I live in a wooden house and I work off a wooden desk. I know trees re-grow and that Australia has one of the most productive and sustainable timber industries in the world.
I know that I have more of an affinity with the timber communities that work native forests than with the companies that plant extensive pine plantations.
I also know that timber communities are under intense pressure because they are swimming against the tide. The Australian community has come under what seems like ‘the spell’ of environmental activists who campaign incessantly against logging.
I recently received several emails from Rod and Juleen Young who are part of the Pilliga-Goonoo timber community in north-west NSW. They are waiting for a decision from the Carr government that will determine the fate of their community including 240 remaining timber workers.
At issue is whether public land that until recently has supported a timber industry worth $38.4 million in gross output and generated employment for 420 people should be turned into National Park.
If the land has been logged for over 100 years and is still of such high conservation value why not keep it the way it is?
Rod and Juleen have written:
“The State Government has refused to accept the Brigalow Region United Stakeholders (BRUS) Option and after a protest in the Pilliga in February 2003 by the Greens the government placed a moratorium on 500 logging compartments of the best timber in the Brigalow Belt South Bioregion (BBSB) demanded by the Greens.
This moratorium has restricted our timber industry to unsustainable logging areas, leading to a downgrading of log supplies and as a result a lot of the mills are almost bankrupt.
The Government promised a decision on the BBSB no later than November 2002. The local communities, dependant on the timber industry have been on a knife edge ever since and are still waiting.
We are now desperate for a decision.
The debate is all about active land management versus lock up. For years we have stressed the need for thinning the cypress pine forests, the long term sustainable forest management, the viability of the koala population and barking owls etc in logged areas, the need of the forest road network for fire control, the case of landowners living next door to a forest, the small towns that provide the necessary services and social base for the timber workers and the local farming and grazing families.”
At issue is whether these forests in the Pilliga-Goonoo region of north-west NSW should become National Parks or continue to be State Forests and usable by the local timber community.
The Pilliga-Goonoo community have identified 189,300 hectares of new conservation reserve (where logging will be excluded) while allowing for continued access to sustainable yields of white cypress sawlogs of 68,000m3 per year. The region has also produced valuable timber products from iron bark.
Why has the NSW government taken so long to say yes or no to the Pilliga-Goonoo community?
Is it that the government feels it can’t say no to the Greens because it risks losing Sydney votes at the next election? At the same time it would be so unfair to close down yet another productive and sustainable timber community that works a beautiful native forest?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The debate is all about active land management versus “lock up”. Our communities need sustainable long term use of our natural resources. At the same time we must look after our native wildlife and contain disastrous wild fires. This is exactly what the BRUS Option is all about.
I arrived here in 2000 on my way through to Queensland to purchase a property. I was asked to stayed to help with computor system at local mill where I still am. I purchased a home as there was nothing to rent and spent my nest egg on renovations. Then came the announcement of the assesment and we have been waiting for five long years for the announcement. My superannuation will return me $170 a week $83 less than my livable allowance but too much to claim unemployment. I can not go back to Sydney as my home now rents for $340 a week and the unit I could have purchased in 2000 in Queensland for $92,000 recently sols for $435,000.
The volunteer fire fighter association has released a press release stating that they will not be attending any fires in any new National Parks. The Pilliga and Goonoo Forests have several lightenting strikes a year. These forests will end up as ash if they become National Parks.
Such indecision and uncertainty destroys the social capital of regional communities. Communiites in Northern NSW and Tasmania feel powerless at political processes that are aimed at winning votes in urban electorates.
Natural resources including forests are best managed by local communities with help and support from the scientific community, rather than being told that decades of caring, managing and earning a living is some how wrong.
Sustainable management of our forests should not be about locking them up in unfunded national parks, but about creating a healthy and vibrant forest, a healthy and vibrant economy and a healthy and vibrant community.
Some 26 stakeholder groups representing the communities and industries in the bioregion came together and wrote the BRUS Option.
It is a tragedy that the government decision may have nothing to do with the environment. It may be all about votes for the CARR Government at the next election.
Ironically the government’s own analysis has shown that the BRUS Option will deliver at least 97% of the conservation outcomes demanded by the extreme element of the green movement.
Timber is a solar powered renewable resource.
Common sense must prevail by the immediate lifting of the current moratorium on logging plus the immediate adoption of the BRUS option to give a loggers,millers and communities a chance to get on with their lives. A logged forest creates bio diversity where a locked up forest does zilch
It is unfortunate that the Carr government and the media have hijacked the debate over the Brigalow Belt South Bioregion to turn it into yet another “greenies vs loggers” black-and-whitewash.
The conservation future of western woodland forests like the Pilliga and Goonoo will be determined by whether future management allows the judicial use of timber harvesting to attain conservation goals.
In April 2002 local conservation groups were calling for the cypress regrowth in these forests to be thinned.
Now they say little except to demand new national parks.
Who do they think will bankroll the thinning required to keep these forests healthy?
Carr and his cronies love to bask in the electoral glory of declaring new National Parks but they have an appalling record when it comes to adequately funding their management.
The timber industry will be dead and buried so don’t look there for $$ to do thinning work.
I fear the conservation values of these forests will progressively dwindle just as they are in other passively managed National Park areas in NSW.
The BRUS option offered the opportunity for a better outcome, but unfortunately there is no leadership on environmental issues in our State government.
Jane,
I was interested in your comments about need for active thinning. What happens to a young cypress forest if it is not thinned? Will/can it support as many barking owls? What would have happened prior to European settlement?
I recieved some information stating the Goonoo forest has been in a substantial 80 year regrowth stage. What does this mean for the forest’s ecology?
Cheers,
My family are fourth generation timber contractors in the Pilliga.
I was a community representative on the government consultation. What a nightmare this has been for myself and my hard working family. I worked hard at the assesemnet to acheive the outcome for both the industry and the environment and I sincerley thought that the effort that all the stakeholders put in by both the brown and green element would be recognised for the fine effort it was.
How wrong was I to believe this government would tell the truth. For the last three years my life has been a rollercoaster ride to no-where. Has Bob Bloody Carr got no compassion?
