Forest waste in the RET is ‘burning votes’

Graham Lloyd
The Australian, May 15, 2015 

Plans to allow burning native forest waste to qualify for renewable energy subsidies under a revamped Renewable Energy Target are proving unpopular with voters in two marginal Coalition seats.

Snap polling conducted by REACHtel for the Wilderness Society on budget night found less than a third of voters supported burning forest waste for power.

The poll in Eden Monaro and Corangamite found voters largely supported a higher Renewable Energy Target than the 33GWh proposed by the federal government but many said they would be less likely to buy electricity from a company that produced it from burning forest waste.

The issue of forest waste for power has been a long-running controversy fuelled by fears that burning forests could become a low-value replacement for woodchipping which has suffered a collapse in world markets.

Under existing legislation, forest waste has a broad definition and can make up more than 80 per cent of the forest harvest.

“This 11th hour inclusion of so-called wood waste in the RET scheme has nothing to do with promoting a transition to renewable energy and everything to do with propping up a native forest logging industry whose economic model is broken,” Wilderness Society national campaign director Lyndon Schneiders said.

“The industry is looking for a replacement for the collapsed native forest woodchip industry and is once again putting its hand out for a new subsidy through the Renewable Energy Scheme,” he said.

Mr Schneiders said polling showed voters in key Liberal marginals did not support the plan.

In Corangamite, only 24.2 per cent of those surveyed said they supported the federal government plan with 50.1 per cent opposed and 25.7 per cent undecided. Among Liberal voters, support for the forest waste plan was 41.2 per cent with 23.4 per cent opposed and 35.4 per cent undecided.

More than 45 per cent of Corangamite voters, including 21.1 per cent of Liberal voters, said they would be less likely to vote for a party that allowed the burning of native forest wood waste as part of the RET.

In Eden Monaro only 29.6 per cent of voters supported the federal government’s plans with 44.6 per cent opposed and 25.8 per cent undecided.

Among Liberal voters support for the forest waste plan was 52.4 per cent with 17.4 per cent ­opposed.

Forty-three per cent of Eden Monaro voters, including 16.7 per cent of Liberal voters, said they would be less likely to vote for a party that allowed for the burning of native forest wood waste as part of the RET.

The federal government reached a compromise target with Labor late last week for the renewable energy target of 33GWh.

However, negotiations have since broken down due to the federal government’s inclusion of forest waste and the retention of two-yearly reviews of the renewable energy target.

Supporters of bio energy claim debate about forest waste has stalled a promising industry for renewable energy.

Victorian farmer and World Bio Energy Association vice-president Andrew Lang said allowing forest waste to qualify for renewable energy “will not result in the outcome so hysterically forecast of ‘forest furnaces’ for the simple reasons of economics and logistics.”

He said to chip and transport the necessary large amounts of forest residues would be too ­expensive.

Tasmanian forest world heritage decision 'will be accepted'

Oliver Millman

The Guardian, 23 June 2016

A United Nations decision on whether to allow the stripping of world heritage protection from swathes of Tasmanian forest will be adhered to, the Australian government has indicated.

Unesco’s World Heritage Committee has gathered in Doha, Qatar to determine its position on, among many other matters, whether to allow the removal of 74,000ha of forest from Tasmania’s world heritage area.

It’s expected that the committee will hand down its decision late on Monday night, Australian time. A draft ruling, following a recommendation by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, states that the boundary change, as requested by the Australian government, should not be permitted.

The Coalition formally requested the world heritage area to be shrunk earlier this year, citing economic benefits from opening up more forestry to logging. The government has argued that 74,000ha of the 170,000ha nominated by the previous Labor administration for world heritage protection is degraded by previous logging and development and should be excised from the area.

But ministers have indicated they will abide by the World Heritage Committee decision, should it confirm it has accepted expert opinion that the current boundary should remain.

A spokesman for Liberal senator Richard Colbeck, who has published a series of photographs showing degraded areas within the 74,000ha, told Guardian Australia the government would respect the Doha ruling.

“The decision will be accepted, whichever way it goes,” said the spokesman for Colbeck, who is the parliamentary secretary to the agriculture minister. “It’s all hypothetical until we hear, but we will move forward with whatever they decide.”

Greg Hunt, the federal environment minister, was less definitive on the issue, telling the ABC that it was “a matter for the Tasmanian government”.

A spokeswoman for the Tasmanian government told Guardian Australia that it would also respect the outcome of the World Heritage Committee meeting.

“We continue to support the federal government in its decision to seek the delisting of 74,000 ha of world heritage area,” she said. “We will accept the umpire’s decision when it is made.”

In its recommendation to the World Heritage Committee, the IUCN stated that the Coalition’s request was “clearly inappropriate” and would "impact negatively on the outstanding universal value of the property" and "reduce integrity of key natural attributes".

The IUCN stated that, contrary to the government’s claim that the area was heavily degraded, 85% of the 74,000ha was natural forest, with 45% old-growth forest. Just 4% could be described as heavily disturbed by logging, roads and other infrastructure, the IUCN report found.

The Greens have called on the government to abandon its map-redrawing exercise, which would trim the protected area which covers much of southwestern Tasmania. Christine Milne, the Greens’ leader, has called the proposal a “demeaning act of environmental vandalism”.

Unesco has confirmed that the proposed boundary change is highly unusual as it comes just a year after the area was assessed to be of world heritage quality.

The world heritage listing was agreed following an agreement between conservationists, loggers and the government, in order to end decades of argument over the use of native forests for timber. The Coalition wants to scrap this agreement, arguing that it was hastily conceived by vested interests and unfairly locked out local communities and the logging industry.

“To assert that pine plantations, roads, high tension wires, eucalypt plantations is worthy world heritage preservation simply does not pass the common sense test,” Liberal senator Eric Abetz told Seven’s Sunrise show on Saturday.

