Australian Environment Foundation Chairman Don Burke will be attending the Great Aussie Breakfast at Federation Square in Melbourne on Wednesday October 4th as a guest of the Victorian Farmers Federation. The breakfast runs from 7 – 10am .
The first AEF Conference & AGM held over the weekend of 23rd and 24th September was a huge success. Most of the papers are now available online: http://www.aefweb.info/display/conference2006.html including the paper by forester Mark Poynter mentioned at a recent blog post.
Giving an environmental award to timber company Gunns Ltd has proven a bit controversial with the Wilderness Society objecting, see http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/weblog/comments/breathtaking-hypocrisy/
Planning has already started for the 2007 AEF conference to be held in Melbourne during spring.
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I’m a Director of the AEF.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Don Burke had the following to say at the conference:
“The greatest threat is us: myself, all of you here today and everyone else. We are all aware that animal and plant species are becoming extinct at a cataclysmically rapid rate. We are aware that
vast areas of our planet are being damaged. We know that we are not managing our planet well at
all.”
Do you agree, Jennifer?
Alec Marr seems to have forgotten that the Banksia Environment Foundation also wanted to award Gunns an Environmental Award as this snippet from the Examiners in 2004 tells us:
“Gunns finalists in awards
The Launceston Examiner, Ian Pattie (Wednesday, 28 April 2004, p36)
Gunns was a finalist in the business environmental responsibility and leadership section as a world leader in sustainable forest management, the Banksia report said.
Gunns Ltd was the first organisation to achieve certification to the recently developed Australian Fortestry Standard, the report said.
The standard enabled customers and consumers worldwide to be confident that the product met the highest environmental standards and guaranteed sustainability of the renewable Tasmanian forest resource, the report said.
The company had written into its code of conduct a commitment to sustainable forest management that was “environmentally sound, economically viable and socially acceptable for all communities”, the report said.”
Perhaps the extreme greens have forgotten the response of the Wilderness Society to this nomination. Perhaps he needs to check a writ that has been lodged in the Supreme Court of Victoria!
The actions of the Wilderness Society in attacking the Banksia award have been recorded by NAFI at http://www.nafi.com.au/news/view.php3?id=951
Perhaps because the Wilderness Society refuses to admit that 95% of Tasmanian high Quality Wilderness, over a million hectares of old growth and 45% of its native forests are securely reserved and are off limits to the timber industry including Gunns.
Well it’s all pretty borderline stuff isn’t it. Out of all the awards that could have been given it’s this one. Howls of protest and conspiracy accusations by the greens balanced by angry anti-business anti-science commie retorts by the pro-loggers.
Net result – probably haven’t improved Gunns image at all – just drawn more fire down on their position and thrown fuel on the conspiracy theory fire. So Joe and Jill public now see both sides using information, disinformation and dirty tricks as standard fare.
So yes – I reckon the butterfly award is a stunt – I would given Gunns an award for honestly telling us about their effect on forest biodiversity and mill emissions. As a consumer, I use paper and timber products and have a vested interest in forestry too.
Steve,
I’ve a less pessimistic view on these issues than Don – as you know from reading me at this blog and as you would see if you read my paper from the conference.
I agree though with Don on the need to ‘ride change’ rather than trying to put things back as they were.
The AEF is philosophical different from most established conservation groups in that we recognise change is the only constant, and that technology and people have a place in managing change.
Another value very close to the heart of AEF members is tolerance and encouraging discussion and diversity of views. As Don remarked towards the end of the conference – delegates all shared a thirst for knowledge and understanding.
Jennifer: How rewarding is your job, as a Director of this newly founded AEF?
Can we out in the general public or Don even at the head of the organisation afford to have you just bobbing along in the tide regarding the big threats?
Cinders may eventually appreciate this comment; giving Gunns that environment award allows for a bit more naval gazing down south.
