Our distorted values

Kath Angus, Thornbury
The Age, letter, 18 Nov 2015

That the proposed Great Forest National Park is in question because VicForests has made long-term logging contracts tells us nothing about the industry's viability or even the need for its existence (The Age, 17/11). It simply tells us our value system is so distorted we would rather  release ever more carbon into the atmosphere and watch species go extinct than break a contract and pay a fee. Chopping down trees simply because we said we would is madness.

Logging in national parks good for vulnerable species, Timber NSW says

ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
7 August 2015

Vulnerable native species would benefit if New South Wales' national parks were opened up to controlled logging, according to the state's timber industry.

PHOTO: Controlled logging would protect vulnerable species in NSW, experts say. (Rose Grant)

Timber NSW says controlled logging should be allowed in the state's national parks and Crown lands as well as in state forests.

That view is supported by Senator Richard Colbeck, Parliamentary Secretary to Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce.

In an opinion piece published today on ABC Environment, general manager of Timber NSW Maree McCaskill and industry consultant Nick Cameron argue that the current legislative arrangements for land management in NSW are failing vulnerable species.

They argue that a unified approach to "tenure" — the legal term for land management — would have better results for vulnerable species, communities and the timber industry.

"The tenure system offers no broad landscape management and accountability. Frequently, forestry departments focus on the profits of timber production, park managers focus on the records of individual species and managers of Crown lands focus on administration," they wrote.

"Native forests are not static museums that can be locked up forever. Like your own garden or backyard they need careful management to keep them healthy.

"Through preventative measures like ecological thinning and fire mitigation, the timber industry can play an important role in active, adaptive management to tackle common threats across all tenure types."

In a recent interview for Radio National's Background Briefing, Senator Colbeck made calls for a similar "broad landscape" approach to forest management.

"If you look at, for example, native species decline in this country, the rate of native species decline inside of national parks is hardly different at all to what it is across the rest of the landscape," he said.

"In my mind, what that says to me is you need to manage the entire landscape to ensure that those values that you're looking to achieve are maintained. You can do that with sustainable forest management principles."

He said such an approach to forest management was being adopted globally.

"If you go to a lot of the landscape and forestry management conferences around the world right now, it's about broad landscape management," Mr Colbeck said.

"It's about managing the broad landscape for values. It's about managing the broad landscape for native species and doing what you can across that entire landscape, not just bits and pieces of it because if you do it that way I think that we're only going to continue to go backwards," he said.

Ms McCaskill said forestry science professionals appeared to have been forgotten over the last 20 years of national park expansion, saying they had skills and knowledge that should be used.

"The timber industry can provide harvesting and thinning services as it does now, under the controls applied and required by the EPA legislation, to reduce fire risk and improve forest health," she said.

The proposal for a more consistent approach to forests comes on the back of allegations made last month to Background Briefing that high-grade timber is running out in NSW.

In a statutory declaration, a north coast NSW landholder, Peter Roberts, attested that at a community meeting, a Forest Corporation NSW representative told him privately: "The hardwood forests along the coast have been flogged to death, there's no decent sawlogs left, the timber's all gone".

Current practices 'murder' and 'criminal'

Forestry workers who spoke to Background Briefing agreed, describing current forest practices as "murder" and "criminal".

Nick Roberts, chief executive of Forest Corporation NSW, agreed that many areas previously available to loggers had been turned into national parks, however he disputed the suggestion the forests were "flogged".

"No, that's not my assessment," he said, pointing to the example of lush forest at Bruxner Park that had previously been harvested.

Logging national parks is not going to restore key habitat features: time will.
NSW National Parks Association science officer Dr Oisin Sweeney
Environmental groups have slammed the suggestion that national parks be opened to timber companies.

"To suggest we can manage our way to high biodiversity through activities like logging is extraordinarily arrogant and misguided," NSW National Parks Association science officer Dr Oisin Sweeney said.

"Protecting large, intact landscapes, controlling invasives and letting nature do the rest is our best approach."

He disagreed with Senator Colbeck that other countries were moving to a more tenure-neutral approach to forest management.

"Much of the world, including Europe, is moving [away from that] approach as 'rewilding' becomes a more and more popular approach to restoring natural values," he said.

"The decline in biodiversity is a legacy of past mismanagement: we have fragmented all natural habitats, removed millions of trees from west of the divide as land was cleared for agriculture and timber, and logged all our old-growth forests.

"Of course species have declined. Logging national parks is not going to restore key habitat features: time will."

No more national parks as Tony Abbott pledges to support loggers as the 'ultimate conservationists'

Matthew Knott
The Age, March 5, 2014

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said he will not support the creation of any more national parks in a speech lauding timber workers as "the ultimate conservationists".