Government stands firm on bid to reduce Tasmanian forest World Heritage listing

Felicity Ogilvie

ABC News 15 May 2014 

The Federal Government is ignoring a Senate inquiry's advice on a World Heritage-listed forest in Tasmania after the inquiry condemned plans to delist the forest.

PHOTO: The World Heritage committee will hand down its draft decision on the Tasmanian forest this week. (Rob Blakers: Supplied)

The extension of Tasmania's World Heritage area is the centrepiece of the so-called forest peace deal.

But the Coalition opposes the deal and say they want the World Heritage committee to reduce the Tasmanian extension by 74,000 hectares.

Greens leader Christine Milne is on the Senate Committee that has told the Government to stop trying to delist the forest.

"If a country like Australia decides that, as a result of a political whim, it can destroy its World Heritage area to facilitate logging, that will send a very clear message to other countries that they can adjust their boundaries for uranium mines or any other kind of mining, logging, tourism, development or whatever they like," she said.

"It would be a real blow to World Heritage globally."

Tasmanian Liberal Senator Richard Colbeck says the Government will push on with its request.

The area contains some plantations and areas that have been previously logged.

Senator Colbeck says it should never have been World Heritage.

"I think the Tasmanian community said at the federal election last September, and again at the state election in March, that they want to have a forest industry, they want to sensibly use our resources in Tasmania, but they also ... value and want to maintain the wilderness World Heritage values of the outstanding area that is the original estate," he said.

"So I think there's an opportunity to have win-win-win all round."

The World Heritage committee will hand down its draft decision this week.

Spokesman for the Tasmanian Special Timbers Alliance Andrew Denman is hoping the area's World Heritage status will be revoked.

Mr Denman builds boats out of specialty wood and he says the forest agreement and subsequent World Heritage listing is putting pressure on timber supplies.

"The TFA (Tasmanian Forest Agreement) has had a terrible impact on especially the timber sector," he said.

"We've seen a massive reduction in supply of timber, in some cases over 90 per cent for some species.

"We've also seen a doubling and sometimes a tripling of the resource price as well, all because of a political agreement to restrict access to a sustainable resource.

"So if the World Heritage committee decides not to approve the Federal Government's request to remove 74,000 hectares, obviously that 15,600 hectares of specialty timber area that could possibly be accessed will not be available and that will have an impact on industry."

Vica Bayley from the Wilderness Society is one of the environmentalists who negotiated the forest agreement and he wants to keep the World Heritage extension intact.

"The industry has restructured and, similarly, the specialty timber sector needs to readjust and accept that fact," he said.

"There are plenty of specialty timber operators and specialty timber workers that are saying, keep this World Heritage list, keep the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, and let's work with what we have."

Environmentalists have already been back into the forests protesting against the World Heritage delisting.

Mr Bayley says delisting of the World Heritage forest will spark more protests.

"If these World Heritage listed forests are indeed delisted and they are indeed logged, clearly people will continue to stand up for their protection," he said.

"Not only here in Tasmania, but across Australia and around the world. And, that's not only people that care about the forests; that's people that care about markets and where they get their wood from."

Environmentalists will travel to Doha next month to lobby the World Heritage committee when it makes its final decision on Tasmania's forests.

PM Tony Abbott hopes for 'renaissance of forestry' following Liberal election victory in Tasmania

ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 17 March 2014

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has reaffirmed his commitment to seek to remove 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian forest from the World Heritage List as part of a "renaissance of forestry" in the state.

The newly-elected Liberal Government in Tasmania, led by Premier-elect Will Hodgman, has promised to rip up the state's Forestry Agreement as well as re-open listed forests to logging.

Under the Tasmanian peace deal, 170,000 hectares of forest was added to the World Heritage area.

Mr Abbott says the Federal Government is committed to growing the forestry industry in the state.

"We want to see a renaissance of forestry in Tasmania," he said.

"Will Hodgman wants to see a renaissance of forestry in Tasmania and we'll work very constructively with the new state government to try to make that happen."

The Prime Minister declared earlier this month that too many of Australia's forests are "locked up".

He has vowed to set up a new advisory council to support the timber industry.

"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 told a timber industry dinner in Canberra earlier this month.

The Federal Government argues part of the land locked up in Tasmania's World Heritage area has already been partially logged or degraded and it should be opened up to the forestry industry.

Liberals post best-ever Tas results

Tasmania's Liberals posted their best-ever election result on Saturday night, claiming at least 14 of the 25 seats on offer on the back of a 12 per cent swing.

It ends Mr Hodgman's reign as the country's longest-serving opposition leader.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten believes state Labor's power-sharing deal with the Greens cost the party at the ballot box.

After 16 years in power Labor suffered its worst result in six decades, winning 27 per cent of the vote and just six seats.

Premier Lara Giddings dumped the Greens from Cabinet shortly before announcing the election date.

Mr Shorten says the years in partnership were not good for the Labor brand.

"In Tasmania the Labor government had been in for 16 years that's a very long time and there's no doubt that Labor having an agreement [with the Greens] was marked down by Tasmanian voters," he said.

Meanwhile, the state's electoral commission has revealed 163 postal votes were destroyed after they were irreparably damaged by a letter-opening machine.

More than 2,300 ballot papers for the Hobart-based seat of Denison were damaged during preparation for the count on Saturday evening.

The Tasmanian Electoral Commission (TEC) said 2,175 ballot papers were repaired but 163 were damaged so badly they had to be counted as informal.

The incident has been blamed on the machine not being used properly and poor quality control.

State Electoral Commissioner Julian Type said it was not likely to impact the result.

Goodies and baddies lost in Tasmanian logjam, PM Tony Abbott will find

Richard Denniss

The Canberra Times, March 15, 2014

Fairytales of the forest could have an unhappy ending for Tasmania's jobless, as the Prime Minister will soon learn.

According to Tony Abbott, loggers are "the ultimate conservationists". Seriously. Photo: Steven Siewert

Tony Abbott recently described the people who take the chainsaws to Tasmania's native forests as ''the ultimate conservationists''.