We did what he asked. We achieved a community consenus on the BRUS Option. He spent 20 million dollars for this option of tax payers hard earned bucks.
I know the greenies have big ideas for my future as a park ranger but to hell with them. I am not going down without a fight.
I am the partner of a logger in the Pilliga. We are a young couple trying to make a living.
The three year wait for a decision to be made has put any plans of building a WOODEN house on hold and so we still live with my partner’s parents. The stress this decision has put on my partner, his family and me has been immense.
How can Bob Carr expect people to put their lives on hold with a pause button while he um’s and ahh’s about the fate of so many people’s lives?
The town of Gwabegar,though small, has the biggest heart of any country town I have seen. The way they have banded together to fight this.
I wish bob carr would just pull his finger out so people can get on with their lives.
Someone too shy to post has emailed me the following answer:
“You ask Jane about the barking owls and thinning. The best way I can explain it is:
If ten square metre of land grew a square metre of timber it could be one tree or 100 trees. If you didn’t thin the pine out those 100 trees would continue to grow in a stunted form and be the diameter of rolling pin. They look like the iron bars of a prison. But if you remove say 97 of them you end up with large saw logs.
As to the birds and animals they prefer the open country and are found in the working forest. They need the open country to feed on. When the pine forests are not thinned they become what is called “look up” and nothing will grow under them. The ground is virtually bare.
The ironbark needs to be thinned as well it is not as bad as the pine but the same thing happens.
And before European settlement this Pilliga country was open savana country with scattered trees. That is how John Oxley described it. There are many more trees and more forest now.”
I noticed on ABC Online today that there are also forestry issues in WA see http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200504/s1351332.htm.
We went through the same thing on the North Coast with the promise of tourism being the in thing.
This has not eventuated and communities dependent on the timber industry have now been forgotten by the Carr Government.
The trauma associated with the waiting, the feeling of disempowerment and not being able to stop the use of flawed data effected everyone in our community.
I really feel for the people west of the divide who are now going through this sham process.
I always thought the Pilliga was a recent event? Didn’t it develop over the last 100 odd years?
Locking forests up is not the answer, they must be managed, I become quite emotional about our forest in this area, they are not even “nice” forests any more.
The undergrowth is out of control. Red lantana and privot are spreading. I am concerned that this lack of management will see the loss of many open forest birds as there is no open forests left!
Savage fires devastated thousands of hectares in 2000-2001 killing koalas and any other wildlife in its path.
No one has bothered to follow up on this loss – it was soon off the radar and forgotten.
National Parks just want more land to destroy.
If I might add a comment about thinning.
In pre-european times, the forests would have thinned themselves, but over a very long period of time. Forests will regenerate following a catastrophic disturbance, such as a severe fire, in very high densities of trees per hectare. Competition between trees then leads to some trees growing faster than the majority. In an un-thinned regenerating forest, perhaps 90% of the growth on a hectare occurs on only about 10% of the trees, so some trees may look older than their cohort, but they are in fact just growing faster. In Australian forests, the availability of soil moisture is the main constrain upon the growth of the whole stand. Maybe typical of all forests.
The rapidity with which forests self-thin varies according to the forest type. Some forests have a strong tendancy towards rapid growth and high rates of self-thinning, and other forests tend to “lock-up”, because the ability of the individual small trees to survive is high. In this situation, a large proportion of the site resources, and particularly water, goes towards the survival of the majority of trees, but that majority are hardly growing at all. Eventually, the 10% of trees who are most successful will supress and effectively kill off the 90% who are battling to survive. This produces the typical ‘old growth’ forest of tall trees. The density of trees could reduce from 1000-2000 trees per hectare to about 200 trees per hectare during this process.
Commercial native forest management seeks to speed up the process of thinning by removing the less successful trees earlier in the regeneration cycle. This frees up site resources (soil moisture becomes more readily available) and the trees retained can grow very quickly compared to their growth without thinning. The result is you arrive at the structure and appearance of an old growht forest in perhaps half the time that it would take under the natural regime. This is why the greens like to lay claim to well-grown regenerated forests by calling them ‘high conservation value’ forests. These forests look good because they are dominated visually by the retained fastest growing trees.
The situation varies from forest to forest and it’s much the same in saw-log plantations. Pulp-wood plantations are just clear-felled at about the time (8-12 years) when the first thinning would take place if the plantation was being grown for saw logs.
Yawn. A blog on politics and the environment from the IPA, eh? How extraordinary that it should read more like government propaganda on environment policy. Nasty Greens! Nasty Bob Carr! Poor, honest forest workers who just want to get on with their lives…
(sheds small tear)
From Ted Hayman
“All of the information below is based on the Pilliga Forest as there is more information available on this forest and it being were I live it’s were I’ve researched the most. However, it’s most likely that the other forests in the bioregion have a similar history.
On August 12 1818 Oxley travelled in the area of what is now Yarragin State Forest his journal entry described the country:
The apple tree flats are uniformly of firm hard ground,while the soil on which the iron-bark,pine and box, grow is as invariably loose sand, rendered by rain a perfect quicksand. These bogs are the more provoking, as without such impediments the country is clear and open and as favourable for travelling over as could wished.
Yarragin State Forest is on the southern edge of the Pilliga. Oxley’s description of the open nature of that area was typical of the bulk of the forest to the north and west.
The early settlement maps show that land was taken up right through the Pilliga, this simply wouldn’t have happened had the forest been as thick as it is now. In 1875 government land records show stocking density within the limits of the Pilliga was 25,000 sheep, 30,000 head of cattle and 10,000 horses. This is an obvious indication of the pasture that must have available in the forest at that time. Today one tenth that number of stock would perish.
In 1877 a Forest Ranger, James Ward was appointed for the area south of Narrabri, his estimate of timber on his area was one to two mature trees and ten young ones to the acre (4 and 25 to the hectare). this is different to the hundreds and in many areas thousands of trees per hectare today.
More evidence of this type is contained in historical land reports and forest inventories from the late 1880s. Also settler’s records showing the declining stocking capacity of their leases is testimony to the unnatural evolution of these forests.
