that such a massive problem? Indeed, given that the forest will inevitably be burnt by wildfire, transferring timber from storage in the forest into storage in wood products for human use, and then regenerating it as a new forest is not such a bad thing.
I think you will find that many foresters and those in the timber industry would prefer not to harvest old growth – it is obviously so controversial and they could do without the trouble. In Victoria in the past, some thought has been given to swapping old growth timber resources with younger forests in the parks and reserves estate without success. Ostensibly, this is because, the environmental lobby is unwilling to compromise, or there has at least been a government perception that this would be the case. So, perhaps you should look a bit harder at the philosophy of the anti-logging lobby which simplistically sees its role as ‘saving’ forests by forcing the closure of the timber industry.Mountain ash in Victoria – despite your doom and gloom about forest loss and destruction caused by logging, my understanding is that the state’s mountain ash (its most productive forest type) still occupies 97% of the area of its pre-1750 extent.
Martin,
Unfortunately my previous comment posted itself before I was ready, so it was unfinished and came out without paragraph spacing.
Just to finish off:
I just wanted to take up your point about Mountain Ash forest regeneration – there has been many years of study into the effectiveness of silvicultural practices other than clearfelling. Yes, it can regenerate under selective harvesting, but the trees usually become suppressed and don’t fully develop unless the stand is opened up by retaining fewer trees. Overall, clearfelling is the best way to as far as possible guarantee regeneration success.
The Victorian government’s ‘Sustainable Silvicultural Systems for Mountain Ash Forests’ project began in the mid 1980s, and the last monitoring I am aware of was in 1997, but it could have been monitored since.
Your attitude to fire is still disturbing. You seem to have an idealistic view of indigenous burning. Do you really think they did a study of ecological values before they stuck the firestick into the grass? Are you aware of how much reseach has gone into fire in the last 50 years? There comes a time when you just have to do it. Sure it may not be perfect, but what is better, imperfect cool burns or massive conflagrations that can cover hundreds of thousand of hectares in a few days a la 2003 and 2006/07. Again you shouldn’t ignore consequences and perspective.
Yes most forests are regenerating after these fires but there have been massive erosion events and severe consequences for water quality and future stream flows due to massive regrowth events.
Also, what about the thousands of hectares of Alpine Ash in national parks that have been lost because it was burnt twice in quick succession before the regrowth from the first fire could produce seed. Similarly affected areas in state forest were aerially seeded and regenerated, but parks personnel rejected this and have allowed former forests to become scrub. Is this a good environmental outcome?
You seem to have an unrealistic view of pre-European forest quality as some sort of natural benchmark and so dismiss any change since than as destructive and unsustainable. Much of this change can be considered natural in its own right, given that humans are part of nature, and as the example above shows, human intervention and management is often highly beneficial.
No doubt you will respond with usual sarcacasm ,and dismiss anything you don’t agree with as industry propoaganda or such, but I’m afraid I can’t spare the time to respond again.
Jen,
The response from Audience and Consumer Affairs:
“The ABC has covered issues relaing to the proposed pulp mill and logging
in Tasmania from a vast range of pespectives, across all of its
networks, over time. The article you have attached is duly noted.
Australian Story does not base its stories on the political leanings of
any one individual. The program allows the individual to express their
views on any subject which has determined their character and beliefs.
This is part of the program’s charter and one of its strengths. An
alternative point of view to that of Richard Flanagan was robustly
provided by former Labour Premier Paul Lennon, who received considerable
air time. This is one of the few interviews Mr Lennon has given since
his retirement about these issues and the interview has generated
significant interest.
The program made clear that the forestry debates generated by the Gunns
Pulp Mill plans had created much public debate and that there was no one
dominant view. The ABC acknowledges that the focus of the program was
on an individual’s journey – in this case, the writer and activist
Richard Flanagan.
The ABC believes the broadcast is in keeping with its Editorial
Policies.
http://abc.net.au/corp/pubs/edpols.htm
Yours sincerely
Kieran Doyle
Audience and Consumer Affairs”
About what you’d expect from the ABC, not from a supervisory body.
It’s pretty rich for you to go on about “deliberate avoidence of proportionality and perspective” Mark.
Forests covered 88% of Victoria when Europeans came here. They now cover 36% (7.8 million ha).
3.5 million ha is in reserves, 3.2 million ha in multiple use forest and about 1 million ha is privately owned forest. Multiple use forest can be logged even though DSE asserts it only logs 1.66 million ha of that estate. If there are any stuff ups, as there was with the sustainable yield figures a few years back, DSE will make up quotas from other areas defined as multiple use. Even if we accept that only 1.66 million ha is available for logging, it still accounts for 22% of Victoria’s forests so how can you claim that 91% of our remaining forests are protected?
These figures are from Australia’s State of the Forests Report 2008 and DSE. What source are you using when you claim that 91% of Victoria’s forest is protected?
Even by DSE’s figure only 83% of remaining old growth forest in East Gippsland is protected. With East Gippsland being a last bastion of natural forests it beggars belief that the statewide figure could be 91%. I’d also bet my shirt that the 37,000 ha of old growth Wet Forest in EG would only get the minimum 60% protection while Dry Shrubby Forest and Damp Forest, being less desirable to the timber industry, would make up the bulk of the 83% that DSE claim is protected.
Reserves today represent less than 20% of original forest cover. If you strip out the Mallee scrub, the dry sclerophyll forest of the rocky rainshadow slopes of the Great Divide, the stunted forests of the Alps, inaccessible terrain, various clapped out forests like the Wombat and the previously logged forests that are now National Parks, reserves etc., and then compare what’s left in the reserve system with what’s available for exploitation in the multiple use forests, then the idea that we have a comprehensive and proportionally representative reserve system is exposed as a blatant absurdity.
And you have the audacity to accuse the Australian public of having a “massively distorted view”.
And let’s define disturbance in forests, what natural processes could be compared to current forestry practices? I’m trying to think of a natural process where trees are felled with chainsaws, bulldozers churn and compact soils and then the site is set on fire so that the depleted and insulted soils can make their way into the local waterways. After a dense regrowth forest has sucked every drop of moisture out of the site (for 80 years), and after native species have been excluded (for 80 years) by the very nature of the contrived environment, the process is repeated. Hmmm, what natural disturbance would that be?
You’re right Mark on one thing though, we can’t undo what’s been done, but, we can bloody well stop doing it if it’s a stupid thing to do!
I’m not opposed to logging in native forests but I am opposed to logging in forests with high conservation value and I am opposed to logging practices that compromise the ecological integrity of forests. I don’t distinguish between Australian forests and global forests either. If we globalise trade let’s globalise environmental and labor standards too! I can’t claim to speak for all greenies, I wouldn’t want to either as I know our side of the debate has a decent quota of wankers too.
Also, I would like to point out that I am not “violently opposed” to logging in old growth forests, I am passionately opposed to old growth logging. Violence is more the mien of the redneck thugs who attack people who dare intervene while they are inflicting their industrial violence on the Earth. Don’t you read the papers? I can cite dozens of such incidents, can you cite one act of violence by anyone protesting against logging? And let’s face it, Richard Flanagan has said he will bow out of the Tasmanian debate for personal reasons but I think we all know the type of despicable cowards, and the tactics, that arise from the Tasmanian forest industries. I’m sure he’s a very intelligent and ethical man who realises that while forest management in Tasmania is appalling he has a deeper commitment to the well being of his family. Did you see the video of those loggers attacking those kids with axe handles and sledgehammers recently? Money certainly has the capacity to bring out the ugly side of humanity.
