ARTICLE: Supporters sought to lobby Govt on sustainable logging

ABC News Online
21 April 2006

A campaigner for sustainable logging in the Wombat Forest is trying to rally like-minded people to lobby the State Government.

Increasingly tough restrictions being placed on logging activity in the forest have forced some sawmills to close.

But Loris Duclos says a State Government adviser told her the Government had not made a final decision on the forest's future.

"He reassured me that the Government did not have a lock-up agenda for the Wombat, so those who support a small native forest industry in this area need to be ringing the minister and making sure that a strong voice from this side of the debate is heard, because they certainly hear a lot from the other," she said."

Original article

LETTERS: Green logging solution gets the chop

David Hall, Brunswick East
The Heraldsun (letter), 18/4/06

Your article on Ron the “lumberjack” (“Ron vows to go out swinging”, April 8) brought up the important point that the environment movement is not about no logging, it’s about sustainable logging that makes sense.

Woodchipping old-growth forest in 2006 doesn’t make sense on any level. It isn’t boosting the economy. It isn’t creating jobs. And this isn’t wasteland.
The area being clear-felled in East Gippsland is a national treasure. Its destruction is so sad.

I applaud Ron for his comments, and I applaud the unlikely alliance between loggers who do have a vision for the future with greenies who always have.

Bracks would win my vote and that of many of my friends and family if he was brave enough to stop woodchipping of old-growth forests.


Colin Smith, St Kilda
The Heraldsun (letter), 18/4/06

Your story about the small timber cutter in Bruthen (“Ron vows to go out swinging”, April 8) shows up the hypocrisy of the State Government about forestry. It denies him any logs and sends them aji to the chip-mill instead. This makes a nonsense of its claim to be interested in value-adding. Instead, it promotes clearfelling, which is value-destruction.


Peter Quinn, Lome
The Heraldsun (letter), 18/4/06

Park Victoria and the Bracks Government sadly are on a hat-trick of tourism decimation. After last year’s Wi!sons Promontory burn fiasco and this year’s Grampians inferno, Parks Victoria next summer could well be responsible for the Colac/Otways bushfire that is coming because an ecological burn is well overdue.

Parks Victoria and Bracks Government are pandering to inner-Melbourne greens. Parks Victoria’s pest management is also a disgrace in the Great Otways National Park.

So enjoy your visit to the Colac-Otways while you can. Parks Victoria's incompetence could well mean a charred Great Ocean Road landscape.

ARTICLE: Death puts spotlight on Leadbeater plight

John Elder
The Sunday Age , April 16 2006

Leadbeater's possum was once the tiny comeback kid of Australian wildlife.

Thought to have vanished, the possum was rediscovered alive and struggling in 1961. Ten years later it was made the faunal emblem of Victoria. Now it looks as if we will have to find a new one.

The death of the last Leadbeater in captivity, which was announced yesterday, means the little possum is no longer a promise and symbol of life renewed. In the wild, there are thought to be only a 1000 left.

In what appears to be a last-ditch stand, author Peter Preuss is calling for co-operative effort by Victoria's zoos, the timber industry and the State Government to relaunch a possum breeding program.

Preuss is the biographer of late amateur naturalist Des Hackett, who successfully bred the possums in captivity.

He said efforts to revive the possum's population faltered after Mr Hackett died in 1997, and today the possum's natural habitat was under threat from logging.

Preuss said the last possums in the wild lived in a 50-square-kilometre area in Victoria's central highlands - the mountain ash forests around Noojee, Powelltown, Marysville and Warburton.

In one positive sign, he said possum numbers were increasing in the Yellingbo Nature Reserve, an area of swamp and forest protected for the helmeted honey-eater, Victoria's bird emblem.

"This shows the possums can survive if we give them some nesting boxes," he said.

A spokesman for Healesville Sanctuary yesterday confirmed that the last captive possum, a male, died on Monday, following the death of its female mate last month. The pair had become too old to breed.