Seriously. In his speech to the 2014 Forestworks Dinner, the Prime Minister claimed that because the loggers' future income depends on the availability of trees, they - and not the derided greenies - are the true custodians of our wilderness.

By that logic, the men who fire explosive-tipped harpoons into whales in the Southern Ocean would fit the Abbott definition of ''real conservationists''. Indeed, any self-respecting rhino poacher in Africa must surely see themselves as a far-sighted conservationist.

But the illogic of the Prime Minister's speech didn't stop there. Having defined the native forest loggers as the real conservationists, Mr Abbott went on to explain that his government's determination to remove 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian forest from the World Heritage Listing was based on the fact the areas were no longer ''pristine'' because, wait for it, some of them have been previously logged.

It seems that whoever wrote the first part of the speech didn't bother to talk to whoever wrote the second part, and in turn that the Prime Minister didn't read it before he gave it. Surely a Rhodes Scholar would have picked up a howler like that?

Or perhaps not. Maybe in the modern political world the debate moves so fast that facts and consistency are not as important as headlines and campaign bunting.

But even if the modern political speech is nothing more than a sound-grab looking for a photo opportunity, Mr Abbott's recent effort deserves closer scrutiny. It may well be the silliest speech given by a prime minister in recent years, but it certainly tells us a lot about his world view and the kind of decisions he is likely to make.

As with his approach to foreign policy, this speech assures us the Prime Minister sees economic debates in terms of ''goodies'' and ''baddies'' as well.

When it comes to Tasmania's forests, the ''goodies''' in this speech were obviously the ''ultimate conservationists'' - also known as the loggers. And the ''baddies'' in the story were the environmentalists who want to ''lock up the forests''.

The baddies, we are told, want to ''ban men and women from enjoying'' the environment, while of the goodies, Mr Abbott says, ''you intelligently make the most of the good things that God has given us''. By that he presumably means knocking down trees with bulldozers and dropping napalm from helicopters on what's left behind.

Having introduced the heroes and villains of his story, the Prime Minister's speech turns to the ''great quest''. Along with our heroes the loggers, Mr Abbott simply wants to create jobs and prosperity for the people of Tasmania. But to succeed in this mission, he must first vanquish the villains who have been holding Tasmania's jobs captive in their World Heritage-listed forests. ''We want the timber industry to be a vital part of Australia's economic future,'' he told the loggers.

But this is where the fairytale and economic reality begin to diverge. While there is no doubt Mr Abbott and the loggers want the logging industry to grow, the problem is the overseas customers don't. The world is buying less timber as more high-rise housing is built from concrete and steel, and when the world does buy timber it prefers softwood such as pine rather than the hardwoods found in Tasmania's magnificent forests, and when the world's consumers do want hardwood they prefer it to come from plantations rather than native forests.

The car industry is leaving Australia because the world doesn't want to buy the kind of cars we like to make and because overseas consumers can get the cars they do like from cheaper places than Australia.

While Mr Abbott has said no government ever subsidised their way to prosperity, and Treasurer Joe Hockey has said he wants to end the age of entitlement, the Coalition government seems determined to prop up the Tasmanian native forest loggers while waving a cheerful farewell to the car industry.

Over the past 25 years, the loggers have received more than $750 million to ease the pain associated with the fact the world doesn't want to buy their product any more.

When digital cameras replaced film cameras, the photo development labs didn't get a cent. But despite the fact the loggers' falling fortunes have been softened by an enormous mattress made of taxpayer cash, the Coalition is now painting the loggers as the victims.

While the brave loggers battling against the evil greenies may well make for the kind of simple story political strategists love these days, such stories do nothing to help the 19,000 unemployed people in Tasmania. Given that native forest logging employs only about 1 per cent of Tasmanians, it should come as no surprise the vast majority of Tasmania's jobless have never, and will never, work in the native forest logging industry.

While in the vacuum of modern political debate being ''anti-environmentalist'' means you must be ''pro-jobs'', the reality of the Tasmanian state economy is that 99 per cent of the population are not employed in native forest logging. Even if the Prime Minister's strategically selected sound bites combined with another truckload of taxpayer cash managed to double the size of the native forest logging industry, it would still be a tiny employer.

Indeed, even at twice its current size, native forest logging would still be dwarfed by the tourism industry, and Tasmania's unemployment rate would still be the highest in the country. Tasmania used to be the hub of whaling on the east coast of Australia. Men with saws once cut enormous trees and sold Australia the wood we once wanted. But, as with whale oil, the Australian public doesn't want to buy native forest hardwood any more. If they want hardwood, it's cheaper and better for the environment to get it from plantations. And when the world's paper mills want woodchips, they prefer the cheaper plantation product too.

There is nothing to stop the Prime Minister telling himself, or the public, fairytales about goodies and baddies and the quest to find jobs in magical forests. But there is no chance such stories will solve Tasmania's problems. Mr Abbott promised to create a million new jobs before the last election, and so far he is lagging badly. Speeches such as last week's might gee up the troops and shift the blame, but they do nothing to solve the underlying problems.

Dr Richard Denniss is executive director of the Australia Institute, a Canberra-based think tank, www.tai.org.au

Tasmania's World Heritage Area: World Heritage Committee advisor raises concerns over plan to reduce protected area

Jake Sturmer, environment reporter
ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), Thu 13 Mar 2014

Senator Colbeck has published photographs he says show recent harvesting in some of the extended world heritage listed areas

PHOTO: The Coalition Government vowed to reduce the World Heritage area as part of an election commitment.

A key advisor to the World Heritage Committee has flagged concerns with the Federal Government's plan to delist 74,000 hectares of Tasmania's World Heritage Area.

In 2013, the committee approved an extension to the area, adding about 172,000 hectares to take the total protected area to about 1.6 million hectares.

The Federal Government vowed to reduce the area to help Tasmania's economy as part of an election commitment.