Mr Abbott also told a timber industry dinner on Tuesday night that he would create a new Forestry Advisory Council to support the industry.

The council will be co-chaired by Rob de Fegely, President of the Institute of Foresters Australia. Mr de Fegely is former Liberal Party election candidate for the seat of Eden Monaro.

''We don't support, as a government and as a Coalition, further lockouts of our forests,'' Mr Abbott said.

''We have quite enough National Parks, we have quite enough locked up forests already. In fact, in an important respect, we have too much locked up forest.''

Mr Abbott said the federal government was pushing to delist a world heritage listing of 74,000 hectares of forest in Tasmania. Mr Abbott said the area – which was protected under Tasmania's forest peace deal – was not pristine forest and was too degraded to be considered a sanctuary.

Tasmanians go to the polls on March 15 with jobs and the forestry industry big issues as Labor struggles to hold onto government.

''I don't buy the Green ideology, which has done so much damage to our country over the last couple of decades and I'm pleased to see that there are some sensible Labor Party people who don't buy it either,'' Mr Abbott said.

''[W]hen I look out tonight at an audience of people who work with timber, who work in forests, I don't see people who are environmental bandits, I see people who are the ultimate conservationists.
''I salute you as people who love the natural world, as people who love what Mother Nature gives us and who want to husband it for the long-term best interests of humanity.''

Mr Abbott said Canberra would now be ''friendly country'' rather than ''hostile territory'' for the forestry industry following the change of government.

Possum taskforce seeking a balance

Nick Toscano 
The Age, September 30, 2013

Photo: Ken Irwin  

A taskforce trying to protect Leadbeater's possum from extinction has begun battling the complex challenge of determining how to balance logging and conservation in Victorian forests.

The possum, Victoria's endangered faunal emblem, lost almost half its habitat during the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009, and scientists say the timber industry is putting the rest at risk.

A government-appointed taskforce led by Zoos Victoria and logging leaders is holding meetings on Monday and Tuesday. It will then draft its recommendations on how to support the recovery of the possum while sustaining the financially troubled timber industry.

The media group looking at a 300 year old Mountain Ash, (centre) which has Leadbeater's Possum nesting hollows.

This giant mountain ash has Leadbeater's possum nesting hollows. Photo: Ken Irwin

But critics fear reforms will not go far enough after studies showed the possum has insufficient habitat for long-term survival. Many want a new highlands national park that would protect habitats from further logging.

Forests in the central highlands are the last main home for Leadbeater's possums, but also a primary logging area. Exact numbers of the possums in the highlands are unknown, but are likely to be fewer than 2000.
Australian National University ecology expert David Lindenmayer said logging was the main threat to the species' survival because it reduced habitats and made forests more flammable.

He said 30 years of forest research showed the only way to stall the species' extinction trajectory was to declare a national park.

Victoria's state-owned timber company VicForests said it would strengthen its conservation codes, but locking up the central highlands would be a ''simplistic notion to what is ultimately a complex problem''.

''There are long-term challenges for the possum which would exist if we harvested timber or not,'' spokesman Nathan Trushell said.

Push for national park to save possum

Tom Arup, Environment editor
The Age, 29 August 2013

A Leadbeater's possum. Photo: Justin McManus

The Greens and Professor Tim Flannery will back the creation of a new national park in Victoria's highland forests as part of efforts to save the endangered Leadbeater's Possum at a public forum on Thursday.
At an event in Melbourne the Greens will launch a campaign to establish the Great Forest National Park to protect Leadbeater's and other species in the bushfire ravaged highland forests, also a major logging area.

The new national park was first proposed by ANU ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer – who will also speak at the event alongside former Greens leader Bob Brown and Professor Flannery.

Fairfax Media reported this month that cabinet–in–confidence scientific advice to the state government had found the current habitat set aside for the Leadbeater's possum was not large enough to ensure its survival.

The possums lost 42 per cent of their habitat in the Black Saturday bushfires. Conservationists say continued logging in the region has exacerbated the species' decline. Estimates of the remaining populations of the Leadbeater's possum range from 1500 to 3000.

The Greens say they will push for the new national park at both the state and federal level. National parks are largely the domain of state governments.

The Napthine Government has formed a committee headed by loggers and the zoo to make recommendations on how to save the species.

Professor Flannery told Fairfax Media current Victorian government policy was dooming the species to extinction and he backed the national park proposal as a way to change that trajectory.