With AAP

ARTICLE: Timber group invests heavily to stay at the cutting edge

Philip Hopkins
April 10 2006

The coloured laser beams quickly hone in on the timber slab as it moves along the conveyor, pinpointing accurately how best to cut the wood.

Vince Erasmus looks on with approval. The South African, who has just joined timber group Integrated Tree Cropping as chief executive, is a firm believer in the role of new technology in giving a competitive edge. Previously, an operator would have judged manually the best way to cut the timber, but lasers do it better.

Neville Smith Timber, a division of ITC, uses the laser equipment at its processing plant at Heyfield in Victoria, along with a new piece of technology that was pioneered for the aerospace industry.

The $400,000 investment applies the technique of ultrasonic void detection to solid timber — the first time this has been done in the world.

"With ultrasonics, we're now able to affectively see inside each solid piece of timber that comes through the mill and pick up discontinuities in the wood," Erasmus said. "The technology allows us to detect tiny internal faults that are invisible to the eye."

Those faults make the timber unsuitable for appearance-grade products, but fine for structural use such as joints, lintels and bearers.

In South Africa, Erasmus was executive manager of Hans Merensky Timber, the country's largest sawmilling group and an operator of extensive eucalypt and pine plantations with a turnover of $210 million.

ITC, a listed subsidiary of Futuris Corporation, is of similar ilk; it manages more than 140,000 hectares of hardwood plantations, and through Neville Smith, is the largest hardwood timber processor in Australia.

Neville Smith's main timber mills are at Heyfield in central Gippsland, but it also has operations in Seymour, Tasmania and southern NSW. Neville Smith, acquired by ITC 20 months ago, has the capacity to process more than 250,000 cubic metres of native hardwood, all sourced from regrowth forests.

On an inspection tour at Heyfield, Erasmus said timber processing was going through a tough period. "Internationally, supply now exceeds demand for hardwood products and demand is not that good," he said. "It's difficult to sell products at the right price."

Erasmus said hardwood processing was volume driven, but customers were getting increasingly choosy, so timber quality was paramount.

Hence the new investments at Neville Smith. Erasmus said that, apart from the check scanner, ITC was buying a reconditioner kiln to dry timber more slowly and to a higher standard. A finger jointer will also be acquired to turn offcuts that would be normally woodchipped or made into sawdust into a new, higher-value product. ITC is also putting a greater emphasis on sales and marketing, having hired seven sales staff. ITC has been Perth-based, but Erasmus is seeking a house in Melbourne, signalling ITC's intention to locate itself on the east coast.

Erasmus said there was capacity for growth in the Australian timber market through high-quality niche products.

About 18 per cent of Neville Smith's products are exported, and Erasmus signalled interest in forging a partnership with a Chinese manufacturer. "China is an opportunity for us, given Australia's relative proximity to China and the cheaper shipping rates compared with other countries," he said.

ITC has launched a campaign to market its products as "GoodWood", emphasising the timber is harvested from regrowth native forests, not old growth or tropical forests, and highlighting its advantages as a storer of carbon in the age of climate change.

Erasmus said ITC intended to gain Forest Stewardship Council certification for its native hardwood products. ITC has already gained FSC approval for its plantation management. FSC is allied to WWF and is supported by green groups.

Bell Potter Securities, in a research paper, noted ITC's negative cash flow despite the company's profit of $6.3 million in the first half of 2005-06.

Analyst Ian Gibson said the result was below expectations, but was entirely due to the processing division. "With respect to processing, we believe that the operating performance has bottomed … when the recovery does come, the Neville Smith Group will be stronger."

But uncertainty about the tax treatment of managed investment schemes and the housing market may weigh on the share price, causing it to trade below Bell Potter's assessed value of $1.67, Gibson said.

ITC's share price closed at $1.09 on Friday.