On the fire issue, judging by your last comment you have completely misread me. I’m not opposed to fuel reduction burns per se but indiscriminate broadacre burns will only make the problem worse.
I’m one of the huge majority of Australians who reckon the timber industry has had a fair crack at it and now it’s time for you mob to focus on the areas you’ve cut before. God knows, there’s plenty of it! When you’ve shown you can make a productive forest look and work like a real forest we might let you back out of your room.
As for the sarcasm, it tends to come out like that when I’m being patronised.
Anyway, I expected you’d find some excuse and try to back out without losing too much skin. Sometimes it’s the best strategy when you’re on a hiding to nothing.
Martin
Victoria’s available area for timber production:
Total forest area – around 8 million ha
Public forest area (parks, reserves, state forests) – around 6.7 million ha
State forests (for multiple use) – 3.3 million ha
Deduct areas of State forest that are not available for timber production due to:
being in Special Protection Zones, Special Management Zones (part of), Code of Practice reserves (ie stream buffers etc), unproductive forest types (species and/or growth), inaccessible areas (due to topography constraints etc), the area taken up by roads and tracks, and rocky ground.
Net area available for timber production: 740,000 ha (in 2002)
This figure was calculated in 2002 as the result of the State Forest Resource Inventory project which commenced in the mid-1990’s as part of the RFA process. For each of the state’s Forest Management Areas, DNRE (now DSE) prepared an ‘Estimate of Sawlog Resource’, which set out the net available area and the sustainable sawlog yield as part of the government’s Our Forests Our Future policy.
Since 2002, we have had the timber industry forcibly removed from the Otway Ranges to create a new national park. The government has also removed the industry from the Portland (Cobbobonee) forest, the Mildura red gum forests, and facilitated the eventual closure of the industry in the Wombat Forest. They also pledged to remove the industry from 34,000 ha of EG old growth.
Although many of these areas (apart from the Otways) still appear as being theoretically available for timber production, there is no longer a local industry and impossible to imagine that it could ever restart in those areas.
So, after taking that into account, the net available area is 600 – 650,000 ha (not sure of the actual figure) which is around 9% of total of Victoria’s public forests.
You are surely joking if you think the Australian public doesn’t have a massively distorted view of logging. Most of the community would be absolutely amazed at the above figures given the decades of ‘green’ campaigns that have never addressed proportionality and perspective, and so have deliberately strived to give an impression that we have an uncontrolled timber industry that does what it likes and if not stopped will destroy all our forests. This was essentially the message promoted by Flanagan in Tasmania as well. I suspect even someone as thoughtful as you, has little idea of the level of planning and control that goes into timber harvesting and regeneration. Obviously, those who are intent on stopping it have no interest in acknowledging this and they have done a very good job of promoting the view that it is totally uncontrolled.
You seem to have a particular view of forests as having to meet mythical requirements of pristinity (if that is a word) and naturalness. As I said earlier, forests are dynamic and constantly changing – there will always be a range of different states from relatively undisturbed through to recovering from disturbance.
You seem to view old growth as some sort of commodity that we have been steadily eroding since settlement. The same comment as above applies, forests are living and dying all the time, what was old growth in 1788, may have been regenerated several times over since then whether by the hand of man or naturally through fire. Putting it all in reserves won’t stop this, and using a very minor portion to supply a commodity that all humans use needs to be viewed in its proper perspective, not as a permanent loss.
If you are only worried about ‘old growth’ I can’t really see your problem as nearly all the current area is reserved (not withstanding the problems as mentioned above) and large areas in parks and reserves are growing towards old growth. The threat to them is fire, but your beliefs about broad scale fuel reduction are likely to enhance this threat.
Violence and anti-logging protestors – no-one wants to see this happen, but I am absolutely amazed there is not more of what happened in Tasmania recently, and the loggers are far from being solely to blame. The sort of provocation regularly undertaken by the ‘green’ protestors to incite this violence is my view worse than the violence itself. Don’t you read the papers – or do you simply ignore things like $4 million worth of Tasmanian logging machinery torched several years ago.
Lets look at that recent Upper Florentine incident – the protestors cement a car body into the road (its called a ‘dragon’ in eco-protest parlance), two hop inside and a third hides in the bush with a camera to film the hoped for violence. The loggers arrive on their way to work, they’ve warned these protestors before about doing this, they can’t get past, so naturally they get frustrated. Who is really to blame? The ABC documentary, ‘The Last Valley’, also graphically shows the sort of provocative tactics used to incite violence, mostly with no effect to the great credit of the loggers, although there are certainly exceptions.
If you think the thuggery is restricted to one side only, you’d do well to talk as I have with the Vernon’s who owned the 140 ha property at Recherche Bay in sthn Tasmania who were subjected to 4 years of threats and intimidation by ‘greens’ opposed to their intention to selectively log a part of it.
‘Make a productive forest look and feel like a real forest’ – this smacks of a view that humans are somehow seperate from nature. On the scale of the effect of human use on nature, Australian forestry is ranked very low compared to agriculture, and forestry in developing countries. That is one of the reasons why the determination of our ‘green’ groups to close our timber industry is so misguided.
Mark
Some of your best work in those last answers.
But you’re wasting your time with Martin – he’s drunk the Kool Aid.
Like I said Mark, the SPZs and SMZs aren’t worth the proverbial “pinch of sh..” because the protection can be removed at any time. This happened at the Minister’s discretion at Hensleigh Ck, EG, in the 90’s. Multiple use forests are exactly that, their tenure is never guaranteed. When SPZs and SMZs are gazetted reserves I’ll believe you.
The State Forest Resource Inventory was a result of pressure from environmental groups. When I sent a written request for some specific and detailed information to DSE in the early 90’s, they sent back some Mickey Mouse project pack designed for primary school age children. They hadn’t inventoried forests after 150+ years of forestry activity. Why would people get exasperated?
Sustainable yield modelling was reviewed and found to be abysmally inaccurate after some astute activists from the Wombat exposed it for the sham it was. I suspect you already know about that case.
The same activists were were working with DSE on a restoration forestry project until it was canned and the Wombat’s quotas started coming out of the Central Highlands (probably from Melbourne’s water catchments too).
It’s interesting that you should raise the Wombat, Cobboboonee, Otways, and parts of the Murray River Red Gum forests. All these areas had been given a flogging over the years by the industry. Large parts of these forests were on at least a third generation of regrowth from logging. I think that, in the end, local communities had given up trying to believe that the timber industry could operate in a sustainable manner and just took to them with cricket bats. It adds to my argument that when a forest is flogged to within an inch of its life it’s ripe for the reserve system. Personally, I reckon these forests would have been ideal vehicles to show that restoration forestry can restore the full suite of environmental services and produce some high value sawn timber.
When the locals around the Cobboboonee look at the debacle that is the bluegum plantations they must be wondering what it takes to get an ecologically sustainable timber industry. The social and environmental devastation brought about by the MIS funded bluegums in that area would be enough to make a grown man cry.