''We have a legislative and a moral obligation to preserve [the Leadbeater's possum],'' he said.
''To let it go extinct would be a national tragedy. It is the state emblem of Victoria for god's sake.''
Victorian Greens Senator Richard DiNatale said Australia had one of the poorest records in the world when it came to loss of biodiversity and species extinction.

''The government-owned company that logs Victoria's forests gets free land and free trees but it still manages to make a loss. It's economic and environmental lunacy. Creating a national park would create sustainable jobs and give our precious state animal emblem a chance of survival,'' he said.

As part of its environment election platform the Coalition has vowed to establish a threatened species commissioner. The Coaliition's environment spokesman Greg Hunt said the commissioner would prepare, implement and monitor recovery plans for threatened species.

National park plans 'betrayal of public trust'

Tom Arup
The Age, August 19, 2013 

Former state governor and Olympic legend John Landy has joined a group of eminent Victorians urging the Napthine government to abandon moves to open up national parks for tourism development.
In an open letter sent to Premier Denis Napthine on Sunday night the group, which also includes Nobel prizewinner Professor Peter Doherty, hit out at the development plans, which will be debated in State Parliament this week.

The letter, titled Privatising Our National Parks - A Betrayal of Public Trust, says allowing tourism development is risky, deprives Victorians of their public land and is not in keeping with the environmental values of national parks.

The state government is opening up two-thirds of national park land for ''nature-based'' tourism development - including low-rise hotels, restaurants and jetties - and has called for potential developers to come forward. Under the changes, the government will grant leases in parks such as Wilsons Promontory and the Grampians to private companies for up to 99 years. Projects will need approval from the environment minister before they go ahead.

''In reality, a 99-year lease transfers ownership of a public asset, something we all own and can share, to a private benefit enjoyed by a privileged few,'' the letter says.

Also among the 21 signatories are former Australian of the Year Sir Gustav Nossal, retired Family Court judge John Fogarty, and founder of SANE Australia Dr Margaret Leggatt. The group points to the troubled tourism project at Seal Rocks on Phillip Island in the 2000s - which resulted in the state government being sued, costing taxpayers $55 million - as an example of what could go wrong.

''Low-risk, attractive development could be encouraged in outstanding locations just outside our national parks,'' the letter says.

Another signatory, RMIT Professor Michael Buxton, said national parks were more crucial than ever in conserving biological diversity and landscapes.

''But on a broader level what worries me is this is part of a systematic destruction of the conservation state and environmental policy by this government,'' Professor Buxton said.

Logging parks would be a disaster for wildlife and habitat

Letters to Editor
Sydney Morning Herald, May 14, 2013

I am appalled our national parks could be opened to commercial logging (''Logging looms in national parks'', May 13). It is ridiculous to propose swapping the old-growth, diverse forests in national parks for heavily exploited state forests. This will lead to a loss of wildlife and irreplaceable habitat.

Using land for forestry does not provide the same conservation benefits as managing land for conservation in the national park system.

The Premier must make a stand against the Shooters and Fishers Party and categorically rule out plans to log our national parks.

Robbie Bentley St Peters

I have seen small, rural communities sacrificed on the altar of city votes as their industries were closed down; forests that had been managed for over 100 years touted as ''virgin'' and marked ''must be preserved in parks'' and a succession of state politicians declaring more land tied up; maybe, just maybe, someone will take a rational look at the expansion of our national park system.

The Murray River red gum forests were the most recent sacrifice, just before our marvellously conservation-minded (and mining-devoted) Labor government went to the polls. Those forests had only been managed and had multiple usage for about 150 years, so saving them in a park was vital.

Why, on the South Coast the koalas keep turning up in state forests that have been managed for multiple uses for more than 100 years so now those areas desperately need to be locked up in parks. Forget their productive history.

Of course, declaring a national park is different to funding the national park service adequately to manage the massive areas of resources. The parks make do with insufficient resources and cop heaps of criticism from neighbours etc. Mere detail.

Nothing will come of this upper house inquiry though; there are no votes in the bush.

Terry Beath Wollongong

I can see the headline now: ''Logger shot by feral-animal hunter.''

David Sayers Gwandalan

So now Robert Brown wants logging permitted in national parks and proposes a compromise tenure swap between state forests and national parks. A better idea is to continue the logging ban and allow the Shooters and Fishers people into national parks - but only with their fishing rods together with the appropriate licence.

Peter Bennett Nelson Bay

When Bob Carr came to government he commandeered large tracts of native forest, which were sustainably managed to supply timber for domestic consumption and export, to create new national parks. He locked the loggers out and replaced foresters with park rangers.