Original article

ARTICLE: Protesters held over logging blockade

The Age

April 10, 2006 - 3:34PM

Police have arrested three anti-logging protesters and moved 17 other demonstrators from a blockade in the East Gippsland region of Victoria.

Goongerah Environment Centre (GEC) spokeswoman Fiona York said the protest was in an area of old growth forest being logged less than 100 metres from the Goolengook forest.

The three protester who were arrested had chained themselves to logging machinery, she said.

"The rest of them have been moved out of the coupe by 20 or so Parks Victoria, DSE (Department of Sustainability and Environment) and police," Ms York said.

Thirty arrests had been made at 15 blockades in East Gippsland since December 2005, she said.

The Goolengook Forest is the subject of an investigation by the Victorian Environment Assessment Council (VEAC).

"This particular coupe is right on the border of the assessment area that VEAC is looking into protection for Goolengook," Ms York said.

"While the Goolengook Forest is being investigated and under moratorium from logging, forest of comparable value is being logged right next door."

The area was at the headwaters of the Arte River, and the old-growth forest and rainforest were habitat for endangered flora and fauna, she said. Its unique eco-system was home to more than 300 rare and threatened plant and animal species, including the tiger quoll and the powerful owl.

"Premier Steve Bracks needs to do more than just investigate icon areas for the sake of a few votes," Ms York said.

"All old growth forest needs to be protected immediately."

AAP

Original article

LETTER: Lucky polly (Campbell "protects" the orange bellied parrot

Jill Redwood, Orbost
The Age, April 7, 2006

Luckily for the orange-bellied parrot, it spends some of the year in a marginal seat that's arguing about the aesthetics of wind farms. Our whales, sooty owls, tiger quolls and hundreds of other threatened species aren't so lucky under the Federal Government's Environment Act.

The $11 million logging industry in East Gippsland, for example, takes out threatened species every day without a shred of concern from the Howard Government.

MEDIA RELEASE: Sustainable timber industry council announced

FROM THE MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE
Thursday, April 6, 2006

The sustainable growth of Victoria’s timber industry will be assisted by the establishment of a new peak advisory body, the Sustainable Timber Industry Council (STIC), the Minister for Agriculture Bob Cameron announced today.

Mr Cameron said STIC would foster a united, whole of industry approach to securing the sustainable development of Victoria’s forest and forest products sector and will provide advice to him on a broad range of timber industry issues.

“The timber industry in Victoria is based on plantation and native forest timber resources. It has an annual turnover of more than $3 billion and is of critical importance to the economic future of this state.

Mr Cameron said as part of the ‘Our Forests, Our Future’ policy initiative, the Bracks Government made a commitment ensuring that our forests, the timber industry and their communities are protected for the long term.

“That commitment was reiterated in the ‘Moving Forward’ Provincial Statement announced late last year and STIC is an important part of that process.

“One of STIC’s major roles over the next year will be the development of a Timber Industry Strategy, which will establish Victoria as a world leader in sustainable timber industries,” Mr Cameron said.

Mr Cameron said he was pleased to announce Christian Zahra as the Chair of STIC.

“Christian Zahra has an excellent understanding of the important issues facing the timber industry in Victoria and is widely respected within the sector,” Mr Cameron said.

The remaining members of STIC come from key industry sectors, and include:

• Diane Tregoning – Chief Executive of Black Forest Timbers Pty Ltd
• Andrew Lang – Chairman of SMARTimbers Cooperative Ltd
• Bob Smith – former CEO of State Forests of NSW
• Kevin White – former CEO of Hancock Victorian Plantations
• Ken Robertson – former Strategic Development Manager for Carter Holt Harvey.
• Michael O’Connor – National Secretary of the forestry section of the CFMEU
• Ian Kennedy – former Executive Director of Regional Development Victoria

LETTER: Bracks must protect Leadbeater's habitat

It is sad news indeed that only one Leadbeater's possum, Victoria’s state faunal emblem, remains in captivity after its mate died in a Melbourne sanctuary.