I’ve never opposed all native forest logging and I hate plantations. When plantations look like natural forests and are integrated into the existing agricultural landscape without dominating it I’ll be happy. I think the taxpayer funded corporate takeover of family farms via MIS schemes is a national disgrace and scandal. The parasites who run these rackets should strung up from the nearest tree. (Party at my place if Macquarie crash and burn!)
I know you want me to say “OK, you can can have these last undisturbed/unmodified forests”, but it ain’t gonna happen. Not ever. And when we’ve protested those areas I’m going to be arguing about what you do and how you do it in the areas you do have access to. Get used to the idea. That’s if the people who want you out of native forests altogether don’t win. And that’s a real possibility. In that case, I’ll be telling you to make your plantations look like forest.
I can’t evaluate your position on fire in the landscape because you’ve only told me I’m wrong, not why I’m wrong or what you think should be done.
You have to stop scapegoating Richard Flanagan. He’s only speaking on behalf of 80-95% of Australians (depending on who conducts the poll). The timber industry’s belief that it can win by targeting individuals is extremely unhealthy. It’s becoming quite common, especially in Tasmania. I think it’s an indicator of dysfunction. Bit of a psycho streak I reckon.
As for the destruction of machinery, I’ve heard about such incidents being insurance scams (SE NSW late 90’s) and disputes amongst logging crews (Bob Burton’s book) or even personal vendettas against individuals.
I do not know of one single incident of a “greenie” destroying machinery. Can you cite one proven case of sabotage of logging machinery? I can honestly say I’ve never even heard rumours about it from our side. The worst thing I’ve heard of is a sandbagged culvert by a bloke with mental health issues. I would like to know what happened to a bloke I knew who mysteriously disappeared from the Goolengook blockade when he was there by himself. It was around the same time a convoy of psychotic thugs went out there and bashed some young ‘uns senseless in the dead of night. The audio from that night was like something from the movie Wolf Creek.
Violence is against our ethos. I suppose a newbie could be tempted in that way but they would be quickly repudiated for such errant thinking if they became involved with any environmental group that I know of. We are trying to keep things alive while your mob are the ones trying to kill stuff.
Violence against the Earth and violence against logging protesters go hand in hand. You’re flogging a dead horse here.
Martin, you are starting to sound like you want your cake and to eat it too – lets have wood without cutting down a tree. You can’t countenance most native forest logging but hate plantations too – or at least until they look like native forests! You seem oblivious to economic and practical reality and yet in your past posts you have trashed the forestry profession that have had to work with this reality.
As for SPZ and SMZ’s – regardless of whether you think they are meaningless and reversible, the current sustainable yield is actually calculated on the basis that they are not available for sustainable timber production. I am not aware of the Hensleigh Ck situation from the1990s, but from what you’ve said it sounded like a ‘win-win’ with a contentious proposed harvesting area being swapped for a less contentious SPZ area. It would be impractical to declare them as formal reserves given their small and scattered nature and the difficulty and expense of boundary definition and marking.
Your simplistic views on forest inventory and the review of Victoria’s sustainable yield are unsurprising really as the complexity of what occurred has never been publicly aired and requires an understanding of historical forest policy.
While it may give you a warm inner glow to believe it resulted from ‘pressure from environmental groups’, it in fact stems back to the Timber Industry Strategy of 1986 which shifted the sustainable yield from a statewide calculation to a regional one. Historically, the timber industry tended to substantially shift to where the available resource was. All of a sudden the state was divided into 15 Forest Management Areas each with a sustainable industry which meant that rates of cutting in regional forests needed to be adjusted.
On top of this, the TIS led to the introduction of a Code of Forest Practices (introduced in 1989) which strengthened the consistency of application of operational reserves. It also required the preparation of regional Forest Management Plans which zoned the state forests and moved substantial parts of the formerly available productive area into SPZ and SMZ. Again this necessitated further revision of the sustainable yield.
Despite your ignorance, forest inventory has always been a major activity within forest districts – up until 1983, the Forests Commission had 44 districts. The changes resulting from the TIS, plus the RFA process, provided money to gear up to an extent that would allow the whole state to be inventoried in a short time (about 5 – 6 years) to give a statewide snapshot. This was a first, that was more achievable than ever before due to technological improvements such as digital elevation modeling and computer based mapping.
The problem of overcutting arose largely because the speed of reservation of state forests through zoning plus increases to the formal park and conservation reserve estate, was not matched by the speed of reducing sawlog commitments to the industry. So for a period, harvesting continued at the same rate but in a smaller available area – eventually there would need to be a downward adjustment of the SY.
The government (not so much the industry) certainly deserves to be castigated for this, but my understanding is that to an extent it was locked into licenced commitments with the industry that couldn’t be legally broken until licences expired. But it also true that the government preferred to wait until the SFRI process was completed and able to prove overly optimistic resource estimates by improved mapping which took proper account of area losses due to roads and tracks, management resrvations, and other deductions. The delay waiting for completion of the SFRI exacerbated the problem.
The Wombat is an interesting case that was affected by all of the above, but because it was smaller it should have become more obvious sooner than it was. It may surprise you to know that local foresters and the industry – as well as the ‘astute activists’ – were voicing concerns about sustainability once so much area had been put into excluded zones and other reserves.
It should also be noted that the size of the govts eventual downward revision of sustainable yield under the Our Forests Our Future policy was disputed and regarded as overly zealous by some foresters who believe the government was overly conservative, perhaps because they saw an opportunity to hit an industry so as to improve their standing amongst ‘green’ voters.
Martin, further to your previous post:
You have a somewhat nonsensical attitude to plantations.
If a plantation looks like a native forest than it is a native forest! Think of the ash forest along the Maroondah Hwy on the Black Spur past Healesville – it was in fact planted by the Forests Commission in 1940 after the 1939 bushfires.
And what happens when a plantation starts to look like a native forest – well, funnily enough, the environmental groups find it to have high conservation value and start campaigning to ‘save’ it. Think about the ash plantations established in the 1960s in the Strezlecki Ranges in South Gippsland and the battle by local conservation groups to turn them into a national park.
Then there is the cost of obtaining land and establishing these ‘native forest plantations’ – who is going to risk such an investment particularly given that financial viability relies on fast growth rate, time to harvest, and actually being allowed to harvest.
The reason that we have pine plantations being grown long enough to produce sawlogs is because they were established on freely available public land (by clearing the former native forest), but when you add the cost of purchasing farm land (as is the case since plantation conversion was banned on public lands in the 1980s), the situation becomes financially less viable.
Many foresters would agree with you that it would be ideal to integrate plantations with agicultural uses – rather than for plantations to replace agricultual uses on a total property basis – but generally only well-heeled hobby farmers can afford to do this. Otherwise, it relies on government subsidies and they are limited.
The proliferation of blue gum plantations managed for short rotation pulpwood is all about the economics of a species that produces a high fibre yield, grows much faster than the former endemic species, and can therefore be harvested earlier. No companies are going to spend money on plantations that can’t do this – that is a commercial reality.
You hate plantation monoculture – but isn’t it better than an agricultural grass monoculture in environmental terms?