In the meantime, the greenies looked at the remaining native forests as they thrived under expert care and, when they reached about 40 years of age, they started claiming the loggers were harvesting old-growth forest. Bob Carr locked up yet more native forest. It's time for a more balanced approach to native forest management in NSW.

Cherylle Stone Soldiers Point

I was under the impression the existence of national parks was for the conservation of nature for future generations.

How exactly does shooting by recreational hunters and logging fit into this concept?

Sarah Benmayor Bondi

When there's a downturn in jobs in the construction industry, I suppose we could knock down the Opera House and build something new.

Dominic Toomey Hunters Hill

Of course, the Shooters' proposal makes perfect sense. Without those pesky trees in the way, the risk of bushwalkers getting shot by recreational hunters will be much reduced. It is win-win!

Anne Cooper Earlwood

Logging looms in national parks

Sean Nicholls, Sydney Morning Herald State Political Editor
Sydney Morning Herald, May 13, 2013

Logging would be allowed in NSW national parks and a freeze imposed on the declaration of new conservation areas under recommendations of a state government-dominated parliamentary inquiry.

An upper house committee into land use chaired by the Shooters and Fishers Party MP Robert Brown has made the recommendations in a draft report, obtained by Fairfax Media.

The report says the government should ''immediately'' consider opening national parks and other reserved areas for logging to ensure the viability of the timber industry.

The report urges the government to consider the possibility of a ''tenure swap'' between national parks and state forests, meaning sections of parks would be opened for logging and state forests, which are already subject to logging in NSW, would be reserved in return.

Asked about the report, the government said it did not support commercial logging in national parks and had ''no plans'' to introduce it.

But a committee member, Greens MP Cate Faehrmann, has branded the inquiry a ''kangaroo court'' and said the government could not be trusted to rule against its recommendations.

''Barry O'Farrell said he had 'no plan' to let shooters into national parks before the last election. Now we've got shooters in national parks,'' Ms Faehrmann said.

''The Premier needs to rein in his cowboys in the NSW upper house who are intent on trashing our natural heritage for their own political interests.''

Environment Minister Robyn Parker said in a statement: ''The NSW government does not support commercial logging in national parks and has no plans to allow it. Once the committee's report is finalised and tabled in Parliament, the government will respond in the usual fashion.''

Members of the committee travelled throughout NSW to speak to representatives of the logging industry, farmers and conservationists.

Their draft report says a key question for the inquiry was whether national parks provided ''the best means of conservation and, if so, whether they are indeed fulfilling the conservation objectives they were designed to meet''.

It says the committee concluded that ''reservation is not the only means to protect biodiversity'' and highlights concerns about the economic and social impacts of converting land to national parks.
''Important industries, such as the timber industry, suffered, communities are now struggling and calls are being made to reconsider the reservation of land as national park estate,'' it says.

The timber industry argues that land historically available for logging before being reserved as national park or a conservation area should be reopened to increase wood supply. The committee was ''sympathetic to this cause'' and recommends the government ''identify appropriate reserved areas for release to meet the level of wood supply needed to sustain the timber industry''.

The report highlights the need for action in the Pilliga region and presents a case study of the river red gum forests in the southern Riverina that were mostly given national park protection in 2010 by the former Labor government.

The committee heard the decision reduced timber volume from 60,000 cubic metres of sawlog to 10,000. This had reduced the number of timber supply mills from 20 to two and led to job losses.
The report appears to question the science of national park creation by placing inverted commas around the word science.

It recommends a moratorium on the creation of new national parks while an independent review is conducted into the management of all public lands.
Last year the government froze the creation of marine parks while the science behind them was reviewed, after recommendations of a committee chaired by Mr Brown.

Newman Government plan to open national park areas to logging and grazing

Koren Helbig 

The Courier-Mail, July 19, 2012

NEWLY allocated national parks could be reopened to commercial logging and grazing under controversial Newman Government plans to revive the state's struggling agricultural industries.

Protected tracts of native state forest could also be handed back to loggers, ditching conservation agreements that have stood for up to 13 years.

National Parks Minister Steve Dickson accused the Bligh government of locking up vast areas that had little preservation value, including former cattle stations.

But Mr Dickson promised pristine and long-protected national parks would continue to be safeguarded.

Mr Dickson told The Courier-Mail about 875,000ha of state forest and former cattle stations recently gazetted as national parks were likely to be the first to be rescinded.

"What we are doing is an absolute scientific review of all the land we've got," he said.

"If it's pristine land that should be in national parks, I'm going to keep it because you don't take away what needs to be preserved for ever more."

Mr Dickson said much of the land that would be released had previously been logged, mined or grazed. He named four former cattle stations that could come under the plan, all in north Queensland.