The possum’s survival is under threat because clearfell logging of the Central Highlands, including Melbourne’s water catchments, is destroying its habitat. It needs old trees with hollows for its nests.

Steve Bracks should act immediately to protect these forests and prevent the possum's extinction in its natural habitat. He should also protect the remaining forest habit of Karak, the Red-tailed Black Cockatoo which was the Commonwealth Games mascot, to assist its survival in the wild too.

ARTICLE: One left as possum dies in captivity

March 28, 2006

Only one member of the endangered possum species that is Victoria's state faunal emblem remains in captivity after its mate died in a Melbourne sanctuary.

Leadbeater's possum, which lives in the mountain ash forests of the state's central highlands, was considered extinct until it was rediscovered in 1961 and a successful captive breeding program started.

But the death of the second-last Leadbeater's possum at the Healesville Sanctuary has ended that program, author Peter Preuss said yesterday.

Mr Preuss, the biographer of the late amateur naturalist Des Hackett, said Mr Hackett had remarkable results breeding the possums in captivity. By the 1980s he was able to hand over breeding colonies to zoos throughout Australia, with the hope the offspring could one day be released in the wild.

"Unfortunately, the Leadbeater's possum is a very politically sensitive animal," he said. "Because their natural range is almost exclusively within Victoria's timber harvesting areas, Leadbeater's possums were never released. Instead, colonies were exported to zoos throughout the world."

"Today, there are just 1000 left in the wild and only one lonely individual remains in captivity (in Victoria)," he said.

AAP

Original article

ARTICLE: PNG forest-saving initiative launched

HeraldSun, 28 February 06

From correspondents in Port Moresby

THE Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior II docks in Port Moresby today for the launch of a campaign promoting small-scale bush milling in Papua New Guinea instead of large-scale destructive logging.

The initiative was part of a campaign to preserve the Asia-Pacific's remaining ancient "Paradise" rainforests stretching from South-East Asia across Indonesia to PNG and the Solomon Islands, Greenpeace Australia Pacific's chief executive, Steve Shallhorn, said.

The project would help PNG forest landowners mark out tribal boundaries as a protection against foreign timber companies and their destructive logging practices, he said.

PNG's Kuni tribe on the Murray Lakes between the Fly and Strickland rivers in PNG's Western Province has invited Greenpeace to set up a "global forest rescue station" on their land.

Greenpeace volunteers and eco-forestry trainers will work alongside three Lake Murray tribes to establish their tribal rights over about 300,000 hectares by identifying, marking out and mapping their boundaries to deter illegal logging, Mr Shallhorn said in a statement.

In 2003, Greenpeace and other environmental groups helped Murray Lakes landowners halt illegal logging in the area by the Malaysian logging company Concord Pacific.

Kuni clan leader Sep Galeva, a leader in that campaign, said his people wanted to do small-scale logging in a way that was sustainable and environmentally friendly but brought in financial returns to villagers.

A portable timber mill will be used by the Kuni tribe to mill selectively logged trees for sale as "ecotimber" in a pilot program to encourage other tribes to do the same and avoid large-scale logging by big timber companies.

"We want to say no to loggers who come in and destroy everything," Mr Galeva said.

Mr Shallhorn said the Paradise Forests were being logged faster than any in the world.

Fewer than 1 per cent had any form of protection with more than a quarter of a million hectares of primary forest destroyed by logging companies each year in PNG alone, he said.

"Unless action like this is taken worldwide, vast numbers of species of plants and animals will become extinct, rainfall patterns will be disrupted and the global climate will change even faster than it is now.

"The Australian Government must ban the importation of illegal and destructively-logged timber and support the efforts by countries that produce timber to combat corruption and strengthen law enforcement institutions," Mr Shallhorn said.

After its Port Moresby visit, the Rainbow Warrior will sail on a "forest crime patrol" to draw attention to ongoing illegal logging across the region and promote sustainable forestry.

