Jennifer Marohasy

A DECISION made in Cambodia this month by the United Nation’s World Heritage committee could add 172,000 hectares of forest to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Federal Minister for the Environment Tony Burke was seeking to have the deal sealed without proper scrutiny, in particular by using a loophole in the UN guidelines to [...]

A decision made in Cambodia in June by the United Nation’s World Heritage committee could add 172,000 hectares of forest to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. The Gillard government is seeking to have the deal sealed without proper scrutiny, in particular by using a loophole in the UN guidelines to label it as a [...]

Government policies across the world generally favour locking-up forests for carbon sequestration. But a new study by the NSW Government’s Department of Primary Industries suggests: Total greenhouse gas emissions abatement and carbon storage from a multiple use production forest exceed the carbon storage benefit of a conservation forest. The report stresses that to quantify the [...]

BIASED media coverage of natural resource use issues should be fertile ground for the ABC’s Media Watch, but despite efforts to draw their attention to this have displayed little or no inclination to cover it in the past. Then again, as some of the worst examples of biased coverage of environmental issues have emanated from [...]

A new book, The Biggest Estate on Earth, by historian Bill Gammage explodes the myth that pre-settlement Australia was an untamed wilderness revealing the complex, country-wide systems of land management used by Aboriginal people. According to the publisher’s website: “Early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park. With extensive grassy [...]

WE are so connected to each other via the Internet, but so disconnected from reality when it comes to primary production including paper production.  Indeed most Australians don’t know the first thing about farming or forestry.     So, we are so susceptible to the slick, online, marketing campaigns from the mainstream multi-million dollar environmental lobby.   Their campaigns [...]

THE future of Tasmania’s valuable wooden boat building industry is directly threatened by the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) on future use of Tasmania’s forests according to the following media release… “Locking up the remaining sources of timber used by Tasmania’s wooden boat builders will destroy what is currently a very valuable, viable and iconic industry,” Coalition Forestry [...]

SOMEONE needs to tell the Prime Minister that global warming and agroforestry are yesterdays failed fads. According to an ongoing media study by Max Boykoff and Maria Mansfield interest in anthropogenic global warming is on the wane.[1] It is difficult to see the situation turning around unless there is a climate catastrophe of some sort [...]

Faye O’Brien, from O’Brien Sawmills in Barham, has not seen John Williams, Chair of the Natural Resources Commission (NRC), since the Red Gum forests started to flood in August last year.  During 2009, Dr Williams was a regular visitor to the central Murray Valley and his team at the NRC prepared a report for the [...]

In Australia the general trend is for governments to lock-up more and more forest often through the conversion of land managed as forest reserve into national park.   The conversion of land into national park is often accompanied by a reduction in the level of active management of the area. Australia has vast areas of both [...]