Conservationists warned that releasing land would rekindle the 1990s "forest wars" and counter an international shift towards conservation.

But Forestry Minister John McVeigh accused the ALP of failing to maintain its vast land reserves and said forests were now riddled with pests and weeds, posing a bushfire threat.

He said about 200,000ha of native state forest quarantined as reserves under long-held conservation agreements could also potentially be reopened to logging.

The Government would first look to renew state forest access agreements, due to expire within two years, to cypress millers in southern and central Queensland.

Tracts of land considered to be of "low-conservation value" within the western hardwoods region and areas protected under the 1999 South East Queensland Forests Agreement would then be targeted.

Australian Rainforest Conservation Society president Aila Keto, who played a key role in setting up the SEQ agreement, said studies showed native wood stocks were insufficient to meet logging demand.

"The only way that the industry was able to keep going was to keep going to smaller and smaller trees," she said.

"Which means that the industry was essentially destroying the ecological integrity of those forests and the wildlife that depends on them."

Timber Queensland CEO Rod McInnes said the industry did not want to rush "open slather" back into natural forests but some areas had been wrongly quarantined by the former Beattie government.

"We don't clear floor forests, we selectively log about two logs for an area the size of Suncorp Stadium once every couple of years so it's a very light impact," he said.

But Mr McInnes warned the change would not be a panacea for a struggling timber industry battling strong international competition, and local mills could be sidestepped if Hancock Plantations Queensland, which bought out the state-owned Forestry Plantations under the Bligh government's 2010 asset sales, sent timber to China for processing.

A major plan released last Friday shows that mapping the timber industry's future and restoring beekeeper access to native forests are among the Government's key actions for the six months ahead.

AgForce last night welcomed moves to reopen former grazing land to cattle but Wilderness Society campaign manager Tim Seelig said that declassifying designated national parks was "an outrageous act".

Support the supporters

Simon Birrell, Victorian Rainforest Network
The Age (letter), 10 October 2010

On October 1, I went to East Gippsland with former forest activists to see Environment Minister Gavin Jennings proclaim the protection of high conservation forest areas in East Gippsland. These forests included Goolengook, Yalmy and Dingo Creek. It was a great day for the thousands of people who worked very hard for well over a decade to finally see important rainforest and old-growth forest protected.

The sacrifices to achieve this have been huge. Between 1997 and 2002, about 250 people were arrested trying to stop clearfell logging at Goolengook. A bitter court case was successfully fought by a few individual activists to prove logging at Dingo Creek was unlawful. For the thousands of people who made a stand for the forests in East Gippsland, I say very well done.

However, some peak conservation groups are unhappy, as they want to see a total ban on all native forest logging. The Wilderness Society described the protection as ''a very good step'' but at the same time belittled the significance of the outcome with dubious arguments.

For example, the Wilderness Society claims a cow paddock has been protected. This is in reference to a field a bit bigger than just a few hectares included within the 45,000 hectares the state government has now added to the existing East Gippsland reserves. So what? Maybe a good location to have a picnic and kick a football?

The Wilderness Society also falsely claims that the forest within ''special protection zones'' is safe from logging. These informal reserves have no legal protection. They can be unlocked for logging based on a recommendation from the minister of the day. A review of the informal reserve system in East Gippsland is occurring right now. The loggers want more of the zones unlocked for logging and they have support from the Coalition to do just that.

It was also disappointing to hear MP Greg Barber, on behalf of the Victorian Greens, declare in Parliament that the legislation to protect Goolengook and Dingo Creek is nothing more than a broken promise. In his half-hour parliamentary speech last December, Mr Barber made no reference to the huge personal effort made by thousands of people to protect these areas. It would be nice if the Greens, every now and then, could give credit and recognition where it is due.

Parks with pleasure

John Fraser, Downer, ACT

The Age (letter), 5 October 2010

Last Friday the state government declared a set of national park extensions in East Gippsland. The inclusion of Goolengook is particularly welcome after a 15-year campaign for its protection that included a five-year forest blockade.

Also welcome is the inclusion of a link between the Errinundra and Snowy River national parks. It's a relief to see a national park created with the aim of linking areas, rather than another set of tiny islands of protected forest that won't survive long term.

Credit is also due to the main groups that provided support to this campaign, namely the Goongerah Environment Centre, Friends of the Earth Forest Network and its successors, and the Victorian Rainforest Network.

As always, not everything we hoped for was included. Like many, I grieve for the huge areas on the Errinundra Plateau that have already been logged, and the parts of Goolengook logged in 1997 and 2002. But given the impossibility of changing the past, Gavin Jennings has made a wise decision. I thank him for it.