Your attitude to ongoing forest protesting is quite astounding. Do you really think that people like myself who take up forestry as a career, have a deliberate intention to destroy the environment? Why would we, our whole future depends on a healthy environment and sustainable tree cover. We are very happy that the majority of native forests are reserved, but we are concerned at the absolute short-sightedness of totally closing the hardwood industry which is the ultimate aim of your ‘green’ brethen (even if you don’t personally subscribe to that view).
Oh yeah that’s right, we’re all making $squillions and money corrupts our integrity. The ‘greens’ have never really understood the adversarial relationship that exists between foresters and the industry – particularly government foresters who regulate the native hardwood industry to protect the environment – and are paid government salaries. Although the industry are now far better at doing the right thing than they were, so this job has become easier with the introduction of Codes of Practice and certification such as the Australian Forestry Standard. There is no other land use regulated as highly – compared to agriculture, forestry is saintly!
Finally, you astound me with your view that I am scapegoating the likes of Richard Flanagan!! So lets get this straight, the forestry profession and the industry who actually know what occurs in forests are supposed to sit by and just accept the misinformation that emanates from ‘green’ public relations campaigns. If 80 – 95% of Australians believe this drivel as you suggest, it is largely because we haven’t done enough to correct it in the past, and because the media has largely been predisposed to favour the ‘green’ view.
So we are showing a psycho streak by objecting and putting forward informed views? If you want to see psycho, I advise you to look at this same article where it was posted on the ABC Unleashed website (on November 24th). There were 462 responses of which 130 came from just two psycho brethren from your side – god knows what sort of sad life they lead, but they get A+ for blind passion!
Scuse me for butting in Mark or Jenny. What are you thoughts in regards to neo-liberalism and its role in the forest industry. Do you support privatisation of Australia’s forests, leaving all the decisions with industry or do you think that Government should be in there helping prop up the industry especially in times of economic downturn?
What are your thought on this? For readers unaware of what neo-liberalism is;
Neo-Liberalism are a set of global economics re-hashed in the 70’s by Milton Friedman, the University of Chicago, and Friedrich Hayek. The Institute of Public Affairs in Australia are also big supporters.
Neo-Liberalism states that economic crises or problems, are the fault of government intervention in the economy. Its fundamental principle is “economic liberty”. It means that an economy must be free of impediments in order to operate. It therefore views things like social programs and regulations as impediments and so ultimately requires the elimination of social security programs, government housing, minimum wage laws, environmental protection laws, labor legislation which protects workers, import taxes, price controls, subsidies. Because the principle goal of neo-liberalism is to maximise the profits of private enterprise it dedicates itself to the privatisation, and liberalisation or de-regularisation of the economy, while carrying out so-called stabilisation programs.
What does this mean? Well, if it were true that “free market” forces were allowed to operate for example, today Australia would not have a timber industry as we know it as it relies on, government handouts. (Interesting to see all of the companies running to government for bail out packages at the moment).
In essence, neo-liberalism guarantees free markets for the poor, government protection for the rich. The government or the state apparatus therefore has a role insofar as aiding the rich and controlling the population through state repression; stronger anti-crime measures like more prisons, longer prison sentences, more police. Neo-liberalism, according to Friederich Hayek, requires a new moral system;
“A free society requires certain morals which ultimately are reduced to the maintenance of life; not all life because it may be necessary to sacrifice individual lives in order to preserve major numbers of lives. Therefore the only moral rules can be those which provide for the ‘computation of lives’ determined by private property and its contract”
Cheers Sid
Your constant attempts to distort what I have written could only lead readers to question your ethics Mark. For instance, you write “you are starting to sound like you want your cake and to eat it too – lets have wood without cutting down a tree”.
I have clearly and repeatedly stated that I do not object to sustainable logging regimes that restore ecological functions to degraded native forest. I have also written that I will support plantations if they do not dominate rural communities, do not supplant existing agricultural enterprise and are not detrimental to the environment. In case you have missed my point on plantations; they should have ecological function as well as utility.
Is your position so bereft of substance that you feel compelled to misrepresent mine? To save me further embarrassment on your behalf, please stop doing it.
You write, “You seem oblivious to economic and practical reality”. What reality are you talking about? I see an economic system that fails to account for the environmental services provided by ecological systems. I see an economic system that fails to acknowledge that we live on a finite planet with finite resources. Anyone who fails to comprehend these empirical and physical realities has no grasp of reality full stop.
Of SPZs and SMZs, you claim “It would be impractical to declare them as formal reserves given their small and scattered nature and the difficulty and expense of boundary definition and marking.” Well Mark, surely if an area is declared a SPZ or SMZ, its boundaries are already defined so what extra cost is there in that regard? As for their small nature, I have one area in mind that has never been touched and is about 10km X 10km. I think you must be in logger mode whereby you suddenly develop color blindness and fail to see the fluorescent pink ribbons that act as coupe markers and then “accidently” drop trees that are in buffer zones for rainforest, riparian strips and drainage lines etc., etc. Seriously though, this fatuous argument is the product of a feeble mind. I would have expected more from a tertiary educated professional.
At this point in your response, I felt you had reached a professional nadir, but no, you then pulled from your sleeve the “Mother of all Professional Nadirs”.
To justify why DSE responded to my detailed information request with ‘join the dots’ and ‘color-ins’ in the early 90’s, you proceed to waffle on about some departmental hullabaloo revolving around why some guys got jumpers with leather patches on the elbows and other guys didn’t. That may not have been the exact issue but it was about as relevant as the the price of fish at the Oslo market.
Apparently, some departmental shenanigans in ’83 meant no-one knew what the hell was going on in ’93. If Forests Commission’s inventories were so hot, why didn’t they just collate the existing data? Why did they need the SFRI? If they had the information, why did they feel the need to “snow” me? Did they have a clue anyway? There’s a colloquial expression for what you did there Mark, it goes something like, “He’s talking through his…”.
The same applies to your take on the Sustainable Yield review. According to your revision of the historical record, DSEs foresters were having a quiet kip with their heads on the desk when the ten year alarm went off and they suddenly realised they were ten years behind so they jumped up and quickly fixed everything and it was all hunky dory.
The fact that the Wombat locals had booted in the the Premier’s and Minister’s doors and stuck their (accurate) SY modelling in their shocked and horrified faces is, according to you, some kind of coincidence. If the people who were there read what you have written they will want to kick the stuffing out of you (figuratively speaking of course because a literal interpretation would be something your mates would do).
You’re not related to Comical Ali are you?
Mark, I hadn’t seen your 9.27 post when I wrote my last comment. Will address those points tomorrow. I can bloviate plenty on plantations!
Martin re your 11:15 post, I will refrain from answering too much of this because it is largely a case of ‘the pot calling the kettle black’ and because I presume you have had a bad day.
You have a very good knack of forgetting your own behavior to claim the moral high ground, but then you are more virtuous than me because (as you said in your first post) I’m “just spruiking for a bit of business for his consultancy before doing a runner to his next meal ticket”
You aren’t paying a lot of attention to what I write if you haven’t noticed that I always acknowledge your view of NF logging as differing from the majority of greens who simply want to close it all down.
SPZ and SMZ boundary issues – I think you will find that pink ribbon is not enough for formal reservations of public land that require permanant survey marks and legislative ratification through parliament. This process may be appropriate in some cases if areas are large enough.