Much of the decline in the forest environment has happened in the last one hundred years and accelerated in the last fifty years and there are many people with personal experience from as far back as the 1920s with supported story’s (some recorded) telling of the change in the forest and forest wildlife.
One point the greens consistently raise is their claim that timber harvesting caused the excessive regrowth. However this statement has never been substantiated and is used only to demonize the timber industry.
The reality is the first wave of regrowth came about following a very wet period in 1879. This was some time before the establishment of a commercial timber industry.
The accepted understanding by historians is the conditions for this unnatural regrowth were caused by a reduction in grass cover by grazing livestock and the control of Aboriginal burning.
There is a large amount of this type of information available in government archives and historical writings. However this type of creditable information is never challenged by the greens, just ignored, which seems to be the way they handle all facts that doesn’t suit their agenda.”
Does ‘prodution line 12’ agree?
more from Ted Hayman
Following is the science that supports our case.
Just as a comment. We know the concept of cutting trees down to improve the environment is difficult for the uninitiated to understand, but this management option is happening a lot overseas. How do we get more publicity? The good information on farming and forestry seem to get ignored.
One of the most valuable reports on the increase in biodiversity gained by harvest / thinning is a work by Phil Cameron a scientist with Western Plains Zoo titled Actively Managing for Biodiversity. This paper is wholly about the observed benefits of thinning Cypress Pine and the increased use of that habitat by wildlife. His observations showed an increase in biodiversity of over 50%.
A paper by SJS Debus titled Surveys of the Barking Owl and Masked Owl on the North-West Slopes of New South Wales studied these Owl species in the Pilliga Forest. One of the conclusions was that “Both owl species are more likely to occur in productive habitat in State Forests than in rugged, unproductive habitat in conservation reserves” other more recent studies have, I understand supported this.
Major support for the timber industry and it’s positive value to habitat restoration comes from a paper by Rod Kavanagh and Elizabeth Barrott titled Koala population status in the Pilliga Forest, and a review of threatening factors. This survey used radio-collared animals to monitor movements before an after harvest. The results were that the Koalas continued to use their existing home ranges after harvesting. Another measure of the positive effect of logging was the subsequent breeding success of the animals. In Kavanagh’s study, it was found that in the unlogged study areas reproduction was 67%, but in the logged areas reproduction was 75 %. It would appear Cypress Pine harvesting has no effect on Koala breeding.
As NPWS have said they would use fire to control pine regrowth ( this won’t work in advanced regrowth and will make the Buloke worse) and as the studies showed fire was the greatest threat to Koalas, the following quote sums it up. “The highest frequency of detection of the Koala occurred in the western and central Pilliga, the zones where logging was most widespread but which were least affected by fire. In contrast, the lowest frequency of detection of the Koala occurred in the east Pilliga, the zone most affected by fire”. So much for the management of NPWS.
A recently completed bird survey taken over a five year period in these forests concluded the importance of harvesting and thinning to endangered woodland bird species. The very species our green friends want to save.
The definitive quote from this paper is. “These harvested areas are especially important for the declining species of the western woodlands; Turquoise Parrots, Dusky Woodswallows, Speckled Warblers, Yellow and Hooded Robins, Jacky Winter; as well as the more secure species”.
Still on the subject of birds, the NPANSW has put out a list of the wildlife that frequents the various forests of the bioregion. Looking at the species listed for the Pilliga, over half would be unable to make a living in the unmanaged forest being either grass seed eaters or have a need for very open woodland.
The world renowned woodland scientist Dr Bill Burrows who has spent a lifetime in the study of the thickening of woodlands and the effect on biodiversity is also concerned with the effect this thickening is having on woodland birds.
Another point he is concerned with is the fact that forest thickening is having an effect on water flow into the river systems. This is something that is noticeable in the Pilliga Forest. In the twenty two years I’ve lived in the forest the creeks have lost flow, many other people have the same opinion, water holes were wildlife would drink are now drying up much quicker after rain then in the past. But you don’t have to be a genius to understand the more regrowth the less water will seep into the creeks.
Of the surveys done for the BBS assessment none found that logging had any adverse impact on the environment. In fact WRA31: Response to Disturbance and Land Management Practices Found ” that selective thinning of Cypress Pine has been found to have a positive impact on biodiversity by allowing the return of a natural vegetation structure”.
WAR 36: Development of conservation Criteria for the BBS, Strongly supports ” abroad landscape approach to conservation,as real conservation gains depend on restoring the condition and expanding the extent of native ecosystems and rehabilitating landscape function”.
It also recommends delivering conservation outcomes by incorporating “active adaptive management”.
In all surveys disturbance factors other then forestry (clearing, grazing, fire and predation) were listed as causing much greater damage. The highest ranked disturbance for mammals was land clearing followed by predation. Gazing, weed invasion and fire are listed as the greatest danger for ecological communities. Logging was not listed at all.
All of the above support the need to manage these forests, surely the government can see that the timber industry is the cheapest way to achieve a result. Or are they under the control of a green minority with a political agenda.
Rick Giles, Are you from WA? Salinity expert? And what is the situation like in the SW of WA between foresters and greenies? Cheers,
GREENS HAVE GOT IT WRONG:
Timber workers have a special affinity with the forests and are very conscious of the need to maintain healthy growing forests and thus their future livelihoods. If you are to believe the Green’s statements regarding the health of the forests of the Goonoo and Pilliga, they are the only ones that care about the forests. This could not be further from the truth. What the greens have failed to explain is that the welfare of the regions forests depends on the current selective timber harvesting practices.
Just locking up our forests and throwing away the keys would be a catastrophe ecologically. This policy has already proved to be a disaster everywhere it has been tried.
The greens seems to have an open door to government and it appears that far reaching decisions are being made through the back door.
THIS RAISES THE QUESTION OF DEMOCRACY:
The Brigalow Regional United Stakeholders, (BRUS), represent 80% of the people from the Brigalow Belt South Bioregion.and proposes to set aside 189,300ha of new conservation reserves, including 31,700ha of state forest from which timber harvesting will be excluded by management prescription and still maintain the timber and apiary industries and development of new industry.