Uneasy truce carved from log wars

Maris Beck
The Age, (article), October 3, 2010

East Gippsland Tree and Tama Green

Tama Green, a protester in the Goolengook logging dispute, admires a mighty eucalypt. Photo: Ken Irwin (right)

AT 5am the loggers would roll in. The activists were ready: locked to bulldozers, lying on platforms in the giant trees, waiting for the headlights, deep in the Goolengook forest in East Gippsland.

"The adrenalin!'' recalled protest leader Stuart Paton, who lived in the forest for five long years. "It was kind of like a war mentality.''

Another activist, Tama Green, said that offsetting the hardships were the sunny days, good friends and small wins that kept them going. Ms Green remembers mornings waking up: ''It's all crisp and clear and the birds are singing … and you're like, 'Yep, they can't log this.' ''

The decades-long struggle over the Goolengook, which raged between environmentalists, the state government and loggers, culminated on Friday in a kind of coming together.

On one of those dazzlingly crisp days, Environment Minister Gavin Jennings, surrounded by former protesters and traditional owners - but no loggers - officially launched the new East Gippsland National Park.

The park covers 45,000 hectares, including the contested Goolengook that is home to 400-year-old trees and rare and threatened species such as the long-footed potoroo, spot-tailed quoll, powerful owl and slender tree fern.

Traditional owner Aunty Rachel Mullett thought the park declaration would never happen.

''You talk about it and think about it and it never happens,'' she said. "Today has blown us away a little bit.''

Mr Jennings said the government had threaded "the eye of a needle" in balancing the interests of loggers and environmentalists.

But, of course, compromise also means everyone is left a little unhappy. The government estimates 63 per cent of the new park is old-growth forest; the Wilderness Society claims it is only 33 per cent.

Forest campaigner Luke Chamberlain of the Wilderness Society said the park was "a very good step in the right direction". But many areas included in the park had already been logged, other areas were already protected from logging as "special protection zones", and the reserved land included a cow paddock.

Mr Jennings said the so-called paddock was ''a meadow of rare and endangered vegetation that has high conservation value''.

He also said national park status was more permanent than special protection zones and suggested that activists were remaining critical as a tactic so that they could lobby for more areas to be protected.

The government has promised the logging industry that the East Gippsland park will not mean a loss of timber resources or jobs, with Mr Jennings claiming the area is "not necessarily that great for logging" - but loggers beg to differ.

Victorian Association of Forest Industries chief executive Philip Dalidakis said it was "environmental hypocrisy" that society demanded parks but was not willing to cut its consumption of paper and wood.

He said that as the timber industry was pushed out of Victoria, it went overseas to countries with far fewer regulatory controls.

"I'm not sure that jumping up and down celebrating a reserve in Victoria benefits the orang-utans in Indonesia."

A co-ordinator at Timber Communities Australia, Trevor Brown, was sceptical about the promise of no job losses. He said the park area was valuable for saw logs and pulpwood, "the eye fillet and the mince meat" of the timber business. "It is just another kick in the guts for the industry."

Mr Brown said the Gippsland activists had endangered loggers' lives for years and stopped them from earning a lawful living.

But that was all history now. "I think you can only look forward to the future and hope there is one," he said.

On that point, the environmentalists and loggers agree.

Government recycles announcements and logged forest

Jill Redwood, Environment East Gippsland
Media release, Friday 1st October 2010

For at least the third time, the Government today announced the new additions to the reserve system in East Gippsland. The ALP’s 2006 election promise was to protect ‘the last significant stands of old growth planned for logging’.

But environment groups say that most of what has been protected was either in existing protection zones, had already been logged or was degraded forest unwanted for logs or woodchips anyway.

“We’re pleased some areas of old growth have been put into National Park, but they account for only about one quarter to a third of what the state government is claiming has been saved from logging”, said Jill Redwood from Environment East Gippsland.

“The government is to be praised on its clever recycling of protected zones back into protected zones, and logged forest into National Park. It’s mostly been a creative game of swaps.”

“However the protection of Yalmy’s forests and Goolengook’s magnificent old growth and rainforest is very welcome, despite Goolengook’s heart having been logged out.”

“The areas have taken four years to be finalised, while DSE accommodated the logging industry’s demands over this election promise. Meanwhile thousands of hectares of old growth and mature forests were clearfelled in the interim. Like an extinct species, they will never return.”

“This includes forests at Brown Mountain, which had recognised old growth values and supported endangered wildlife. If the government didn’t consider Brown Mountain ‘significant old growth’ it shows how many other equally magnificent forests have been condemned to clearfelling.”