Cinders: When I previously offered Gunns directly several suggestions about improving their public image on environment matters through their former media lady then the manager’s secretary, I got no reply. We could gauge from that this company has absolutely no interest in bridging gaps with any section of the public.
Luke with his comment on being a paper user may be interested to know that my private comments to the pulp mill proposal authorities included a question about their (Gunns) credentials as a paper maker in terms of the global market. I added another question about why the pulp mill proposal did not have a direct link with a local paper producer to guarantee its success for some part of the pulp process long term.
Best of luck to the butterflys
Taz (who also writes at this blog under the name of Gavin, Granpa and a few others),
Being involved with the AEF is very rewarding.
I’m working with people who also believe in
freedom, hard work, innovation, technology, sound science, cost:benefits analysis, and the power of observation, the individual, strong institutions.
In short lots of good people bobbing along … to save the environment.
This is a very different approach to the sort of thing you and probably also Pinxi would advocate. Like Tim Flannery on TV last night I understand you like BIG Plans, Regulations, you would probably also be in favour of chasing people out of the environment e.g. banning recreational fishing, and generally telling people what they can not do?
Jennifer; I would instinctively agree with your choice of desirable words to describe our attributes “freedom, hard work, innovation, technology, sound science, cost:benefits analysis, and the power of observation, the individual, strong institutions”. However they become private buzz words or group jargon if you don’t practice them.
Now I can’t speak for Pinxi or Tim this but I fundamentally disagree with your following assessment “I understand you like BIG Plans, Regulations, you would probably also be in favour of chasing people out of the environment e.g. banning recreational fishing, and generally telling people what they can not do?” Sure you thought them up first Jennifer but nothing could be further from the truth in my case.
In fact the only thing I could be accused of up here is liking the BIG picture in between looking for the devil in the detail. Note too I oppose plans and regulations practically every day. That makes me an experienced opportunist hey.
Just in case someone is seriously interested in what I really have to say
gbugg@bigpond.net.au.
the butterfly effect!?
Taz seems to be following the line that only those with PR smarts can be good for the environment. It seems a pre requisite to be good with the media to create news to ‘save’ the environment.
However the time for using ‘advertising’ techniques to sell the environmental cause may be coming to an end, as those that are passionate about the environment have access to the internet and a broad range of information.
Taz might be interested in looking up how Gunns, a forest company so often portrayed poorly by the Environment movements PR spinners, is actually managing its privately owned forest by looking at the Forest Management statement at http://www.gunns.com.au/. This shows that over 36% is currently non- production and 19.3% is reserved for cultural, social and environmental values.
Reserves total over 35,500 hectares for Cultural heritage, flora and fauna values, landscape management, soil and water, geomorphology and social values.
International Green groups such as the IUCN and WWF, together with the World Bank, have endorsed the target of 10% set by the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Gunns might not be good at PR but on these facts seems to be pretty good in caring for the environment and perhaps more environmentalists like the AEF and Banksia should acknowledge their effors.
Just to let everyone know that the Mike Archer power point and Di Thorley talk (caution harsh language)from the AEF conference have now been uploaded at: http://www.goldendolphin.com/AEF_conference/conference.htm .
Cinders: There is some interesting reading on that link.
We notice in the AFS Summary Audit Report April 6006 –
http://www.gunns.com.au/downloads/GunnsAFSreportApr2006.pdf
3.4 Observations and Opportunities for Improvements, four predictable items for Gunns consideration. You can’t say I’m the only one nit picking. Although I can’t find the email as I write my comments were similar.
One of my comments related to their continued use of the poison 1080 for “pest” control.
Now I reckon any company proposing to build a billion dollar pulp mill can do without the stuff, about 10 kg/y according to their statement on the www.
This attitude to Tasmanian wildlife is what makes Gunns themselves a fair target for everybody interested in conservation. The meanness of such a control program overrides any benefit the company gains early in its plantation growth. The fact that farmers also do it is a very poor excuse indeed for lack of leadership all round on the issue.