I really have no idea what you were sent from the govt. in 1993 and so can’t really comment. I will say though that (having worked for the VIc govt 20 years ago) you would be amazed at the time, effort, and public service wages devoted to answering all manner of inane requests and queries about forests. Perhaps it understandable that after a while they just want to wave them away rather than deal with them in any great detail.
Why did they need the SFRI? I said earlier they had changed the way sustainable yield was to be considered, they had better technology, they obtained money to gear up to do the whole state at the same time (over about 5 years) – something that hadn’t been able to be done before, and inventory needs frequent updating no matter how good or bad it is.
You really need to re-read what I said in the past post about the SY review. I’ll spell it out again – T.I.S. – Timber Industry Strategy – it and its 20 elements occupied much of the 1980s.
Lets look at your earlier post and your comment that “local communities gave up trying to believe that the timber industry could operate in a sustainable manner and took to them with cricket bats”
There is truth in this in the Wombat Forest although even there the community was fairly divided. But you have included the Otways in this when it was proven by the SY review that the Otway industry was harvesting at a sustainable level. There was no ‘old growth’ being harvested, and just a net 22% of the public forest area was accessible for sustainable timber production – 78% was already either in formal reserves or was unsuitable. So what really happened in the Otways was mostly that an influx of former city NIMBYs campaigned long and hard and eventually were rewarded with a political decision by a government in need of green preferences. Nothing to do with science or united opposition amongst the local community.
The local community largely regarded the Otway forests (which you have defined amongst others as ‘clapped out’) as delivering both conservation values and community benefits. I suspect the same is true of the Cobbobonee situation as I know that many locals aren’t happy about what is happening there now.
What will happen to these areas? Well removing small local timber industries won’t allow them to return to some pristine ecological nirvana as the ‘greens’ think, given that they now have a range of introduced weeds and feral carnivores, and altered fire regimes necessitated by the fact that they are surrounded by and contain within them permanently-located people and property that needs to be protected – unlike before when nomadic aboriginals roamed the area.
Removing the industry though will remove workers from the forest who were traditionally in the front line at forest fires, it will remove the government revenue stream that used to help fund forest management, it will probably reduce the no of government staff needed as their is less for them to do, roads and tracks will progressively fall into disrepair and many will probably be closed, the capability to conduct preventative fuel reduction burning will be reduced due to personnel and philosophical changes. The forests are likely to eventually become choked with far higher than natural fuel loads that will inevitably be burnt in severe fire that will do massive ecological damage. I hope this doesn’t happen, but history suggests it is inevitable.
What will happen in the community? Well those locals disaffected by the decision to lock up the forest will care less about it because they can no longer take their dog into it or collect a bit of firewood. If not already present, an influx of NIMBYs and retirees will change the demographics of the area. They love the forest but don’t know its ways and may be too old or not inclined to actively help protect it. Many of those who lose their jobs and their families are those who were in the local CFA – there are already growing problems in getting enough CFA volunteers – closing local industries doesn’t help. All up creating forested national parks is far from an ideal environmental outcome.
OK, you are not totally against retaining a local timber industry so all these local outcomes may not be as severe if you had your way. Your rider is that ‘the sustainable logging regimes must restore ecological functions to degraded forests’ This sounds a bit like like the restoration forestry regimes that were mooted under the Wombat Forest Community Forest Management trial. You (in an earlier post) expressed your view that this exercise failed because ‘it was canned and the Wombat’s quotas started comming out of the Central Highlands”
I know a fair bit about the Wombat CFM trial and why it failed. You would have fitted in well up their with the “astute local activists” who “exposed the sham of the SY” and were then given licence by the govt to design and effectively run CFM. Like you they wanted to see a small local industry survive after having ridded the forest of evil industrial logging. But the two surviving local sawmills needed logs to survive and none were forthcoming from the Wombat while the idealistic machinations of CFM were being formulated over several years – an illustraTion of my point about not understanding commercial realities.
The government came to the rescue by subsidising the cartage of fire salvage logs from far north east Victoria after the 2003 fires. Later on, one of the mills purchased some logs from the Central Highlands, but the costs became prohibitive and it eventually closed.
The remaining mill, Dwyers at Daylesford remained open, anfd finally the CFM process started delivering from logs fro trial restorative forestry harvesting which was essentially a very light thinning that was overly expensive, produced low yields, and was probably only suited to certain forest structures. However, there was mounting opposition even to this very low impact restoration logging. Attempts by the CFM leaders to do more logging to meet the sawmills need to survive were opposed and eventually met with threats to restart anti-logging blockades. Dwyer realised that he couldn’t go on – the govt would no longer supply logs from the NE and the ‘dark greens’ were preventing any logging in the Wombat – after 120 years of operation he closed in Feb 2006.
The lesson from this is that the environmental movement has fostered such an extreme anti-logging culture, that even very low impact harvesting in areas that have been previously harvested and regenerated is probably unviable regardless of good intentions.
By the way, I didn’t denigrate the Wombat activists at all – they certainly brought the SY matter to the government’s attention quicker than would have been the case by waiting for the completion of the SFRI process, but it wasn’t such a surprise as you have made out and as I said there are some who dispute the size of the subsequent SY review there and elsewhere.
Hi
Interesting read. As one of the Wombat activists referred to in this discussion I have no intention of engaging in a long winded debate with Mark Poynter about the technical arguments behind sustainable yield calculations and the modelling of Victoria’s State Forest.
With Sustainable forestry the proof is in the pudding! Victoria must start modelling and reporting on resources other than timber if they expect the public to believe thay are achieving sustainability targets.
Mr Poynter should read the Expert Independant Advisory Panel recomendations in their 2006-07 reveiw of the state’s Monitoring Annual Harvesting Performance.
Finally you’re catching on Mark! I do want plantations to look like forests rather than having our forests look like plantations. There’s nothing nonsensical about that vision. What is nonsensical though is the misguided anthropocentric notion that we can co-opt, modify and destroy with impunity the natural systems that make survival on this planet possible.
On the issue of the regenerated Central Highlands Ash forests, why did the Forests Commission have to replant them? Don’t Ash forests regenerate naturally after fire? That seems to contradict what you wrote about forests needing disturbance if they are to regenerate.
I don’t think you need to worry about conservationists laying claim to plantations on public land if they look like natural forests. The issue of the Strzeleckis is unique. From my limited knowledge of the issue there, there is some dispute as to whether some of these areas are natural regen or not. I’ve heard some areas were replanted and I believe some limited areas of that replanted estate also became part of the proposed “Cores and Links” reserve because there was an ecological need for a contiguous tract. The primary reason reason for including the disputed areas was to link fragments of remnant forest. As far as I know there has never been any loss of private land for conservation of a plantation. To suggest the Strzelecki situation could be repeated on the “family farm” is just scaremongering.
It’s important to remember that these areas only became contentious because the region has been plundered mercilessly by the timber industry. What does it say about your record of sustainability when the local community there is struggling to save a few piddling remnants of what was once the World’s tallest flowering forests? The timber industry literally dominates the area physically but when locals try to protect the last few scraps you and the Vic. government are all over them. You’ve got some front, I’ll give you that much.