“The new parks announcement today is at least a start.

For comment: Jill Redwood 03 5154 0145

Jill Redwood

Coordinator
Environment East Gippsland Inc
(6800 Bonang Rd Goongerah)
Locked Bag 3
ORBOST Vic 3888

Ph (03) 5154 0145
www.eastgippsland.net.au

ARTICLE: Forest Service chief faces jail over fire retardant study

Matthew Daly, Associated Press Writer
North Lake Tahoe Bonanza, March 2, 2008

Makes no apologies for timber policies.

WASHINGTON (AP) - He overhauled federal forest policy to cut more trees - and became a lightning rod for environmentalists who say he is intent on logging every tree in his reach.

After nearly seven years in office, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey still has a long to-do list. Near the top: Persuade a federal judge to keep him out of jail.

Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist who has directed U.S. forest policy since 2001, also wants to set up state rules making it easier to build roads in remote national forests and to restore overgrown, unhealthy forests by clearing them of small trees and debris that can stoke wildfires. And he wants to streamline cumbersome regulations that can paralyze actions on public lands.

But a Montana judge, accusing Rey of deliberately skirting the law so the Forest Service can keep fighting wildfires with a flame retardant that kills fish, has threatened to put him behind bars.

Judge Donald Molloy says the Forest Service violated federal law when it failed to go through a public process to analyze the potential harm from using ammonium phosphate, a fertilizer that kills fish, as the primary ingredient for retardant dropped on wildfires.

For Rey, who faces a court date today, the prospect of jail time is daunting.

"It is something we take seriously," he said. "We are doing everything we can to comply with the judge's order."

But it's just one more obstacle as he attempts to rid federal policies of pesky paperwork and endless litigation that slows forest managers from cutting down trees.

Rey's signature accomplishment - passage of the 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act - quickened approval of projects to thin overgrown forests so they can be completed within months rather than years.

The law, the first major change in forest management in a quarter-century, has helped restore healthy forests after decades of neglect and mismanagement, supporters say.

"We are now treating four times as many acres as we did when this administration came into office," Rey said in an interview, "and those treatments are showing the desired effect."

Devastating wildfires in California last fall on about 800 square miles killed 10 people and burned about 2,200 homes - half the number of homes destroyed in similar fires in 2003, Rey said.

Rey's critics say talk of "treatment" and "thinning" is code for Rey's real goal: cutting more trees in service of his former timber industry cronies.

Article source

MEDIA RELEASE: Latest Victorian forest and water catchment updates

Gavan McFadzean, The Wilderness Society
Created: 26 Oct 2006 | Last updated: 20 Feb 2008


Latest campaign successes:

• The promise of protection of world class stands of old growth forests including Goolengook, and key rainforest and threatened wildlife habitat to existing National Parks in East Gippsland. In total this will add almost 36,000 hectares of forest to the reserve system to be protected under the National Parks Act
• The creation of a Great Victorian Alpine National Park by adding 5,000 hectares to the Errinundra National Park, thus linking the Errinundra, Snowy and Alpine National Parks
• The creation of a Cobboboonee National Park, with 27,000 ha under the National Parks Act, near Portland in the state’s far west, to protect the habitat of the Spotted-tailed Quoll, Southern Brown Bandicoot, Long Nosed Potoroo and Powerful Owl
• A commitment to create new Redgum National Parks if recommended by the Victorian Environment Assessment Council. This should realise the protection of approximately 60,000 hectares of Redgum forests along the Murray and its tributaries

While this is a great result, there is much work to be done to ensure the Brumby government sticks to their promises. Furthermore, large areas of Victoria’s old growth forests and all of our water catchments available for logging were not protected, and it is here that the campaign now turns.

The State Government has committed to undertake further research into the impact that logging has on water supply, given that five of Melbourne’s catchments, supplying over half of our water, are remarkably still available for logging. With a decade of research already done, clearly showing that logging reduces water supplies by up to 50 per cent, we believe the case is irrefutable. Nevertheless we will undertake a campaign around this process to pressure government to end logging in our catchments.

The overwhelming environmental challenge facing us is climate change, and forest protection is a critical part of any climate change action plan. Globally, about 25 per cent of dangerous carbon emissions are caused by land clearing and logging, and last year’s logging in Victoria’s native forests released as much carbon into the atmosphere as a staggering 2.3 million cars for a year. Protecting forests buffers us from dangerous climate change and linking protected forest areas builds resilience into our ecosystems and helps avoid an extinction crisis for our native animals.