Original article

ARTICLE: A possum stares extinction in the face

Tracee Hutchison

The Age, February 18, 2006

There's a giant mountain ash tree in Victoria's Royston Range with a pink H spray-painted onto its massive trunk. It's taken more than 200 years for it to reach its 60-metre height and, inside, it is likely that a family of tiny possums is nestling in its hollows.

They are Leadbeater's possums, so small they would fit in the palm of your hand. The pink H on the tree means these little creatures were safe from the chainsaws that clear-felled around them this week - their house is a designated habitat tree.

After presuming the species extinct, scientists found the last surviving colonies of Leadbeater's possums living in Victoria's Central Highlands in the early 1960s. Just 2000 of them remain. They are a protected and endangered species and Victoria's state fauna emblem.

On Monday night these little possums would have looked out over what was left of their neighbourhood and wondered what had happened to the furniture. And their food source. The sap from the once-plentiful alpine ash and their much loved wattle are gone. So are the blackwoods.

In the distance, they might have seen one or two old-growth trees still standing - also marked with an H to save the other English-speaking possums in the forest. They'll be among a handful of forest-dwelling creatures to survive this week's logging in the stretch of state forest that runs between the Yarra Valley National Park and Mount Bullfight Conservation Reserve.

Studies of forest activity by eminent environmental scientists such as Dr David Lindenmayer from the Australian National University indicate most animals die when a forest is extensively disturbed in a clear-felling operation. There are no early warning signals. Adult animals have a strong affinity with their home range and are reluctant to move.

In the daylight, the H-trees protrude from the forest floor like an Absurdist's version of a Russell Drysdale painting. It is a macabre and disturbing sight. The H-trees are too far apart for the possums to skip between branches and there is a sense that the forest has screamed all night but only the survivors will remember the sound.

For them, there's a looming regeneration fire, which will burn through the logging debris on the forest floor. The heat intensity of an often chemically fuelled regeneration fire will make life inside one of these H-trees almost unbearable - that is assuming the fire also speaks English and is smart enough to burn around them. Surviving this fire will be a challenge for a creature with very little body weight.

The complex eco-systems of old-growth forests don't like regeneration fires very much either. They tend to suit eucalypts, which grow back - plantation-like - relatively quickly. This works well for future logging and suits the industry these forests service rather nicely. But Leadbeater's possums don't like young eucalypts very much. They don't form hollows so it's hard to make a house. They need old-growth trees to survive.

This week many of these possums will have thought about moving to a place with more H-trees. They will have scouted for wattle and alpine ash sap.

But, as we see in other aspects of the Australian experience, newcomers aren't always welcome in unfamiliar territories - especially if you're a minority and have particular living requirements. It's a precarious predicament. About 80 per cent of the old-growth trees that came out of Royston this week will be chipped. By now the logs will have reached the Midway woodchip mill in Geelong and might be on their way to Japan. Others will have arrived at the Paperlinx mill in Maryvale where they'll end up as sheet paper with a lifespan of about a week. It's not much to show for 200 years of breathing life into the planet.

Royston Range is one of the last old-growth forests within a comfortable drive from Melbourne, just two hours due east along the Maroondah Highway. Walking though this forest, you can't help but be reminded of how blessed we are to have these precious, centuries-old ecosystems exist at all, let alone on the doorstep of a capital city.

Australia has the worst record for plant and mammal extinctions in the world in the past 200 years. We clear land faster here than in any other developed nation. Our planet is heating up and the best our governments can do is gag the scientists who would hold us to account and prop up the industries that contribute to the problem.

Unless the Victorian Government puts an end to old-growth logging in the state forests of eastern Victoria, the legacy of Premier Steve Bracks may well include the extinction of a tiny possum. For woodchips. For the paper on which history will record the state-sanctioned passing of our fauna emblem. It is madness.

Tracee Hutchison is a Melbourne writer and broadcaster.