I say this after a lot of personal contact with people engaged in primary industry throughout Tasmania over many years.
Taz seems that he can’t help himself, instead of reporting that the major finding of the Audit report was compliance to the AFS he goes to the section listing four areas for possible improvement.
None of which is his pet subject on the use of 1080 to control browsing damage by specific species of wallaby and possum. Animals that are in ‘plague’ proportions and have major impact on forestry and farming in this state.
His figure on the use of 1080 also seems to be out of date. The Tasmanian Forest and Forest Industry Council reports that 1080 is used in agriculture in Australia and overseas for the control of native and exotic animals. The Tasmanian forest industry used 5.5kg of 1080 in 2003, New Zealand, used 2 tonnes. See http://www.ffic.com.au/useofchemicals.html
Taz might not be aware that the reduction in use of 1080 was part of the Tasmanian Community Forestry Agreement and that $4 million has been put up to fast track an alternative (see http://www.mffc.gov.au/releases/2006/06030aj.html ). So by the time the pulp mill is built there might be other ways to prevent browsing damage that eats into the profit of the tree grower (rather than the processor).
Forestry Tasmania has already banned 1080 on public forest.
Of course all this came about because the Federal Liberal party 2004 Tasmanian forest plolicy contained the Statement:
“The sight of native animals dying from 1080 poisoning is unacceptable to Australians.”
However if you think about it, the only time this sight was seen by most Australians in 2004 was on the biased and inaccurate 4 Corners “Lords of the Forests” shown in February 2004 and in green pamphlets/videos. Yet the ABC has admitted recently that the footage shown was taken not in 2004, not even 2003 but in 2000. The ABC did not receive independent verification that the animals shown were in fact poisoned by 1080, despite the footage being part of a complaint fully investigated by the relevant Government authority in 2000.
From Four Corners last Monday we learnt how it is common practice by greens to keep dead animals to trot out for a gullible media or general public. The transcript goes
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: They also revealed some of the greenies’ own tricks – like planning a graphic photo display about the effects of logging, using dead possums from a collection the forest campaigner kept in his freezer.
Do you remember that discussion?
GERALDINE RYAN, FORMER VOLUNTEER, ENVIRONMENT VICTORIA: I remember that was more than once. That he…he used to collect, if a possum was a road kill or an animal was a road kill, would collect them and keep them in the fridge. It was just again…to make it, sort of, real to the public.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What, animals out of the forest campaigner’s freezer?
GERALDINE RYAN: Yes.
From a quick search of recent Victoria media, Geraldine is currently a spokesperson for the Wilderness Society.
So perhaps it is time for advertising techniques and the use of images, either false or out of context, to be removed from the environmental debate and we use an evidence based approach using science to verify that evidence.
Whoooa there Cinders; don’t get so wound up over an environment award discussion, it’s bad for your long term reputation as a Gunns industries campaigner. Keeping your eye firmly fixed on the big picture is a subtle art in the end with all these little distractions. BTW my ref re 10 kg of 1080 poison still being used came straight out of that report and I was aware the latest RFA negotiations involved banning 1080 in state forests.
As I said it was another chance Gunns lost in the leadership stakes and being a good environment citizen. Small things matter in terms of public acceptance with ongoing issues like a new pulp mill. My father once showed me how to sneak up to then fall down on a crouching big wild buck rabbit in that same country. Dinner is assured only by good coordination of all our facilties.
I also noted the compliance to ISO 14001 in the AFS report. It may be of interest to someone here that I put my reputation as a technical officer and my government agency on the line on behalf of another industry during the process that built the JASANZ mutual recognition agreement. I almost lost my job over the arguments in the lead up to who was authorised to conduct the monitoring of standards and compliance etc for all industry under the new agreement. This whole affair certainly had other international implications for Australia. Astute readers will recall I write a lot about my interest in NATA and our history in the development of any peer review process applicable to a country’s internal monitoring and world trade.
Make what you like of this statement; reading between the lines is a craft too.