As part of the World Heritage Area boundary change, areas of the Southern Forests, the Styx and the Florentine were given protection.

The Government has said areas of genuine high conservation value are not part of the delisting plan, including tall forests in the Great Western Tiers.

A Senate inquiry is investigating the issue and in a submission, the Australian arm of the International Council on Monuments and Sites said it believed allowing the reduction in the area would likely reduce the credibility of the World Heritage listing.

The council is one of three advisory bodies for the World Heritage Committee and provides evaluations of cultural and mixed properties proposed for inscription on the World Heritage List.

"We are alarmed that this proposal ... fails to respect that due process was followed by the World Heritage Committee and that Outstanding Universal Value has been established as a prerequisite for the decision to support the 2013 Boundary Modification," the submission said.

We hence query how the Australian Government states it believes the excision of identified areas from the property will enhance the credibility of the World Heritage Listing.
International Council on Monuments and Sites submission
"We hence query how the Australian Government states it believes the excision of identified areas from the property will enhance the credibility of the World Heritage Listing.

"The opposite seems more likely."

The council's submission said it was too early to suggest any changes to the boundaries.

"As the Australian Government is to submit a progress report on this assessment of cultural values ... in 2015, it is premature to be proposing any modification before that time," it said.

"The evaluation of cultural values is a priority and no boundary modifications should be considered until that report is provided."

What do you think about the plans to delist part of Tasmania's World Heritage Area? Have your say
In its submission, the Institute of Foresters of Australia said the World Heritage Committee made its 2013 decision based on a flawed assessment from the previous federal government.

"The process and conclusions were in fact a hasty and superficial analysis of conservation values where no peer review was undertaken," it said.

"Many claims and conclusions were based on limited information.

"These claims were open to scientific interpretation and, in many situations, have been shown to be in error."

The IFA said it supported a reassessment of the 2013 decision.

'Degraded' forests detract from World Heritage Area: Hunt

Environment Minister Greg Hunt last month said he supported most of the 2013 extensions to the World Heritage area, but that large parts had already been logged.

Mr Hunt said the area was added amidst "enormous local controversy" and was against the wishes of some in the community.

"What has been put to the committee for reconsideration is 117 degraded or logged areas, so these were areas that many people feel should never have been added because they significantly detract from what is one of the great World Heritage Areas," he said at the time.

Mr Hunt has been contacted for comment.

Tasmania's forest peace deal was designed to end decades of conflict.

Under the deal, environment groups are supporting the timber industry in exchange for old growth forests being protected in the 172,000 hectare boundary extension.

Tasmania's Liberal leader Will Hodgman has said he will tear up the agreement if he wins office in Saturday's election.

Abbott's address triggers 'unprecedented' move by WCPA

Meanwhile 114 members of the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) have written to the Prime Minister, criticising his comments that Australia had "enough national parks".

Tony Abbott told a timber industry dinner this month that too many of Australia's forests are "locked up".

The WCPA's vice chair Marc Hockings says those remarks triggered serious concerns among its members, prompting the commission to take the "unprecedented" step.

"This was really the most recent in what we see as a large number of examples where governments around Australia have been stepping back from a commitment to national parks and protected areas," he said.

"Even though WCPA is very much a non-political organisation, we needed to stand up and strongly make the point that national parks and protected areas are really important for our society."

The WCPA is a body of experts that advises governments and organisations around the world on conservation issues.

Lawyers, scientists and conservationists were among 114 Oceania members to sign the letter.

The commission is part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is also one of the key advisors for the World Heritage Committee.

But Professor Hockings says they are completely disconnected from the committee's upcoming decision about the Tasmanian forests or Great Barrier Reef.

"The decisions and recommendations of IUCN that will go to the World Heritage Committee meeting are not prepared by the Australian members of IUCN," he said.

"But I think that's another example of the way in which we've seen the retreat from a commitment to protected areas."

The Prime Minister's office has been contacted for comment.

Do you know more about this? Email investigations@abc.net.au

And another thing, The environment

The Age, 7/3/14

Tony Abbott was going to plant trees to combat climate change. Now he threatens them by his cavalier attitude to our national parks. The ''green army'' will face confusion.
Jean Tansey, Berwick

I think it is time we sent Mr Abbott the Dr Seuss book The Lorax.
Bob Greaves, Mount Eliza

Next Mr Abbott will be telling us the Japanese whalers are the ''ultimate conservationists''.
Annie Wilson, Inverloch

Tony Abbott says too much Tasmanian forest 'locked up', forms new council to support timber industry

ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 5 March 2014

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has declared that too many of Australia's forests are "locked up" and vowed to set up a new advisory council to support the timber industry.

Speaking at a timber industry dinner in Canberra last night, Mr Abbott also recommitted to repealing part of Tasmania's Wilderness World Heritage Area made under the forest peace deal.

His comments have prompted anger from the Greens, who have labelled him the "dig it up, cut it down Prime Minister".

Under the Tasmanian peace deal, 170,000 hectares of forest was added to the World Heritage area.

The Government has formally asked the World Heritage Committee to delist 74,000 hectares - a position Mr Abbott reaffirmed last night.

"We don't support, as a Government and as a Coalition, further lock-ups of our forests. We just don't support it," 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.

"Why should we lock up as some sort of World Heritage sanctuary country that has been logged, degraded or planted for timber?

"Getting that 74,000 hectares out of World Heritage Listing, it's still going to leave half of Tasmania protected forever, but that will be an important sign to you, to Tasmanians, to the world, that we support the timber industry."

Do you think Australia has enough national parks and protected forests? Have your say.
Mr Abbott told the dinner that Tasmania's forest workers have a friend in Canberra.

"When 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 vandals; I see people who are the ultimate conservationists," he said.

"And I want to 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."

Greens condemn 'massive assault on the environment'

But Greens leader Christine Milne says the Prime Minister's words send a clear message to the world "that Australia does not value its world heritage areas or its national parks".