Original article

EDITORIAL: Potoroos and parrots need better protection

The Age, February 10, 2006

'You're gunna get stung!" That greeting on the Environment Protection Authority website is aimed at anyone who discards rubbish carelessly. Under Victorian law, litterers face hefty fines (ranging from $210 to $6289), which the EPA says are to deter people from actions that "can cause injury to people and wildlife".

How then should the EPA deal with businesses and government agencies that put protected flora and fauna at serious risk? According to an EPA audit - commissioned by the State Government at the urging of environmentalists - there were at least four breaches of the Environment Protection Act in 2004 and 2005, three by VicForests near Cann River in East Gippsland, and a fourth in the Barmah State Forest, near Echuca, where the Department of Sustainability and Environment logged more than half of a 35-hectare protected nesting colony for the endangered superb parrot. The EPA found the breaches were due to poor management and inadequate staff training.

The long-footed potoroo, a small kangaroo unique to the forests of south-east Australia, lives in Gippsland. Possibly the only thing it has in common with the superb parrot, a bird with a striking green body, is its vulnerability. Both are at greater risk as a result of these breaches but the offenders have escaped with what amounts to a slap on the wrist after they promised to behave more responsibly in future.

The EPA was not asked to consider penalties and the auditors concluded that there is a legal question as to whether government officers are bound by codes of practice outlined in the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987. If this is the case, an amendment is urgently needed. It is ludicrous that an individual could face a penalty of $4192 for depositing household rubbish in a litter bin, yet agencies that do far more environmental damage get off scott free.

Link to article

LETTER: Logging breaches are unacceptable

It is simply unacceptable that the Bracks’ government has taken no action when recent Environment Protection Agency audits found serious logging breaches where protected trees in National Parks were felled and endangered species where threatened (Age 9/2).

I was recently fined for traveling on the train with an unvalidated ticket, despite attempting to validate it and clearly communicating this to the Minister for Transport and the Premier. Why is zero tolerance and the full weight of the law exercised against so-called fare evaders on public transport, yet loggers who clearly break the law go unpunished?

It is apparent that the mismanagement of our forests extends past clear felling of our old growth forests for low value export woodchips to a lack of compliance with the law.

Acting Environment Minister Candy Broad should take immediate steps to ensure prosecutions rather than make excuses for Government inaction and a logging industry that is out of control and destroying our old growth forests.

ARTICLE: In a world of their own, unknown wildlife yet to learn they should fear us

Deborah Smith Science Editor and Mark Forbes in Jakarta
Sydney Morning Herald
February 8 2006

THE first bird that Australian scientist, Kris Helgen, spotted flitting around the expedition's remote jungle camp was an exotic new species. The flowers were the size of dinner plates. And the frogs were unrecognisable.

But it was the fearlessness and abundance of the kangaroos and long-beaked echidnas in the pristine, mist-shrouded Foja Mountains of western New Guinea that impressed the

young researcher most.

Hunted to near extinction elsewhere on the island, the kangaroos are usually skittish and shy with people on the rare occasions they are spotted.

The team of 25 American, Australian and Indonesian scientists flew by helicopter last December into the midst of the large tract of uninhabited tropical forest. They unearthed a "lost world" brimming with new wildlife.

It took years to obtain permits, then persuade the local Kwerba and Papasena tribes to agree to escort the expedition into the mountains in the west of the Indonesian province of Papua.

Apart from the orange-faced honeyeater - the first new species of bird found on the island in more than 60 years - the team discovered dozens of new species of butterfly, frog and plants.

The team's scientific leader, Stephen Richards, of the South Australian Museum, yesterday spoke of his wonder at seeing dozens of a spectacularly crested new species of smoky honeyeater after reaching a summit. Tall trees were draped from ground to canopy with thick moss, dripping water from curtains of mist. Animals abounded, many remarkably docile as they had never encountered human hunters.