You even turn this pathetic episode into a “have pity on the poor investors” story. My heart really bleeds for the “poor investors”! Does the term “mug punter” mean anything to you?
I’m no financial expert but I know a scam when I see one and this particular racket works something like this:
The mug punter stumps up a tax deductible $9000 per ha as an investment in a bluegum plantation. Some star of the investment firmament, let’s say a Macquarie Bank type investment house, then contract a plantation manager. Let’s call the managers a Midway style woodchipping company.
After about ten years, if the investment goes to plan, the investor recovers their capital and a modest return on their investment. With management costs of around $1600 per ha, after one rotation Macquarie can fulfill their fiduciary obligation to the investor and own the land outright. One major problem that is becoming apparent is that these MIS’s are not producing the yields they were projecting and so are not getting decent returns for the investors (even though they’ve already had the benefit of a tax deductible investment). But, that hasn’t stopped the Macquaries and Midways from making their profits and buying up huge areas of land.
From this point forward, the local communities have ongoing industrial forestry in their midst and corporations for neighbours.
Aside from taxpayers subsidising corporations to buy prime agricultural land, what else is wrong with this model? Here’s a couple of links that discuss other impacts of this scam on local communities, local economies and the environment:
http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1000/PDF/038_Dibley.PDF
http://www.forestnetwork.net/objection/0707_objection.html
So who are the real “poor investors” in this scam. The Australian taxpayer that’s who! The victims who get hit twice by this scam are rural communities who are being gutted by the largest corporate land grab in modern history.
It would take me days to write what is wrong with MISs.
You then justify this obscenity by saying it has its basis in “commercial reality”. According to this perspective, the market determines the supply. Whatever happened to “physical reality” whereby supply is determined by Nature’s capacity to provide? Even one J. Marohasey, while trying to generate subterfuge around climate change, cited plantations in the headwaters as a factor in the environmental deterioration of the MDB. So there must be some consciousness of physical reality. You cannot keep drawing on the well in the hope it will magically refill. If you acknowledge existing environmental deterioration then you must also recognise that projected increases in population will require us to not only restore natural systems, but to also reduce the demands we make of them via our consumption. This is physical reality, “commercial reality” is founded in the delusional fantasy world of economic theory. What do they say about economists? They’re only there to make astrologers look good. There is no magic pudding!
One way to restore ecosystems and expand the timber and fibre supply without decimating rural communities is for governments to create policy that encourages the Macquaries and Midways of the world to work with, not against, farmers. I would like to see a program similar to a landcare program where ecological restoration and timber and fibre production are combined. The investors have the money but no land and the farmers have the land but (often) no money. The governments role would be to facilitate the “marriage”. I think this would work because it’s not “either or”. If around 10% of a farm was given over to this plan, productivity would probably not reduce commensurately because of the proven benefits from shelter belts and the revegetation of recharge areas, drainage lines, riparian strips etc. If the mutual benefits are proven, there would be no shortage of willing participants and that would create the economies of scale. I think it would be a truly symbiotic relationship between the land, the farmers and industry provided some of the area planted was genuinely given for restoration of ecological function.
Getting back to the forests, in the build up to the 2004(?) election, I understand that the Bracks government was exploring the idea of protecting all old growth if environment groups would accept certified logging in regrowth. I think Forest Stewardship Council was the leading contender because the Aus. Forestry Standard already stank to high heaven. While FSC was, even back then, starting to raise some serious concerns, some groups gave tentative ‘in concept’ support pending details. The “dark greens”, as you call them, flatly refused to negotiate. Their position was, and is, “no logging in native forest”.
So, with an election looming and the government keen for some green credentials, Labor did a deal with the Otways mob. None of my experiences with politicians have reflected well on their integrity.
The case of the Wombat is similar. I think that was a great opportunity lost. I think if you’re honest, you’ll admit it wasn’t just the “dark greens” who torpedoed that project, there was resistance from all sorts of places for all sorts of reasons. There should have been no issue with getting the local mills timber to “tide them over” while the “blueprint” was formed, even if that meant an interim external supply. You can’t blame the “dark greens” for that fundamental flaw in the plan. It was important to get the WCFM right as it was to be a template for other areas. It may have been idealistic but from my perspective it was the most important development I’d seen in Victorian forestry in over twenty years. I suppose that was why it was like it a neon light to every ratbag with an axe to grind (bad choice of phrase).
I put the “dark greens” in the same class as the redneck thugs who go round bashing people but at opposite ends of the spectrum. While the “dark greens” aren’t physically violent, they display similar puritanical/fundamentalist/extremist tendencies. They punch above their weight, they’re actually not very strong in numbers but they have influence by dint of the fact that they have worked hard to capture and influence the policies of the major environment groups. People tend not to challenge the “conventional wisdom” when they join these groups so there is a perception that this policy has wide currency. They also worked very hard to make sure that the forest issue didn’t get caught up in a holistic analysis of the entire timber and fibre industry. For them, there’s forests and then there’s everything else. For years they kept pushing plantations when grassroots activists everywhere were sounding warnings about the sector.
I avoid them because of their propensity to white ant anyone who doesn’t do, or think, what they want. But even that’s not tenable because whenever anyone gets something good up they shoot it down.
Look at it this way, of the 85% of Australians who don’t want old growth/hcvf logging, they probably represent the 10% of that group who want to stop all logging in forests. Do you want an argument with 85% of Australians, or 5% of Australians?
On the issue of the 85% of Australians who oppose old growth logging, has it ever occurred to you that they are right and it is you who has the distorted view of the reality? Just a thought (while we’re talking about small but noisy and influential minorities).
Martin, just a few comments:
1. Planting of M.Ash on the Black Spur – the reasons why it didn’t regenerate naturally are a lack of seed that year – seed availability varies quite considerably in eucalypt forests.
2. Strezlecki Ranges – I’m sorry, but you are just ignorant if you think the ‘area is contentious because it was plundered by the timber industry’. The great forests of South Gippsland were cleared for farming in the late 19th century. Many farms failed and were abandoned and the area became known as the ‘Heartbreak Hills’. The Vic govt reclaimed these areas and the Forests Commission reafforested them with Radiata Pine and Mountain Ash plantations starting in the early 1960s.
3. MIS Plantations – I’m no financial expert either, but the fact that the investor gets a tax deduction at the start means that they generally don’t lose even if the plantations underperform. The heartbroken investors will be those who plan future income around them being as successful as they were promoted, then find that they are not.
4. Commercial reality – I have previously explained that short rotation woodchip plantations that give an early return are able to be commercially viable, but the delayed returns associated with the far longer time and greater management cost required to grow higher value sawlogs is mostly not commercially viable. On-farm sawlog plantations are highly desirable, but the reality is that relatively few can afford to go down this path (apart from on a minor scale) because there is little return on the invested cost. This is a reality despite the acknowledged benefits that you have mentioned.
5. Don’t disagree that ‘dark greens’ and ‘dark browns’ are at opposite extremities of the spectrum and are similarly blinkered. The difference is that one (“dark greens”) have the ear of the city media and have therefore been able to exert an influence over the large majority who don’t have any naturally strong views. Even so, your view that 85% are against logging is an overestimate in my view – a large slice probably don’t care.