The BRUS option seeks to balance economic, social and environmental outcomes from RACAC’s Brigalow Belt South Bioregion (BBSB) assessment.
There is far more at stake here than gaining political brownie points. If the Western Conservation Alliance have there way ten permanent timber mills, which employ approximately 420 people, will close. Not only will these people lose their jobs, but also $38.4 million in income will be lost to the region and the domino effect this will cause in all communities will be catastrophic.
The valued Australians ethos held by many seems to have changed. A democracy has always been a government of the people, by the people for the people. As a democratic country Australia has been governed by majority decisions for more than one hundred years. In parliament this applies; but it seems that when the people in our communities sent a strong message to parliament based on community values and choices, our politicians seem to think that they can choose to accept or reject the mandate entrusted to them, especially if it is politically expedient to do so.
However, if Australia is the truly democratic country we believe it still is, there in no decision to be made. The Community has already made the choice. All that remains is for government to ratify that decision.
Christine Lord asks about democracy.
Rural Australia is in a minority. In general it has very little political clout anymore. The facts given on this blog will never be understood by the majority of Australians unless they are able to be “seen” everyday in the capital cities. Not even farmers understand all the other farming areas of Australia. Each area is unique and needs to be managed by local knowledge.
Arguing with Carr or the greenies is of little consequence too. In my view If you want to be taken notice of, You have to go to a higher authority & convince all of Australia your view is the correct one.
What’s the solution? A communication tool is being developed to do this. It’s run & owned by rural people (check out http://www.bushvision.com ). Bushvision`s first TV license application is being assessed by the ABA now.
If you don`t like the media/political system as it is – why not join Bushvision & start changing it they way you want it to be.
Jennifer
Yes, we have corresponded about salinity in the past.
The situation in WA is pretty much the same as elsewhere in Australia. Milk comes from bottles and no one can understand why farmers keep cows. The timber industry is smaller and getting smaller due to popular demand. Our RFA only lasted about 6 months before the Richard Court coalition government buckled to a sustained attack by the greens and our single daily tabloid newspaper (which unless I am mistaken, is printed on paper). After that, it’s been populism all the way with the inspiring Dr Gallop at the helm (not that Court was anything to brag about).
I read in an industry newsletter the other day that Australia has reached a new milestone. We now import twice as much sawn wood from SE Asian rainforests as we produce from the forests of Tasmania. Production line 12 may not be able to read long blogs without getting bored, but I wonder what he/she thinks about the ethics of us exporting the environmental impact of our wealthy lifestyles to the developing world?
But then the people “over there” aren’t white urban middle class like us, so why should we care?
” The Australian community has come under what seems like ‘the spell’ of environmental activists who campaign incessantly against logging. ”
I wonder what is the real object of these activists, is it more a battle of collectivism vs individualism?
They want to lock up as much land under the “national park” title, putting into the hands of “the people” and removing it from all human activity apart from passive leisure.
Universally they denounce any individual or corporate commercial activity as “greedy” without any real understanding of the issues.
Profits are a dirty word.
“I wonder what is the real object of these activists, is it more a battle of collectivism vs individualism?”
My conclusion on the motives for this form of behaviour is more simple. Many or most people are concerned about the impact their lavish lifestyle is having on the planet. Very few people do any more than put out the recycle bin to reduce their consumption of primary resources, and in some respects even that is just a token effort.
Each campaign, be it land rights for gay whales or whatever, is grasped by those who want to do something to apparently save the planet; it’s like putting out two recycle bins instead of one. The reward is a feeling of self satisfaction, a release. “I confess, I have sinned, this is my penance”. This need to feel we are doing something effective is deep within us, either for instinctive or cultural reasons, and it is hard to deny the urge.
So when a political movement arises which gives people a focus for this urge to be worthy, normal rational people will support the movement. I have experienced people working for Alcoa, which strip-mines the jarrah forest for bauxite, take the high moral ground about logging, as if removing several metres of the soil profile is less disruptive to the forest than logging and regenerating it. While this attitude seems quite irrational to me, to them it is a type of anti-inflammatory for their conscience. We all have to keep our guilt under control somehow.
The leaders of green politics are doing what all politicians do – they seek support by attaching themselves to an issue or issues that concern the electorate. Perhaps some of the prominent greens are social engineers or recycled socialists who have used the green cause to add to their electoral appeal, but I don’t see that the majority of the supporters of the greens are anything more than concerned citizens. The most astonishing thing about this is that intelligent people seem to blindly accept that green politicians and prominent green celebrity activists have much higher morals and more pure motives for what they do than do normal pollies and conservative political lobby groups. Witness Production line 12’s comment above.
If you want to follow this line of thought in a more philosophical way, there is an article available through the OnLineOpinion website, called “Environmentalists: the New Pharises?” and it may be of interest. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=488
It is written by a theologian whose thinking is more advanced than some men of the cloth who suggest simplisticly that God is on the side of the conservation movement.
Now now Rick, it’s impolite to jam people into political pigeon-holes.
I care not a jot for the forests, Tasmania’s or SE Asia’s. Cut ’em all down, I say! More paper for everyone. And jobs, let’s not forget about the jobs.
In the meantime, you may recall that I was trying to change the topic of this conversation by drawing attention to the embarrassingly partisan tone employed by our host.
I would have hoped the IPA could inspire something slightly more sophisticated than conspiracy theories against the Greens, who continue to languish among the more tragically ineffective political agents in Australia.
So, bear with me while I try to change the topic again: if most Greens supporters are, as Rick says, genuinely concerned but blindly accepting citizens, what is the REAL agenda being pushed by the Green leadership?
Thats the problem with some or most of these Greens; its become a passion not a profession and they have imbued the ‘environment’ with religious mysticism.
Fortunately not all have become enviro-jihadists with the concept of combining environment management through a free market economy becoming a reality.
Sources:
http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=3888006
and
http://www.economist.com/printedition/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=3886849
and
http://www.economist.com/background/displayBackground.cfm?story_id=3888006
Hi production line 12.
I am unconvinced by the suggestion that Greens are tragically ineffective. With about 5-7% of the primary vote, we see as much of Bob Brown on the evening news as we do of the PM. He widely regarded as an exceptionally worthy politician, as well as being always available for a 5 second sound bite.