Gavin Bugg.
For Taz’s information he will be pleased that I am not getting wound up nor am I a Gunns industry spokesperson, but I couldn’t resist Taz’s “dorothy dix” like question so soon after the 4 Corners gem of keeping dead animals in the freezer as a way the greens can make it “real” for the public.
Elsewhere on this blog, is a discussion on the use of thin plastic bags and their alternatives, calico from cotton, paper from our trees or the “green” bag from Polypropylene factories in China, India and Pakistan.
The biq question is which shopping bag will be the most environmentally friendy or is it which shopping bag will you choose, or lastly should we go to the left field and use hemp and if the answer is yes how much native vegetation should we wipe out to grow this hemp.
G’day Cinders,
Did you see the 4-corners program on the A-team?
Inspirational!
Neil
I was beginning to think your life depended it Cinders. Your passionate defence of Gunns running down this thread from the beginning is what caught my eye in the first place. It’s equalled only by your use of anti ABC, Green or Wilderness Society rhetoric. Now you may be surprised but I can take or leave the lot of them including Gunns. There are times though when I may attempt to use all of them in my private campaigns aimed at our silly governments and their agents. I mind where our money goes.
Cinders; all media is an art. I fist learned about fridge tricks used in photography from a media man who ran adult ed classes in his spare time after hours. The extra skulduggery used by the TV people working for your government way back sure left an impression with a wide range of people while I was still battling to save some good wood that is probably at the bottom of a big dam right now. Somebody took some big fish from the trout hatchery and hooked them nice and fresh on rod and reel for national news at the brand new Lake Pedder. But that was after my young contact at the Sun stuffed up an editorial assignment in Tasmania during rough weather and got his photographer to get a front page pic at the Melbourne zoo on their way home from Essendon. That’s called sticking your neck out at the wrong time. I recall another aircraft that never landed. Some low budget “street theatre” can go horribly wrong.
To wrap up; I recommend you consider making an old fashioned “stringy bark” bag unless you can say how Gunns will make us some fresh brown paper. BTW the land area farmed for our packaging needs depends greatly on the factory owner’s attitude to recycling.
Salvage and recovery at every level of production was once my bread and butter.
And thanks for the polite exchange.
G’Day Neil the 4 Corners program on the A team , could be described as inspirational. Where I am we are already on day light saving so we were lucky enough to get the program one hour ahead.
I am still trying to figure it out as I recall it being advertised originally as looking at the ‘dirty tricks’ of loggers and greenies but apart from the dead animals in the fridge, and asking a community member to drink treated sewerage, when in fact it was not treated, the greens and/or socialist left of the ALP seem to have got off lightly, and it concentrated on people getting to know their ‘enemy’ and being part of the ALP’s democratic process.
If it was about infiltration of the ALP the 4 Corners team missed this gem that was a letter to the editor during the last Tasmanian election relating to a former journalist that worked for an ALP member and quickly became a spokesperson against a canal style housing development on Hobart’s eastern shore and stood for the Greens at the Election:
Dear Editor,
I was surprised to learn that for three years Cassy O’Connor had been a secret Green member while working in the Labor Federal office of Duncan Kerr. Does that make Ms O’Connor a double agent?
Why isn’t Ms O’Connor standing in Franklin?
Perhaps too many people in Franklin know what happened in Save Ralphs Bay Inc. I was the founding secretary. The takeover of the group was swift and ruthless and I found myself threatened with legal action for daring to tell the truth about it. That action has never been pursued or withdrawn. I still wait. The legal papers could arrive any day. Its been twenty months now. I stand by the truth.
I am concerned for the fate of the Greens. The political run of a double-agent could make people wonder. It is one thing to openly change camps, but to be a secret Green for three years while working in a Federal Labor office is shadowy.
The Ralphs Bay thing makes sense now. It was all about power.”
But then again Four Corners was propbably just trying to get up an anti forestry story in the lead up to the Victorian election!
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