6. You mistake popular opinion for truth. I’m pretty sure that 90% of Germans supported the Nazis prior to WWII – were they right?, or was it because they had been indoctrinated with a positive view of Hitler by the likes of Geobbells. If only one side of the message is heard, then the majority of those who don’t think real hard about the issues tend to believe what they most often hear.
The whole point of the article about Flanagan and celebrity activism was to show that mostly only one side of the message is being heard by the wider community. If the media reported forestry issues objectively and gave equal weight to both sides, most of the community (apart from the dark greens) wouldn’t care about logging at all because it is a very minor activity and most forests are now in parks and reserves.
That it is a minor issue now is evident in the State of the Forests Report, and I can’t help but think that most of those who continue to strongly oppose it have refused to acknowledge the changes that have occurred over the past 20 years and are campaigning as though they were back in the 1970s. For example, the net area of Victorian public forest available for timber production has declined by 70% since 1986. The important statistics of proportionality are just not known by the wider community.
7. The Wombat CFM trial – don’t disagree with many of your thoughts. A major problem with it was always going to be that the interested participants had such a blinkered view of conventional forestry that they could only ever countenance very small scale operations done in ways that were expensive. So, even if it had worked it would only have supported a very small ‘cottage industry’. Is this appropriate to a society that is amongst the top five per capita consumers of wood and paper in the world?? If this was extrapolated across all our forests it would have largely absolved us of responsibility for our hardwood consumption and forced us to rely primarily on imports from developing countries that lack our planning, controls, and strong industry regulation. Would that be a good environmental outcome??
I didn’t get very far with my reply to your point form responses Mark. It’s funny how what appears to be superficial and simple can become quite nebulous. A real can of worms. I’ll need to pick up on points 2-7 later but here’s the response that your first point prompted:
Eucalypt seed should be viable for at least twenty years. One bad seed year, as you put it, shouldn’t be an issue. Changes to fire regimes and logging practices would be a more likely culprit. I think the findings of the Royal Commission into the ’39 fires said as much.
And now it seems our newly rekindled love affair with fire will see us repeat the history that led to the ’39 fires. According to the Royal Commission’s findings, the European transplants developed quite a taste for indiscriminate burning either for pragmatic agricultural purposes or misguided notions of fire control and prevention. Unfortunately they lacked even the minutest fraction of knowledge and experience that the Aborigines had brought to bear on their firing of the land.
And today’s approach to fire will be just as lacking in subtlety. We will draw lines on maps and set arbitrary targets. Budgetary constraints will mostly inform the design and execution of the program.
Will we focus on the slopes with a northwest outlook and consider the role they play in driving fire? Will we acknowledge that different vegetation and moisture gradients on southern slopes, in gullies and along perennial and ephemeral watercourses slow fire?
Probably not. The budget won’t allow for a detailed and methodical approach. So instead we will light fires at Point A and do everything we can to get it to burn through to Point B. As long as it doesn’t turn into another fiasco where our fires get away and cause havoc it will be deemed a success. “We have reduced the fire risk! Hooray!”.
Or have we? What happens when we burn the species and vegetation types that naturally mitigate bushfire? Aren’t we just engineering our forests to favor the species and vegetation types that respond most favorably to fire? And have those same species evolved to also encourage and feed fire? You might argue that this process has already been going on for millions of years but, how fast will the process become when we actually facilitate it?
Where Australian forests were once an intricate tapestry with profuse variation of flammability will we end up with a ever conglomerating homogeneity that goes off like a “flash-in-the-pan” every 5-20 years?
If we look at the large number of regeneration failures in East Gippsland from the ’70s through to the ’90s I think we can squarely lay the blame on logging practices, i.e. the wrong methods on the wrong forest types. A consequence of foresters too keen to rip the timber out? At the very least, one would expect some trials before blundering into wholesale broadacre massacres. It becomes even more disconcerting when the hand plantings to replace the failed natural regeneration also failed. Who would’ve guessed that natural regeneration would fail after an unnatural act? Certainly not the scientific method driven professionals of forestry…who threw caution to the wind when they discounted any need for exploratory trials. And continued with the same practices even when regen failure rates as high as 80% became evident.
This is commercial reality. It’s what happens when economic expedience and convenience meet ecological systems.
First off, we import a “you beaut” silviculture system from the US. It does the business. Maximum profit, minimum effort. Clearcut sounds a bit nasty so we’ll call it clearfell. Sounds nice doesn’t it? Like a cool, clear menthol cigarette. After you’re done, the site looks a bit like a bomb hit it. Not unlike a Mountain Ash forest after a bushfire. Although a bushfire doesn’t remove the surviving organic matter for conversion to woodchips. Or compact soils in some places while bringing subsoils to the surface in others. Hang on a minute, there’s still something alive here. It’s in the soil. It must be that damn soil flora and fauna again. What’s micorrhiza ever done for us? I know, I’ll set the joint on fire with the hottest fire I can get going. First off I’ll just run the dozer here and there, push the stumps and heads into nice big bonfires that will sterilize soil to about a metre. I’ll spread that subsoil burden from the stumps, roads and snig tracks nice and even over the surface and pack it down nice and tight. What was that bloke saying? Something about “don’t bring subsoil to the surface, it’ll change the soil chemistry to the point it may become toxic…blah blah blah… acid sulphate…. blah blah blah…compaction…blah…oxygen…clay…blah…water penetration… blah…” Yeah, whatever mate. Don’t let the bulldozer fool you, I’m a scientist. Then we torch it and no-one will ever know we were here. I don’t know what happened to the soil stored seed. It was there last time I looked. It must have been a bad year for seed.
Now that we’ve established the flimsiest link imaginable between this silviculture system and Mountain Ash forests, I’m going to transplant the whole show over here to this place with different Eucalypt species and soils. Oh sure, the fires only burn through here every 500 years or so but, if you’ve seen one Eucalypt forest you’ve seen ’em all. Right?
And when the forests didn’t regenerate, well, you could’ve knocked me down with a feather.
2 – about the Strzelecki Ranges.
There’s no doubt that early settlers did their fair share of clearing but to suggest that is the entire story is ridiculous. Generally they would have only cleared the terrain best suited to their agricultural pursuits and that was limited by available technology and machinery of the day. Many of the steeper hills and gullies remained untouched. That’s why the remnant rainforests still exist today and it also explains why the Strzelecki koala population is renowned for its genetic vigour and general health when so many other koala populations are severely stressed.
Most of the land that was found to be viable for farming has remained as farmland but just about everything else was subsequently incorporated into the industrial forestry regime. The only exceptions are the existing reserves which are about 2000 hectares in area, or 3% of about 60,000 ha of remaining native vegetation. The proposed “Cores and Links” proposal would have expanded the reserve system to around 8000 ha or 13% of the remaining native forest. Not a big ask when the timber industry has had a free hand for the past 50 years.
The following links provide clear evidence as to the impact of the timber industry and expose some of
the propaganda being pedaled by the timber industry about the region:
http://www.hancock.forests.org.au/docs/college.htm#content_top
http://www.hancock.forests.org.au/docs/morwellrivereastbranch.htm
http://www.hancock.forests.org.au/docs/FRIYR.htm
http://members.dcsi.net.au/kimjulie/latest/misclass2003.html
http://members.dcsi.net.au/kimjulie/aaa.html
3. Managed Investment Schemes
Another example of socialise the losses and privatise the profit? As more of these schemes are
exposed as ill-conceived and poorly planned we can expect the taxpayer to bear the burden of this appallingly structured piece of economic policy and planning. As they are currently structured, MIS are nothing but a corporate land grab and tax scam that is ripping the guts out of rural communities and putting more pressure on the environment.