"Because there is no human presence at all, this area is like it was before people came to Papua New Guinea. It really is a garden of Eden," Mr Richards said.

A specialist in frogs, he has found at least 20 new species during his month-long stay - including one less than 14 millimetres long.

The researchers also became the first Western scientists to see a live, male Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise. The exotic bird had been first described in the late 19th century through specimens collected by indigenous hunters from an unknown location on New Guinea. Several subsequent expeditions had failed to find it.

Six species of kangaroos, including two tree kangaroos, were found to live in the forest. Most importantly, they included the golden-mantled tree kangaroo, a new mammal for Indonesia, and one which had only previously been found on a single mountain in neighbouring Papua New Guinea.

The species was thought to be highly threatened. "But it seemed to be quite common here, so that was a very exciting find," Mr Helgen said.

Echidnas unperturbed by humans were found on three consecutive nights. "We simply picked them up and carried them back to camp."

The Kwerba and Papasena, the customary landowners of the forest, welcomed the team, from the non-profit organisation Conservation International, and served as guides and naturalists on the expedition into the vast jungle tract.

ARTICLE: Entrepreneur's $2m saves Tasmanian forest

The Sydney Morning Herald (article)

February 8, 2006

A $2 million pledge from entrepreneur Dick Smith has saved one of Australia's most significant historic sites.

Recherche Bay, near the southern-most tip of Tasmania, has been saved from the logger's axe after it was bought by conservation groups with Mr Smith's help.

Today's announcement of the purchase comes after three years of lobbying led by Greens leader Bob Brown.

Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon, announcing the deal today, said the $2.21 million purchase would not have been possible without Mr Smith's financial support.

"If Dick Smith hadn't put his $2 million on the table we wouldn't be standing here, it's as simple as that," Mr Lennon said.

The land was originally earmarked by landowners Rob and David Vernon for logging by timber giant Gunns Limited, with a deal to harvest 30,000 tonnes of woodchip and 5000 tonnes of sawlogs from the 142-hectare site.

Recherche Bay, the coastline where French explorer Bruni d'Entrecasteaux anchored in 1792 and 1793, has been described by archaeologists as one of the nation's greatest cultural heritage sites.

The French expedition made friendly contact with local Aborigines, recording observations and more than 80 words.

It carried out the first scientific experiment on Australian soil, proving Earth's magnetic fields became stronger closer to the poles.

The bay also yielded the first recorded fossil in Australia.

Evidence of a garden and a 20-metre stone wall discovered in 2003 are the only identified relics of European exploration of Tasmania in the period prior to European settlement.

Eminent archaeologist John Mulvaney said after the discovery that logging Recherche Bay "would represent vandalism of significant Australian cultural heritage".

Mr Lennon's support cements a backflip for the government, which until last week had refused to intervene and had given permission for the construction last year of a logging road through the adjacent Southport Lagoon.

It will now have to rehabilitate that road.

The premier denied the move was planned to win Green votes, despite the looming state election.

"I'm here today to focus on the positives. We have saved this site and a lot of these decisions were made some time back. I don't look backward, I look forward," he said.

Tasmanian Land Conservancy (TLC), which will manage the land, estimates the entire project will cost $2.5 million.

Mr Smith's $2 million pledge comprises a $100,000 donation and a $1.9 million loan.

TLC executive officer Nathan Males said the $100,000 would be used as a deposit.

"If we don't raise enough (to repay the loan) by the end of the year, Dick Smith has made an assurance that the property won't have to be resold and he will help us to find the money," Mr Males said.

The state government has given $680,000, which includes $210,000 towards the purchase, $80,000 in stamp duty, $84,000 in TLC administration costs and $300,000 for rehabilitation works at Southport Lagoon.

Mr Lennon said he had written to the federal government asking it to match the state's contribution.

Senator Brown also requested the federal government match community contributions, which totalled $238,000 in pledges so far.

He said his own $5000 donation was waiting "as soon as the contracts are signed".