"People are going to be pretty upset that Tony Abbott is mounting this massive assault on the environment," she said.

Any move to repeal the World Heritage classification on Tasmanian forests would ultimately prove destructive to the state's logging industry, she added.

"Tony Abbott has got it so wrong. The logging industry was on its knees in Tasmania because around the world nobody wants to buy timber products that come from old growth forest," she said.

"There's now a high level of recognition that we need to be protecting the last of our primary forests around the world."

VIDEO: Abbott a 'dig it up, cut it down' prime minister, says Greens (ABC News)
Senator Milne said a recent "peace deal" with Tasmania's conservation movement had given loggers "some chance of a future in the plantations", but that Mr Abbott had threatened to "send Tasmania back to decades of conflict".

"What he'll actually do is destroy the forest industry, not to mention Tasmania's clean, green and clever brand which is our main asset and that comes from our World Heritage area," she said.

Mr Abbott also used his address criticised the Tasmanian Greens for everything from the state's ailing economy to its poor educational outcomes.

"We all know Tasmania has the lowest wages in Australia, it has the lowest GDP per head, it's got the lowest life expectancy, it's got the lowest educational retainment in the country and it's got the highest unemployment, and funnily enough for the last eight years it has had a government in large measure dominated by the Greens," he said.

While appointments to the new Forestry Advisory Council are still being finalised, Institute of Foresters national director Rob De Fegely has been named as co-chair.

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.

Tony Abbott is wrong - Australia’s forest protection more important in age of climate change

Media Release
5.3.2014

Australia’s forest advocacy groups have responded to Prime Minister Tony Abbott's attack on forests and praise for the industry that destroys them.  Many of Australia’s forest conservation groups have been working to have the remaining forests and the wildlife within them protected over the decades.

WA Forest Alliance spokesperson Jess Beckerling said, “Fancy thinking that loggers, who are clearfelling ancient ecosystems at taxpayers’ expense, are the ‘ultimate conservationists’. It goes to show that the Prime Minister has no idea what protection of Australia’s most precious places even means. Tony Abbott is running a shameless attack against the places we love; our forests, marine parks, the Great Barrier Reef. It's no wonder we're seeing a resurgence of peaceful direct action around the country."

Peg Putt, CEO of Markets For Change, said, "The Prime Minister's determination to log precious native forests when it is documented to be ecologically unsustainable jeopardises the markets of the forest industry which these days demand high environmental credentials in the wood products they sell."

"He would assist the industry into a viable future more effectively and create more secure jobs if he supported utilising existing plantations for value added product and took the pressure off nature, Peg Putt said.

"Converting the ailing woodchipping export trade into industrial scale incineration of forests to produce electricity is a plan that will harm the climate and horrify consumers," Peg Putt said.

Jill Redwood from Environment East Gippsland said, “Just as the latest CSIRO report shows Australia’s extreme weather is set to get worse and become the norm, our PM is advocating the further clearfelling and logging of natural forests in order to keep a failing native forest industry struggling against the tide.”

“If there was an international court to try the world’s worst environmental criminals Tony Abbott would be in the dock! He is an appalling/embarrassing example as the leader of a developed nation, at a time when the world’s natural environments are all under extreme stress,” Jill Redwood said.

“Forests are critical in the fight to moderate our climate. There are plantations enough ready to process right now into sawn timber as well as woodchips for paper, without the need to cut down one more stick of native forest” said Jill Redwood.

Tim Gentles from Goongerah Environment Centre said, "The Abbott government has shown themselves to be dangerously irrational when it comes to the economic and environmental reality of native forest logging. Tony Abbott appears happy to undo the protection of our loved and iconic forests whilst allowing millions of taxpayer dollars to disappear for the benefit of offshore companies like Ta Ann and Nippon Paper."

Harriett Swift spokesperson for South East Region Conservation Alliance said, “At a time when the national government should be looking at protecting native forests as an affordable way of combating climate change, Mr Abbott is declaring war on them.  Mr Abbott has made it blindingly clear why his government is not prepared to subject the logging industry to the same hard line ‘no subsidy’ ideology that other industries are facing. Abbott pledged to treat this industry that has privileged subsidies at the expense of tax-payers, “You aren’t just any industry,” he told them.”

• Markets For Change
• Friends of the Earth
• Goongerah Environment Centre VIC
• Environment East Gippsland VIC
• Huon Valley Environment Centre TAS
• South East Region Conservation Alliance NSW
• Still Wild Still Threatened TAS
• My Environment VIC

Address to the 2014 ForestWorks Dinner, Canberra

Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia
pm.gov.au, Tuesday, 4 March 2014

Julie, I want to thank you very much indeed for that kind introduction. It’s nice to have a list of things recounted to an appreciative audience – it really is nice.

But the most important fact, at least insofar I suspect as this audience is concerned, is omitted from the official resume, because I had the great good fortune of having as my maternal grandfather a shipwright and as many of you would know a shipwright is a marine carpenter. That’s what a shipwright is. A shipwright is a marine carpenter, at least that’s what a shipwright was back in the 1920s when many of our large ships were still made of timber.

My carpenter granddad recruited me to help build a workbench for the new family home when I was in year seven. He joined me in building a timber canoe which I paddled around the Lane Cove River National Park in year eight. He got me to help him to build a large timber shed down the back of my mum and dad’s place when I was in year 9 and for my sixteenth birthday when I was in year ten he gave me a toolset which, until just a couple of years ago when it was lost in a flash flood at home, was still the tools which I used around the house to do the kinds of things which every half useful husband should be able to do!

I can’t say that having a shipwright grandfather made me a craftsman; it didn’t. I didn’t develop the extraordinary craftsmanship of Marty Teare who presented me earlier today with a truly magnificent example of an Australian-made chair which will adorn my parliamentary office - I hope for many years to come.

I didn’t become a craftsman, but I did learn to appreciate the value of timber and the importance of working with one’s hands.