Conspiracies. I am generally sceptical about them because they imply a greater level of coordination and strategic thinking than is realistic for large groups of humans. I think there are many and varied reasons why greens do what they do.
I am sure many of green activists are drawn into the movement by a single legitimate cause or concern, which leads to another, and then another. These people come from a wide political background apart from the stereotypical counter-culture tertiary humanities student dropout e.g. Doctors for Forests, Lawyers for Forests and Foresters for Medicine. Others are refugees from the collapse of Berlin Wall, because the Greens Party seems to represent the left fringe on a number of policy areas not related to the environment.
I don’t see a coherent agenda amongst such a disparate movement. What I think they all have in common are legitimate concerns for the future and the need for a cause that clarifies personal identity.
Most green supporters and activists are totally inconsistent. Examples …
1. There is no opposition to broad-scale strip mining in forests, but cutting down one tree is the contemporary equivalent of shooting an explosive harpoon into a whale contemplating the implications of the second law of thermodynamics in the 1970’s.
2. People will refuse to buy locally produced wood, but without a second thought, use wood clearly stamped ‘Product of Malaysia’, and buy newspapers full of drivel, and consumer goods in cardboard boxes.
3. Bemoaning the impending doom of global warming while using central heating/cooling in the McMansion and parking two or more cars in the garage.
4. Opposing the mulesing of sheep, without ever having lost your lunch while trying to clean up flyblown sheep. Such compassion.
I’m not immune to this behaviour, I’m human too. The real solution to your consumption, if you must have one, is suicide, using an environmentally benign low-technology method. Or you can do a David Suzuki, or a Peter Singer, and enlighten the flock.
From these and many many other examples it is reasonable to conclude that the environment has almost nothing to do with it. Once we had God, now we have (insert your cause here). What is the real agenda being pushed by Green leadership? The quest for personal significance by political influence, a lust for power, same as any political player or pope. In a very minor way, we’re doing it here.
I think we do have significant environmental challenges before us. But we are following the same environmental and social trajectories as the Easter Islanders before their world fell in around them. If we could only address the issues, instead of turning everything into a series of left-versus-right squabbles, I would be more optimistic.
Following on from Rick and noting Production Line 12’s comment about conspiracy theories,
I would be really interested to understand why the greens don’t want logging in the the Pilliga-Goonoo forests? Can they mount a coherent argument?
Rick, mate: ‘If we could only address the issues, instead of turning everything into a series of left-versus-right squabbles, I would be more optimistic.’
That would explain why you’ve expended such energy and dedication into lambasting Jennifer, whose initial post was a feeble display of politically partisan sniping, yes?
This blog, Rick, is not even slightly concerned with ‘addressing the issues’ or finding solutions, or even analysing the competing interests in Australian environmental politics. Rather, it is political propaganda. Now, I don’t have a problem with political propaganda per se, so long as political propagandists don’t have a problem with me. What I do have a problem with (and it’s almost purely aesthetic) is the appallingly primitive style and argumentation employed by Jennifer. Not only does it encourage equally primitive accusations of ‘Green conspiracies’, it is painful to read.
There is a problem: two competing interest groups in Australia are currently unable to resolve their differences. I say Jennifer is not interested in resolving such differences, she’s only interested in using the issue to generate political support. What so you, Rick?
Finally, can I synthesise your characterisation of Greens? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the average Green is…
1. Not opposed to strip mining, but opposed to cutting down lone trees.
2.Ravenous consumers of tabloids, cardboard boxes, and wood products, so long as said wood products come from Malaysia, not Tassie.
3.Owners of McMansions and 2+ cars, and inveterate thrashers of central heating to boot.
4.Opposed to mulesing.
You know, Rick, call me a nasty, suspicious misanthrope if you will, but I reckon somewhere in there you consciously made one or two gross misjudgments. If such is the case, can I ask why?
Jennifer, Some information, the hardwood mill at Baradine exports wodden fence droppers around the world to some 27 countries for electric fencing. These ironbark fence droppers are use for electric fencing in Africa to protect African wildlife such as elephants.
The ironbark fence droppers can with stand extreem differences in tempreture and are effective weather being used in Africa or Norway.
There is a conservative estimate of 250,000 cubic metres of ironbark in the Pilliga Forest growing at the rate of 15-20,000 cubic metres per year. This mill only needs 5,000 cubic metres a year to supply their markets.
Timber is a solar powered renewable resource. If we were all using steel there is a big hole left in the ground somewhere. Plus all the polition into the atmosphere from its production. What are these so called environmentalists on about do they have shares in steel companys or own steel businesses?
The people on the coast we are told don’t like cutting down trees or the so called environmental damage farmer do. But they still all eat some of the cheapest and greenest food in the world. It would be interesting to look at what shares they own.
I grew up at the Whaling Station in Albany, Western Australia and now live and am involved in a timber town and timber industry. In both cases the Greens were able to manipulate the public because both industries missed the boat with education and as the comment from production line 12 so beautifully put it about environmentalists having shares in steel company’s, maybe we should ask them to tell us exactly how and where their funding comes from, total transparency like we have been subject to from them. Like my father put in 1978 when we faced the closure of the Whaling Station, Greenies are not conservationists they are PRESERVATIONISTS. There is a huge difference.
When they have finished with the timber industry they will find another crusade. As long as it is fulfilling their need for attention it will remain a focus. Really we should feel very sorry for them. People so misguided really need help!
Hi Production
No, I wouldn’t accept the words you put in my mouth in relation to Jennifer. If you have issues with the IPA and its employees, you have to take them up with those people, but I’m not coming along with you.
I am not an IPA groupie, but I agree with the strategy that Jennifer has adopted in relation to a number of green issues, even though I think we are somewhat at odds in relation to salinity. Jennifer challenges the commonly accepted opinions on a range of issues by returning to the foundation data and evidence, interpreting it from the neo-liberal standpoint and asking various green-hued commentators to justify their interpretation of the same data.