For more information, please contact:

Gavan McFadzean
Victorian Campaign Coordinator
Email: gavan.mcfadzean@wilderness.org.au
Mobile: 0414 754 023

Article source

LETTER: Forest of the future

MATT RUCHEL, executive director, Victorian National Parks Association

The Age, 9/9/2007

The draft proposals of the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) will greatly benefit the environmental and economic wellbeing of the Murray River and its communities. Creating national parks along the Murray and its tributaries will preserve around 400 threatened or near-threatened plants and animals, while providing the first Victorian park jointly managed with traditional owners.

National parks in Victoria generate hundreds of millions of dollars every year to regional economies from job creation, visitation and flow-on benefits. Compare this to taxpayer-subsidised logging and grazing of public land along our northern rivers, which represents less than 0.1 per cent of the region's economy.

Department of Sustainability and the Environment figures show that logging is up to 60 per cent over sustainable limits. This logging is occurring in river forests and internationally recognised Ramsar wetlands, which state and federal governments are trying to "save" from lack of water due to over-allocation to irrigation. It makes no sense to log them during the worst drought on record. National parks will not only secure the investment of governments, but also secure these wetlands and the myriad threatened species they support.

A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers found the Grampians National Park contributed more than $171 million to the regional economy and the new red gum forests are likely to do the same over time. Support will of course be needed to help affected logging businesses, and governments must provide adjustment and exit packages.

VEAC is seeking public comments on its proposals, and I would encourage anyone interested in protecting these magnificent wetland forests to go to the VEAC website to put in a submission. Alternatively, go to our website at redgum.org.au and have your say for the future.

LETTER: Save water, thin trees

BOB RICHARDSON, Puckapunyal
The Age, 9/9/2007

The implication in Carmel Egan's article, "Warring parties turn sights on river red gums" (2/9), is that somehow the creation of a national park will deliver water to flood the forest.

Flooding the forest would require water, not national park status. In turn, having sufficient water available for flooding would require a return to a cycle of wetter weather, something that is not in our immediate control. It would also require (among other actions) Premier Brumby to abandon plans to pump Goulburn River water to Melbourne.

In the interim, it is rather obvious that parts of the forest require thinning so that there would be less trees competing for water and nutrients. The thinnings could be used as a renewable energy source — firewood. If the thinning was done commercially, it would not cost the taxpayer.

Creating national parks did not save the hundreds of millions of native animals that died in the fires of 2006-07 and the earlier fires of 2003. It is arguable that the reverse was the case, as national parks are essentially abandoned land.

There is little doubt that the red gum forests will suffer the same fate under a parks regime, as the current parks are neglected and overgrown disasters waiting to happen. More parks will add to our environmental problems. Parks as an environmental measure are a myth.

LETTER: Living with nature – not consuming it

Mick Fendley, director. Victorian National Parks Association
Letter, The Age, 12/1/2002

John Vidal, in an extraordinary piece of sophistry in The Age earlier this month (“Wild lies'', 3/1) set about attacking the establishment of national parks and wilderness areas. He did this behind a cleverly constructed screen of concern for social justice and indigenous rights.

After asserting that there was a ''push' to create ever-expanding wilderness areas (this is arrant nonsense: wild or natural areas all over the world are rare and in rapid retreat) and referring to a plot by the conservation "industry" against indigenous people (the fact that no such 'industry" exists didn't seem to bother the writer; nor did the fact that the vast majority of people working for the conservation of nature are highly respectful and supportive of indigenous cultures). Vidal then launched his main attack: that conservation is ''anti- people”. With foot-stamping petulance he demands to know: ''Who runs flits planet?''

There is a sad alienation in this cry an angry and small voice that feels keenly the expulsion from Eden and will lash out like a vandal at any natural beauty remaining.

Vidal seems to have made the fundamental and primitive error that the only needs of people are consumptive and the only values of the natural world ate the so-called 'use' values (hunting. firewood collection, timber cutting and so forth). He failed entirely to acknowledge that there are whole ranges of values we place on the natural world, many of which do not require direct consumption to give us what we need. Indirect values such as through visitation, vicarious values, bequest values for the next generation and intrinsic values of nature itself are placed on the environment and do not require its destructive consumption.

It is clear Vidal wants us to see nature as a lie, that all natural capital is in fact human capital and thus of ourselves and to be used and exploited as we see fit. This is a far-right-wing development agenda pursued using the clubs of the left.

In Australia, humans have shaped the land for millennia, but the imprint is softer and less obvious than in Europe, where Vidal's article was written. The pulse of wild nature still beats strongly here. Our parks in Victoria and around the world seek to protect and celebrate this, for people and nature. We wish to nurture, but not consume.