I came to appreciate the forest wasn’t just a place of beauty, but it was a source of resources; of the ultimate renewable resource, of the ultimate biodegradable resource.

So when I look out at an audience such as this this evening, when 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. That’s what I see and I want to salute you. 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.

I want to say this: we will never build a strong economy by trashing our environment, but we will never help our environment by trashing the economy either.  You understand - what I regret to say not everyone does – that it is possible to combine respect for the environment and respect for nature with healthy private business.

Man and the environment are meant for each other. The last thing we do – the last thing we should want – if we want to genuinely improve our environment is to want to ban men and women from enjoying it, is to ban men and women from making the most of it and that’s what you do. You intelligently make the most of the good things that God has given us.

So my friends, when I say that I want Australia to be open for business, I mean open for business for the forestry industry.

When I say that Australia is not only open for business, but it is under new management, I mean that the people in charge in Canberra – here – value what the forestry industry does and it would be quite a long time since you’ve experienced that in Canberra.

I hope that you will be the beneficiaries of the general economic policies that the Coalition is putting into practice.

You will benefit from the abolition of the carbon tax, ultimately from the abolition of the mining tax.

Many of you will benefit from the cutting of the company tax rate.

Most of you will benefit from the reduction in red and green-tape that we are determined to deliver.

And while it’s not the job of the national government to build the kind of country roads and logging trails which you’re all very familiar with, if we do invest more, as we will and are, in the major infrastructure that our country needs, that obviously means that state and local governments can do more for the kind of infrastructure that you depend upon in your daily life.

I am pleased to say that in the six months since the change of government here in Canberra, Greg Hunt, an Environment Minister who appreciates that the environment is meant for man and not just the other way around, has provided environmental approvals for projects worth some $400 million. I am pleased and proud to have an Environment Minister who wants to see projects go ahead.

I am pleased that because of Greg Hunt’s good work, we now have assessment bilaterals – a one stop shop in other words – for environmental approvals with New South Wales and Queensland, and are working on these with the other states and have high hopes of getting there well before the end of the year.

I’m pleased that we’ve also got a Korean free trade agreement and are working well towards free trade agreements with Japan and with China.

But you’re not just any other industry. You are an industry which has been officially frowned upon for too long.

For three years you were officially frowned upon here in Canberra because we had – I regret to say – a government that was over influenced by the Greens.

I’m delighted to see a number of Labor Members of Parliament in the audience tonight – I see Joel Fitzgibbon. I see Brendan O’Connor. I think Senator Kim Carr is here in the audience. It’s good to see some Labor Members who aren’t embarrassed at coming to a dinner with foresters! Give them the applause they deserve.

Coalition Members – too numerous to mention – all of you, because this is a Coalition. This is a Liberal/National Coalition that values what you do and wants you to be able to make the most of your life.

We don’t support, as a Government and as a Coalition, further lockouts of our forests. We just don’t support it.

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.

One of the first acts of the incoming Government was to begin the process to try to get out of world heritage listing 74,000 hectares of country in Tasmania, because that 74,000 hectares is not pristine forest. It’s forest which has been logged, it’s forest which has been degraded, in some cases, it’s plantation timber that was actually planted to be logged.

Now I’m all in favour of protecting pristine wilderness in proportion – I am all in favour of that. But why should we lock up, as some kind of world heritage sanctuary, country which has been logged, degraded or planted for timber? Why should we do that? Frankly, when this Government comes across examples of actions which are contrary to common sense, we do our best to reverse them. That’s what we do – we try to ensure that government does not do that which is contrary to common sense.

You know, getting that 74,000 hectares out of the world heritage listing is still going to leave half of Tasmania protected forever, but that will be an important sign to you, to Tasmanians and to the world that we respect the timber industry and we want the timber industry to have a vigorous and dynamic future, not just a past. We want the timber industry to be a vital part of Australia’s economic future, not just something that was a relic of our history. That’s what this Government wants.

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. I know they’re a minority inside their own Party, but I applaud those who don’t buy the Green ideology. You only have to look – and I see Joel smiling - probably the influence of Madam Speaker sitting next to you. I know you want to stay here Joel, not to be expelled.

But the Green ideology has done so much damage to Tasmania. We all know that Tasmania has the lowest wages in our country. It’s got the lowest GPD per head in our country. It’s got the lowest life expectancy in our country. It’s got the lowest education attainments in our country and it’s got the highest unemployment in our country and funnily enough, for the last eight years it’s had a government, in large measure, dominated by the Greens. For the last four years it’s had a government which was Green dominated, even though prior to that election, the leader of the government said that it would never happen – well, sadly it did happen. The deal with the devil that was never going to happen did happen and I say, the only way to ensure that this Green ideology which has done so much damage to Tasmania and more recently done so much damage to our country, is expunged, is not just to change the government in Canberra but to change the government in Hobart as well.

I promised my great friend that I was not going to make a party political speech tonight and I said nothing about the ALP here in Canberra at this present time, because I know people like Joel are doing their best to ensure the best values of the Labor Party are once more appreciated and respected .

But I do want to say that everyone here tonight that as far as this Prime Minister is concerned, as far as the Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce, is concerned, as far as the very hard-working Parliamentary Secretary for Forestry, Senator Richard Colbeck, is concerned, you aren’t just any industry, you are a great industry and a great sector. We believe in you.

We believe in you and we relish and we revel in your appearance in such numbers in this building tonight.

I am so pleased that for the first time in many years, you can come into this building and not feel that you are in hostile territory. I want to assure you that this is friendly country. This is friendly country and I want to see many more buildings in the years to come built in this country that are as beautifully fitted-out with marvellous timber products as this building is here.

The forestry industry of this country has done great things for this building and may it do great things for so many more buildings in our country and around the world in the years and the decades to come.

Finally I want to say that we don’t claim, in this Government, to be experts on everything; we don’t claim to know everything about this industry.