4. As I wrote earlier, if the companies offering MIS products used their cash to go into partnerships with existing farmers it would be possible to establish Landcare style agroforestry projects that could provide a uniform supply of high quality product for both sawlogs and pulp. The current structure of MIS only encourage get-rich-quick speculators and tax dodgers.
5. The idea that “dark greens” have some kind of hold on “city media” seems far fetched to me. And the belief that most Australians don’t care about old growth forests is probably wishful thinking on your part…or patronising.
What is not in doubt is the disproportionate influence of the timber industry on our politicians. I think we need more transparency about where political parties get their donations. Political donations and the nefarious activities of the lobby groups that infest Canberra have clearly undermined democratic processes.
We only need to look at the ugly activities of Gunns over recent decades to observe the pervasive negative influence these companies have on democracy.
6. Your Nazi analogy is inaccurate and offensive. If you want parallels, how about the activities of Hitler’s brownshirts in the early stages of his ascendancy and the mindless timber industry thugs who terrorise peaceful protesters? You disagree with the majority therefore the majority are equated with German acquiescence under Hitler? You’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel now.
You complain that only one side of the debate is being heard but has it occurred to you that the public have weighed up the arguments and have concluded that saving old growth forests is their preferred option? We know that while volumes extracted from our forests have increased job numbers have decreased both comparatively and literally. While other industries have conceded to modernity the timber industry seeks to claim some sort of immunity or special case for which it is not entitled.
You keep referring to how much forest is available for logging now but continually ignore the fact that much of the disagreement is based on the fact that the timber industry is logging, and plans to log more areas that have never been logged before. This proposition is outrageously backward and foolish in this day and age. You’ve had a fair go so now you (as an industry) can nick off back to the areas that you’ve already done over if your activities are so successful and benign. What is it in the timber industry psyche that leads to its compulsion to abuse every last scrap of untouched natural forest it can get its hands on? It’s not a healthy obsession. When the benefits of conservation for future generations are clear, why should we let you modify our last remnants of unmodified forest? Everything you can get out of old growth can be got from regrowth. Qui bono?
7. Considering that large areas of the Wombat had been logged at least three times, I think it was entirely appropriate that participants in WCFM attempted some type of ecologically restorative approach to forestry. Reduced volumes in the short term were primarily a consequence of long term over-harvesting. Over time, as the forest recovered and the models and processes being developed were refined and evolved, one would expect yields and output to rise. You can’t expect historical yields when historical yields were demonstrably unsustainable.
Loris Duclos makes the point that sustainability modeling had been based only on timber yield whereas the community expectation is that sustainability should also include and measure ecological function. This notion would appear self-evident to anyone other than those involved in the degradation of our forests over recent history.
The argument that any shortfall in local production would be met by imports is something of a false dichotomy and reveals the inequities and flaws in global trade agreements. This argument claims that since we cannot manage our forests in an ecologically sustainable manner we will have to supplement our supply by logging someone elses forest. Does the flawed logic not strike you? It also highlights how rampant our consumerism has become.
The economic consequence of forestry based on ecological sustainability would be a higher price for timber. This would be the true cost of timber whereas in the past a false price was created because the depletion of natural capital was never included in the accounting process for forest products. The degradation of ecological function and environmental services in (and from) forests has never been factored into the cost of forest products.
The simplest solution is for all timber products around the globe to be produced within an ecologically sustainable framework. We should ban all trade in timber and pulp from primary forests and have separate standards for regrowth forests and artificial environments (i.e. plantations with specific provisions for some ecological function and environmental service). The only problem here is that international trade agreements have always been drafted to serve vested financial interests and have treated environmental and labor standards as an inconvenience and impediment. It’s time that all trade agreements were underpinned by labor and environmental standards. Such practices would merely mean that product costs reflected true environmental and social cost. The new price structure would reflect prices in the real world. Once again it points at the need for commercial interests to grasp the physical reality of a finite world.
Do you guys have a recommendation section, i’d like to suggest some stuff
I’m writing this comment a year after this absurd debate was posted. Of course I know nobody will read this words since western civilization moves in orgasms. Old news is old news. And westeners simply move on.
What is most striking in the above comments is the twisted logic used by Mark Poynter. Capitalism simply can make something dark appear to be white. He thinks just because he’s got some stupid degree in forestry he is above everybody else.
He completely underestimates peoples reasons to oppose the destruction of Tasmania by Gunns Corporation Limited. Its not enough for this prick to have the complete backing of the political class both liberal and labor parties. He also wants the press! Apparently to balance the debate. This economic rationalist completely ignores the reality of this world. Depleting fish stocks in the oceans, disappearance of forests world wide, pollution, contamination of water sources, global warming. Of course he’s to comfortable with his “knowledge” that he would never understand the origins of human misery as is presently clear in this times. War, poverty, dispossession, intolerance, violence and death.
Mr. Poynter. Nature is perfect. It doesn’t need human intervention from technocrats like you. What the fuck do you know about creating something? Yes trees grow back, but you have to wait 600 years to reach the stage of maturity the old growth forests in Tasmania presently have. Humans will never understand the complexities of nature.
Idiots like you drunk with management skills, willingly ignore that that Australia is a desert, 80% of it.
As for Martin you are trapped in the same logical puzzle. So you are happy to see a plantation that looks like a forest? Image. Thats all it is. Keep watching your goddam TV. There are plenty of images there.
You two are a couple of idiots.
Moscoca
Yo Moscoca,
Man, having reached the end of 5-years of studying a degree in forest science in Australia, if only I’d spoken to you earlier! Here I was thinking “education” was important, the accrual of knowledge valuable! Evidently I wasted my time.
Enough sarcasm. My friend – for as long as human beings and nature are portrayed as two distinct entities, the world is going to continue to be degraded. It is that line of thinking that allowed the Australian environment to be seen as the “other” and abused as such. And on the same note, to see any impact of humans on “natura” as “unnatural” is the same manner of thinking, only a bit changed.
The more we lock ourselves out of nature, apart from weekend trips to National Parks, the less we know, appreciate and understand our environment. The less the understand it’s rhythms. And the more inhuman we become.
In my five years of study, I have met many conservationists (being formerly one myself) and many ‘industry’ workers, many farmers and foresters. And ibvariably, the most passionate and nature loving sorts aren’t the doe-eyed conservationists with their imported European-Romantic visions of nature as some stable, calm “other”. It’s those who have learned a landscape, every nook of it, cut down a tree, destroyed it, planted a new one and watched it grow. Life and death.
So, you and your “drunk with management skills” bullshit. You don’t know shit. Damn right Poynter is above you, because he’s dedicated his life to something that you only breeze by on internet forums.
But most of all – you and your “80% of Australia is desert”. What? “The Dead Heart” again? Terra nullis? People have lived in those places for 40,000 years. The desert is alive. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean a thing.