This is a normal part of the scientific process, of which Jennifer has direct experience. It has a political overtone to it, but that too is justified. Why? Because in my world of publicly funded research and development, it is in the interests of many scientists to paint the blackest possible picture of the future to attract more funding. By playing this game, scientists often influence the wider public opinion about environmental issues, and then to disagree with the new public attitude can terminate your career. Scapegoats are identified and castigated, naughty industries are moved off-shore. It is important to have people out there who challenge popular perceptions, to identify which beliefs are only myths, because scientists are often not at liberty to be so confrontational.
In my field of forestry, I have watched the myths from green science prevail over the forest science, which is why I dipped my oar in the first place with a comment about thinning.
Characterisation of the greens. I stick to my point that there is no average green, they are a disparate group of people with a green opinion about one or more issues; you can find them around any dinner table. The main characteristics they share are the search for personal significance and concern for the future. My concern is that they are motivated by personal gratification rather than the quest for rational resource management.
In my experience, at the dinner table, and reading, and in speaking with professional environmental activists, a high profile businesswoman activist and an advisor to Dr Brown, is that they all have strong opinions about things they don’t understand and they take no notice of their own material consumption. There is little appreciation that we commonly have to choose the least worst option. No one of them has a position on all the 4 examples I listed. The purpose of the examples was to illustrate the hypocrisy in general. So it’s No again; I don’t think I made any gross misjudgements and if you want details of specific examples, then we need to continue this in another forum where space is not limiting.
I consume therefore I am. My Peugeot is better than your Monaro GTO; my use of wood is ‘more noble'(to quote a prominent WA artist) than yours. Most environmentally aware people identify a characteristic of other people’s consumption and then bang on about the evils of 4×4’s, V8s, uranium mining or whatever without recognising that we are all part of the problem. There are solutions to the problems, but the debates need to be rational if we are to develop those solutions. At the moment, to a large degree, Australia is addressing its problems by exporting the environmental impacts of our wealth to other countries. This makes little economic or environmental sense, but it can engender a great sense of personal gratification in the short term. Very Easter Island.
An awful lot of words, who can find the time to understand it all?
I thing Rick is close to the nub, “in my experience, at the dinner table, and reading, and in speaking with professional environmental activists…. is that they all have strong opinions about things they don’t understand ….”
We used to live in the bush area bordering on a NSW national park. The 1994 fires were just hell, and all preventable – due to protocols NPWS were unable to control the very small blaze (started in a backyard) within their area. It grew and grew and with later hot strong winds became a fire of total destruction that was seen from New Zealand.
NPWS staff were extremely stressed, I believe it was due to they being able to see the potential disastrous outcome but were being prevented from stopping it by Park policy. A crisis centre was set up with people from the metropolitan fire brigade, bush fire brigade, police, SES and God knows where ever. I went down a few times and could get no proper information, the police told me it was total confusion, they didnt know why they were there at all.
They installed a metropolitan fire brigade pump truck, fully manned, outside every house in my street. The houses were about 1/2 km apart, and there was no town water (a pump truck pumps from a hydrant) Crews were rotated on shift, and the tuck truck popped along at intervals.
Eventualy the January winds were so bad, and the fires so fearsome, that ALL the services pulled out, they LITERALLY said “you are on your own now”
Under 42degree 30 knot westerly winds the fires were really motoring and it was panic stations.
So we used an ancient truck to put out spot fires but were not allowed to backburn and some other firefighters were arrested for doing so (charges later dropped)
We were evacuated 3 times but always came back, and put out the spot fires. We had no power for several weeks but ran a generator to keep the beer cool and have a shower.
At long last help came from Victoria, an army of modern rural firefighters. They said “the only way to control this is to backburn, lets start here”
Fire control said “Its illegal to light a fire without a permit from X, Y & Z authorities”
CFA said “fine, we’re off home”
Somehow they were given dispensation and the backburning was undertaken over two days and the entire region was made safe.
At the end of it one of the locals said “lets start our own fire service” but instead I sold up and moved to a less combustible rural environment.
Neat little story. Thanks Rog.
I find this thread pretty depressing. I’ve been popping in every day or so to keep up with the comments. It all started off all very civil with people at the coal-face (so to speak) expressing their hurt and frustration. Human stories of loss, lost dreams and lost faith in the system. Stories supported by hands on expertise and knowledge of a forest region they loved and a way of life they craved. Reading these stories one found new understanding of the plight of people caught in forces beyond their control and forces which, to them, were and are beyond reason and logic.
But inevitably we degenerate into name calling and run to our respective positions. So now we find the good folk who offered their expert views have gone and the field is held by those arguing the the rights and wrongs of collectivism v. individualism as if that is the real issue. So rather than hearing from those who know the problem and it seems the solution we hear from those who want to fight the good fight. Rather than hearing from those who worry where their next meal is coming from, we hear from those who worry where their next latte is coming from.
All very depressing. Can anyone doubt that yet another rural community is doomed?
Actually, hazym, I reckon you’ll find, if you have another gander at the posts above, that it was only Rick and I who degenerated into name calling and ran to our respective positions, apart from the fact that neither of us called each other names, and I have no real idea what Rick’s political position is, just as, I hope he’ll agree, he has no real idea what mine is. You, mate, just have no idea. What took place between Rick and I was just a discussion between to bozos about the political dynamic behind tensions between employees of the forestry industry, and greenies. If you think that somehow a discussion about politics and the environment is somehow irrelevant to a blog which proclaims to be ‘on politics & the environment’, then you should attend some philosophy classes in elementary logic. Or drink more lattes.
Briefly back to Rick:
Let’s be clear about which perspectives are politically dominant: the party who wanted to chop down more trees and hence make more jobs won the last election; those scientists who are ‘painting black pictures’ did not have their efforts electorally vindicated; the vast majority of ‘scapegoats’ of environmentalists have been electorally rewarded for their stance; I can think of no ‘naughty’ industries who have been forced to move offshore due to their environmental policies; if you want to guage ‘popular perception’ by electoral results, then the ‘popular perception’ is that forests should be cut down. So let’s not be trying to adopt the ragged yet all-powerful garb of victimhood here. Likewise, let’s not fall into the trap of believing that pro-logging sentiment is equivalent to ‘the Bush’. Pro-logging sentiment is equivalent to employees of the forestry industry and their direct beneficiaries.