Yes, we have an abundance of goodwill towards your industry. Yes, we want your industry to flourish, but we know that we will do better by your industry if we are as well informed as possible and that’s why I announce tonight that there will be a Forestry Industry Advisory Council, shortly to be finalised by the Government, but I can announce tonight that the co-chairman of that will be Rob de Fegely who is well known to your industry.

I’m sure you’ll keep us on the straight and narrow so to speak insofar as far as your industry is concerned and I’m sure that he will ensure that we make the kind of decisions that ensure that my colleagues and I are welcome at next year’s dinner.

[ends]

Logging a disaster

M. Friedlander, Frankston South
Heraldsun, letter, 10 Feb 2014

Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Prime Minister Tony Abbott have requested that UNESCO committee to remove the wold heritage protection of Tasmania's old-growth forest that were approved for world heritage listing in June last year, to enable logging.

This is unprecedented. No government has ever tried to delist a world heritage site when it is still intact.  It is extremely embarrassing internationally. There is no future in logging, but there is one in tourism.

Its a catastrophe for this magnificent natural wilderness.

Government targets Tassie's World Heritage flashpoint

Andrew Darby 
The Age, February 1, 2014

The Abbott Government is targetting Tasmania's most bitterly contested forest flashpoint in its attempt to roll back World Heritage protection, for logging.

A map of the target areas published by Federal Environment Minister, Greg Hunt, shows the Upper Florentine Valley in the island's centre would lose its World Heritage status under the plan he put to UNESCO on Friday.

The bid, if successful, would axe 74,000 ha. of the 120,000 ha of forest that was added to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in 2013, together with 50,000 ha of national park.

Among a string of disputed native forest valleys running along the eastern boundary of the existing World Heritage Area, the Upper Florentine fight stood as the toughest.

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A five year blockade camp occupied the temperate rainforest and tall old growth eucalypt until 2011, and the valley was the scene of elaborate tree-sits, and dozens of arrests.

In one of the most hair-raising events, a rampage by loggers wielding a sledgehammer and steel-capped boots on a blockade car occupied by protesters was secretly videoed, leading to three assault convictions.

Teacher Miranda Gibson spent an epic 457 days in a tree-sit near the Upper Florentine to raise awareness of several forested valleys in the area, and campaign for their World Heritage listing. She only came down in March 2013 because of a nearby bushfire.

Despite the protests, a small portion of the Upper Florentine was logged for sawlog, veneer and woodchip pulp, before the collapse of the Tasmanian timber industry in 2012

The Federal parliamentary secretary for Forestry, Richard Colbeck, said the wilderness values of such areas, where logging had occurred, had diminished to the point that they no longer deserved World Heritage listing.

But the 2013 extension was agreed by the World Heritage Committee on grounds other than wilderness, such as natural values of the trees themselves.

The Wilderness Society's Tasmanian campaigns manager, Vica Bayley, said on Saturday that the attack on the Upper Florentine demonstrated the government's wind-back was all about opening confirmed World Heritage forest for logging.

"The Upper Florentine is an incredibly intact and precious forest," Mr Bayley said.

"And so are the other areas detailed on the map. The entire exercise is highly contentious, highly provocative - particularly when the forest industry doesn't want a bar of it."

The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania confirmed that it stood firmly beside The Wilderness Society and other signatories to a 2013 forest peace deal in opposing any wind-back of World Heritage.

FIAT executive director Terry Edwards said: "We've made our position quite clear. We don't support any or all excisions to the World Heritage Area. The 2013 extension was an integral part of our agreement."

Mr Edwards said the industry was also concerned about the potential impacts the wind-back might have on Tasmanian forest products.

"Wood that is supplied under the Tasmanian Forest Agreement is now non-contentious," he said. "We don't want to be put in the same position as in the past."

Forestry wars reigniting in Tasmania's wilderness

Andrew Darby
The Age, February 1, 2014  

We are at the dead end of a logging road deep in the Styx Valley of central Tasmania.

In front is a stand of tall eucalypts. Beside us, the road verge swarms with their seedlings, self-sown in the few years since logging halted half a kilometre back, and already threatening to carpet the gravel entirely.

It is a stunning blue-sky day in wild native forest. Delicate green and black Macleay's swallowtail butterflies float above. Biting march flies find us, too.

We walk off the road's end into the shadows of the forest. Like silent marsupials, we pad over moss-soft ground, spacious and entirely weed-free, to look up the massive trunks of some of the bigger trees.

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This forest is ancient, the road is young - and for the past seven months all of it has been world heritage.

It is what the former Labor federal environment minister Tony Burke called ''extraordinarily precious forest'' when UNESCO's World Heritage Committee approved the listing last June.

And it is also what the current parliamentary secretary for forests Richard Colbeck says is wilderness so degraded that it makes him sick with anger at the scale of the deception.

Australia's most contentious heritage boundary, as Burke called it, is being fought over again.

The 170,000-hectare extension to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (WHA) was approved by the World Heritage Committee at its June 2013 meeting after decades of environmental campaigns.

Now, the Abbott government is seeking a comprehensive wind back of the extension, removing 74,000 hectares, by the committee next June in Doha, Qatar.

The move fans doubts about the federal government's overall approach to Australia's world heritage. It feeds an emboldened Liberal Party ahead of the Tasmanian state election. And it is said to threaten to reignite forest wars that split the island for a generation.

Tasmanians call it the ''WHA'', as in ''Waa''. Its nucleus around the Franklin River in the south-west wilderness was first listed in 1982, and it grew by extensions to cover one-fifth of the island, or 1.4 million hectares, in 2012.

The eastern boundary in tall old-growth forest was always disputed. Environmentalists believed this line was drawn along a contour chosen as the limit to commercial logging viability - not because of any end to world heritage values. Over time a network of logging roads was driven into the old growth-rich valleys running up to the boundary before the collapse of the native-timber woodchip industry.