From your refusal to cede even the slightest point, I hold no hope that I can persuade you to modify, let alone actually reverse any postion you decide you want to hold. So, as a parting gesture, I’ll reiterate my first point. You’ve probably already guessed that I don’t give much of a shit about the environment or trees, or people who cut trees down for fun and profit. What I’m interested in is bullshit artists, and my comment was that this blog reeks of bullshit artistry. I could be wrong.
I think it happened once before.
I should know better than to pick this up, but hazym you are right in most respects. This started as a conversation about timber communities and national parks and a couple of urban bullshit artists took much of the action.
I’m one of the many in WA who have left the native forests that we loved working in, because of the relentless advance of the national parks over the top of the working forests. So I am now another of the white urban middle class after a couple of decades in the forest. My role was not right at the coal face, but in growing the trees that now hold the roof up over my head.
My waffle about the national policy issues is not because that’s the extent of my concern. I have a head full of stories about the losses that have accompanied the collapse of our timber industries and the communities that made those industries. I have experienced it, and I am fortunate in being able to move, even if only to the city, and continue in useful employment. My path has been a small part of that collapse, the drain of people to urban ant heap. I am extremely angry, but I don’t want to keep rehashing those anecdotes.
What is happening to the rural communities is also happening to the nation. We are politically dominated by my urban colleagues who think milk does come from bottles. In about 10 years, I am told, Australia will no longer have enough pine logs to feed the existing particle board factories. Our production of these logs is going to decline as our consumption of particle board increases. We will become an importer of logs. This is so stupid of us, it almost defies belief. If most people oppose the falling of trees, not enough of trees will be grown for the future.
What has happened to the forests industries is going to happen to agriculture. I have heard, just in the last few months, several people express the opinion that agriculture is too hard, too damaging, it’s not suited to Australian environments. This talk becomes national policy; urban dinner table bullshit becomes policy in a democracy. I’ve read this opinion about Australian agriculture in a popular science book written by an academic from the Uni of California. After agriculture has been crushed, we can presumably do the USA thing and eliminate mining. What is it that this nation is meant to do for primary resources? We can’t all be management consultants, software engineers and human resource managers, can we?
Thanks for kicking this off Jennifer. The title with the (1) in it sounds like there is more to come.
Hi Rick
Yes I did put a ‘Part 1’ in the title because we will have to follow up. When will the NSW government decide the fate of the Pillaga-Goonoo forests and its people? Hopefully a sensible decision will be made.
In the interim I would also like to post something about other timber communities struggling with these same issues. I know there are issues in southern Queensland with the state government looking at converting approximately 1 million hectares of state forest to National Park. I have received phone calls from some of those who will be affected by this – but there is a fear to speak out. I think there is a belief that if ‘they’ are ‘quiet’ and ‘good’ ‘they’ might be able to negotiate a better deal with government with government promising compensation. There has been a bit in the Queensland Country Life.
What do you think should/could be the focus of Part 2?
And thanks for your contribution so far, including your analysis of my approach to environmental issues – pretty accurate I thought.
PS And re. Rog and Hazy’s comments, I think there is a need for discussion of the specific environmental issues and evidence, the human-side, but also the philosophical and for these topics and also people to be better linked up.
Jennifer i have been checking this sight and have read all the comments. It is great people are starting to wake up to what is going on. For too long we have not got involved. It was not that we wern’t interested or concerned it was that it didn’t affect us personally or our lives.
We know through this whole Pilliga – Goonoo BBSB process we should have spoken up much sooner. We should have shouted or heads off when the cattle men of the Snowy were kicked of their leases.
Just look at the mess there now. The greens have no real reason to stoping logging in the Pilliga and Goonoo other than that they want it for their own backyard but are not willing to pay for it.
When I was at school we had visits to dairy farms and went to wool shows now the political correct have you going to environment work shops telling children that farmers are destroying the environment.
It was interesting to see a Current Affair last night where they are saying the new homes being built are the cause of childhood illness and behavour problems. I think back to my childhood when just about everone grew their own vegetables we rode bikes in our streets and played outside. Today children sit inside and play games or watch vidios.
To the people in Southern Queensland don’t keep quite. If you don’t speak up no one will know what is going on by keeping quite you are helping the socialist greens the watermelons.
If this is allowed to keep happening Australia will nave no primary production.
We assume that people know but they don’t and unless you tell and show them how do you expect them to know.
Jennifer
I don’t have anything specific to suggest about Part 2 at the moment. Hazym has pulled me up a bit.
I’ve indulged myself, running off at the mouth in response to another correspondent, and that has split this conversation in two. I am fortunate to have continued in my employment by moving from native forests to a form of plantation forestry. The real social issues lie with those people who are expected, in effect, to go from driving a skidder to waiting on tables, serving lattes to the people who put them out of a job.
So I need time to think. I’ll contact you via the IPA if I have any ideas. Your planned discussions about other communities will provide more food for thought.
Rick
Sorry, I lied. I’m back.
Rick, you’re right: you shoulda just let it go. Thus far your posts have featured outrageously misconceived stereotypes, generalisations, arguments, assumptions, and observations. Don’t be throwin round accusations of urban bullshit artistry until you know where a person lives. Your conception of how national policy is formed (‘I have heard several people express an opinion… this talk becomes national policy’) is infantile, unless those people you’ve been listening to are Prime Minister Howard and Environment Minister Campbell.
Anyway.
Pathetic attempts to jerk tears with heartfelt stories and lamentations over the loss of ‘rural communities’ do not a solution make. I repeat, this blog is designed to exploit the cultural problems between loggers and greenies, and the political problems between loggers and the ALP. It is not designed to find solutions to these problems, because it is not in the IPA’s interest to find solutions to these problems. Does the solution lie in victimising Jack Woodcutter or demonising Nathaniel Treehugger? No, it doesn’t, it only creates more problems. Ignorant comments constructed around fanciful conspiracy theories were being made, comments which were not even slightly helpful to solving the problems confronting logging communities, yet Jennifer didn’t step in and moderate. Why not? Is she interested in finding ways to help logging communities or not?
Can I ask you Jennifer, to deny that there is a ‘Green conspiracy’ and to confirm that the Carr government does not have an ‘open door’ policy toward the Greens? Can I ask you to confirm that the solution lies in understanding, working with, and reconciling BOTH sides of this electoral divide, and not trying to force them further apart?
pl12
I think you and I have had enough fun on this site. The audience is not that interested in our little exchange, however much fun it is for us.
Jennifer would you please to email Production line 12 my hotmail address because I’d like to continue this somewhere else.
Thank you
Don’t worry about it, Rick, I don’t think you’ve got anything to offer me.
The principle that ‘disagreement = grounds to pillary someone on unfounded ideological and political assumptions’ which has been displayed on this thread has become sufficiently tedious that I’m heading elsewhere.
I’ll look in again later on. Cage-rattling is a tiring business.
Jennifer, A letter I sent to the Australian Geographic, in reply to an article in No. 77 entitled “White Pine Country” by Peter Meredith may be of interest.
Re Pilliga State Forest.
It is not difficult to disagree with Peter Meredith (White Pine Country A.G. No. 77) when he starts Resource Management with “State Forests are very different, being used rather than conserved”, inferring State Forests are “used up”. He should have used “preserved” rather than “conserved”, meaning “locked away for good” (the National Parks policy).
At issue, is whether one of the State’s few renewable resources is to be managed for production of timber in perpetuity, with all the ensuing benefits (for example, local employment/production of a needed product/conservation of the environment, etc – remember, even Tim Flannery is on record as saying “Foresters were the first conservationists”!) -or preserved for a few selfish people, who may, one day, wish to walk through it, and the alleged advantage accruing to the hairy nosed wombat or whatever. So, is it to be people or so called bio diversity? Only under a Forester’s management are both possible.
Let me be quite plain on this – the Pilliga National Forest is still there, to be carefully exploited because, one Doug Lindsay (then Cyoress Pine Management Officer) set the cutting rate for merchantable Pine, and established thinning schedules for Whipstick Pine, as well as mature Pine in the early 1950’s. I was there on staff from 1952 to 1963 implementing his programme – and it was and probably still is, the first sustained yield Management Plan effected in NSW, in native forests.
Now, Meredith, like most Green maniacs, carries on the mantra that the forest is not being looked after. He wants to “do it properly” without telling us how this is to differ from current practice, or, where the extra money is going to come from.
When you have wheat-field regeneration of Cypress, it needs to be thinned, otherwise it will stagnate (like many other tree species). So it needs thinning, which is costly, and in the current market-driven political climate (and in view of its slow growth rate), most unlikely to be profitable, so you can guess it won’t be done. Will National Parks reintroduce thinning?
In the 1950’s, I had three or four TSI (Timber Stand Improvement) gangs, thinning pine, ringbarking, or later poisoning (introduced in 1956) useless hardwood – I might add that any ironbark that would produce sleepers or poles would never be ringbarked or poisoned. I had fifty to sixty sleeper cutters operating on iron bark, working out of Baradine, Kenebri and Gwabegar sleeper depots. Currently I understand there is none of this.
I am also intrigued at the Green mantra that this fauna species is declining while that one is growing in numbers. How can we be sure when no figures are given – just emotional, anecdotal nonsense. It is more probable that they haven’t looked in the right place at the right time. The so-called rare Hastings River Mouse story is an example of this nonsense. (The Hastings River mouse isn’t really rare, or endangered)!
But it all comes down to “the only answer is more National Parks”. It will be a major disaster if the Pilliga is given over to National Parks, which knows nothing about fire control, or anything else pertaining to management of forest for any productive purpose.
Question: If current forest management is so bad for fauna conservation, how is it that there is so much fauna to conserve today, fifty-five years after sustained yield logging was introduced to the Pilliga?
Remember, no one can show one species of fauna or flora that has suffered demise by managed logging, not one, – clearing for farming maybe, but, forestry management, never. Now, prove me wrong. It is instructive to read the 1995 CSIRO Wildlife Study in Murwillumbah Management Area, which found, on balance that logging assists fauna. But, of course since this didn’t suit the politicians, it was not exactly suppressed, but wasn’t highlighted. (Copies available $50 from State Forests).
Actually, it all depends on whether it is a political loss or gain, to make Pilliga a National Park. It will be a sad day if it happens. Realistically, the Pilliga is only the most recent case of wasteful National Park creation. Carr has followed Wran’s example doing it all along the coast for years, not in the hope of picking up country votes, (he knows country people are not blind and stupid) but only to give the chardonnay sippers a reason to vote labor. It seems Labor has forgotten its roots.
Last Point: The Green movement must be those most selfish in our community. They have their homes, no doubt with feature timber walls, timber frames, wooden verandah rails, etc. etc. – but, are happy to “save the forest for the animals”, thus denying their fellow man the same opportunity they had, to use timber in his house – unless of course he imports the timber – from where? Indonesian rainforests (forgotten global warming?) North American Old Growth? – or just New Zealand plantations, all of which add to the trade imbalance – currently, greater than two billion dollars of timber and paper products per year. Our plantations account for little more than fifty percent of our timber production, and unless more land is found somewhere, will never be a much larger percentage.)
So, wake up Australia, leave forest management to those who know something of the principles and practrice involved.
How long before we get a massive drought death of trees in the Pilliga. Fensham reports natural tree death in Queensland presumably a combination of increasing tree density and drought, and I have friends who report the same thing. If the Pilliga is not thinned by fire or logging then I suspect drought death events are inevitable at some stage.
jennifer
i believe that havng plantation timbers is a great way to save our forests and all you people out there who are worried about our forests being cut down just chill!!
ps. i’m 15 yrs old
hey,
im only 15yrs old and i have been doing an assignment on the brigalow belt region and i think now that i can really see that it is really important that we do something about the logging and we all stand up for what we know is right!
ionolsen23 Your site is very cognitive. I think you will have good future.:)
bcd15967c482 Glad to see that you write good posts