These roads and logging coupes were picketed by protesters, tree-sits slowed chainsaws, and confrontations sometimes blew into violence. Former Greens leader Bob Brown was shot at in 1986, and a dozen costly logging machines were firebombed and destroyed over the years, as were protesters' cars.

The World Heritage Committee repeatedly asked Australia to address the question of the eastern boundary, including in 2008 when it said the WHA should be extended to ''include appropriate areas of tall eucalypt forest''.

Eventually, the industry collapse led to marathon talks between business, union and green groups. Peace deals inked in April 2013 garnered $363 million in federal payouts to industry. They also included a signoff by all parties to the WHA extension.

Endorsed by the Tasmanian Parliament, this extension went to the committee meeting in Phnom Penh last year, and, after a glitch over the Aboriginal archaeological component of the nomination, quickly passed.

According to the committee, its outstanding universal values include its ''superlative natural phenomena, areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance''. Specific values included giant trees, and tall eucalypts in connected forest.

The Wilderness Society's Tasmanian campaign manager Vica Bayley, who went to Phnom Penh, said the committee was specifically told some areas had been logged, and were in the process of regeneration. ''To the best of our knowledge, it adds up to about 6 per cent,'' Bayley said. But they were included because they added to the integrity of the extension.

''Restoration of degraded areas in world heritage sites is normal,'' he said.

Elsewhere in the WHA, small mines, quarries, airstrips and a host of other human uses are being rehabilitated. Like the eucalypt seedlings on the Styx road, nature is taking its course.

The first sign of trouble for the 2013 extension came late in the federal election campaign when then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said: ''The Coalition has never supported Labor's recent rushed and political world heritage extension, which was put in place against the will of the Tasmanian people. And we will seek to have it removed.''

Liberal candidates who scooped up three of the five Tasmanian House of Representatives seats campaigned on the wind back.

Last week, Environment Minister Greg Hunt confirmed the process was under way, saying the government was critical of ''the content of much of [the 2013 extension]'' and would lodge a new claim for a boundary adjustment by the deadline of Saturday, February 1.

Bayley said: ''This is a smokescreen for Greg Hunt to reopen world heritage forests for logging.''

The wind back campaign is being led by Tasmanian senator Colbeck, who is parliamentary secretary to Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce. A one-time carpenter, Colbeck said his own scrutiny of the extension showed ''tens of thousands of hectares'' had been previously logged.

''The way this has been portrayed to the community is that this has been effectively untrammelled by man,'' he said. ''There is no doubt the Australian community has been misled.''

He rejects the statement of support for the 2013 extension by the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania and other industry groups. ''The forest is not the forest industry's to give away,'' he said.

Instead, Colbeck points to the government's specific election commitment, and the emphatic success of Liberal candidates in Tasmania.

In a polling booth such as the downturn-hit timber town of Triabunna, there was a 27 per cent swing to Liberal candidate Eric Hutchinson.

Approaching the March 15 state election, the front-running Liberals unofficially launched their campaign by releasing a policy to ''crack down on forest protest'', with $10,000 fines for first-time protesters who impede access to a workplace, and a mandatory three months' jail for a second offence.

It is this possibility that appals federal opposition environment spokesman Mark Butler.

''Everyone got something in the peace deal they thought was sufficient to end 30 years of conflict,'' he said. ''We have moved beyond the forestry wars in Tasmania. By persevering with such a backward policy, that no one wants, Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt want to reignite those wars.''

There is also a wider national question. Would a successful wind back of the Tasmanian extension embolden a government to seek changes to inconvenient boundaries of other world heritage properties, such as on the Great Barrier Reef or Kakadu?

''I would reject that,'' Colbeck said.

But Butler said he was increasingly concerned at the potential links. Already, the Great Barrier Reef is threatened with a World Heritage in Danger listing, and the government had stalled a Cape York nomination.

''It opens us up as a nation to ridicule,'' Butler said

Tree-pronged attack as Abbott throws down gauntlet on logging

Adam Morton
The Age (article), 8 June 2012

Braving yesterday's bracing weather, locals protest against logging at Mount St Leonard, near Healesville. Photo: Michael Clayton-Jones

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has challenged Victoria's practice of clearfell logging native forests, saying few people would not be revolted by the damage it caused.

Speaking at a community forum at Mount Evelyn, east of Melbourne, Mr Abbott said he supported a sustainable native forestry industry, but took issue with clearfelling, in which a forest area is bulldozed, logged and the remains burned.

''I'm as much a conservationist as anyone, I'm as much a conservationist as Bob Brown,'' he told the forum. ''Do I support the clear felling of native forests? I would be most reluctant to do so. But do I want to ban all logging in native forests? No. I'd be very reluctant to do that.''

Mr Abbott said he supported sustainable logging of native forests, citing a Cape York program under which select trees were felled individually.

''You can't destroy the asset, but I do think the asset is there to be economically appreciated as well as aesthetically appreciated,'' he said.

His comments came as 31 people were arrested for blocking clearfell logging on the side of Mount St Leonard, near Healesville. About 70 local business owners and conservationists walked into a logging coupe early yesterday, some wearing masks with the face of Premier Ted Baillieu. Police said 31 were charged with failing to leave a public safety zone.

Protester organiser Chris Veenhuizen, owner of a local bed-and-breakfast and member of conservation group MyEnvironment, said visitors were being turned off by the destruction of clearly visible forest.
''The feedback we're getting from our visitors is they're not going to come back,'' she said. ''It's absolutely going to destroy the tourism business of this whole community.''

David Walsh, of government forestry agency VicForests, said timber from the Mount St Leonard area was crucial to it meeting demand for wood and wood products.

He said VicForests had previously responded to community concern by removing two coupes earmarked for logging and leaving a 50-metre forest buffer along a walking track.

''Timber harvesting has co-existed with tourism in the region for decades, and we believe both industries play an important role in the local economy,'' he said.

Victorian government media advisers did not return calls from The Age.