"I've been waiting for this day for a long, long time," he said.

"I am totally delighted with the outcome and commit myself now to the big job ahead - to raise money to pay back Dick Smith's generosity."

Mr Smith was unavailable for comment today, but has previously described Recherche Bay as "an extraordinary area".

The businessman, who last year bought a million-dollar property in southern Tasmania, spent Christmas on his boat at Recherche Bay.

AAP

Original article

LETTERS: Tasmania and 1080

The Age (letters)

22 January 2006

Claire Miller's Postcard on wildlife in Tasmania ('Wildlife slaughter devils Tasmania', 15/1) perpetuates pejorative cultural stereotypes.

Significant efforts have been made in Tasmania to find environmentally benign and socially acceptable ways of managing wildlife populations and still achieve a balance with the productive requirements of rural landholders. This is in a context where wildlife populations have been increasing in response to abundant food and water supplies on rural land.

Miller conveniently ignores the fact that on mainland Australia 1080 use far exceeds that in Tasmania.

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority has found that total Australian use is about 200 kilograms a year, of which Tasmania uses about 4 per cent.

Miller says "farmers use a bit of 1080" and then lays the issue squarely on the forest industry as the only significant user, claiming that its use increased by two kilograms in 2004-05. The facts are that 1080 use in Tasmania has decreased from more than 15 to just over eight kilograms in the past seven years. Of this, the forest industry used 54 per cent and farmers 46 per cent.

Forestry Tasmania ceased using 1080 in state forests in 2005. Tighter controls from this month will reduce use of 1080 even further.

Hans Drielsma, Forestry Tasmania

Hats off to Claire Miller for her valiant attempt to capture the dimensions of Tasmania's bone-headed contempt for its wildlife.

The most recent advance here has been the State Government's announcement of the outsourcing of 1080 poison permit assessments to private licensees employed by forestry and agriculture organisations, this to speed up what was already a rubber-stamp process.

Elsewhere, the recently created position of "devil facial tumour disease research director" will have as part of its duties work on browser management, such as poisoning to protect tree plantations.

Having long ago sold the rights to the brand "Tasmanian devil" for a pittance to Warner Brothers, the Government appears to feel that the species should be left in the care of market forces.

John Hayward, Weegena, Tasmania

ARTICLE: Anti-logger protesters arrested

The HeraldSun (article)
20 January 06

Ten anti-logging protesters, blockading an isolated patch of forest in Victoria's far East Gippsland, may be the first to be the first charged under a new state law.

A Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) spokesman said today that 10 people were expected to be charged on summons under the Safety on Public Land Act, which came into effect in December 2004.

Goongerah Environment Centre spokeswoman Fiona York said two of the protesters were locked on to logging machinery, six had refused to leave the blockade and one had been taken away by police for an identity check.

She said the site was at a logging coupe in old growth forest, next to the Errinundra National Park, about 90 minutes' drive north-east of Orbost.

Another six protesters moved on when police asked them to leave.

Ms York spoke with the remaining blockaders by phone today and said they were determined to stay at the site.

"They said they were all set and everybody was happy and in good spirits," Ms York said.

Three Orbost police attended the scene today and Ms York said two DSE officers had made the arrests, with no loggers present.

She said today's blockade was the fifth in the area this week and that another 35 people were blockading two other sites at Goongerah and Yalmy forests, which included local water supply catchment areas.

Ms York said three people were arrested at a blockade on Monday after halting work for two days at a logging coupe near Bendoc and that local residents were driving out to support the protesters, bringing food and supplies.

"The amount of protest activity in East Gippsland this week is indicative of exactly how much old growth forest is still being logged in this area," Ms York said.

"These areas contain massive 300-year-old trees, waterfalls and rainforest species. They should not be logged.

"Every day the equivalent to 27 MCGs are cleared. Premier Steve Bracks must act to protect old growth forests and water catchments for future generations."

Original article

ARTICLE: Bid to end Alpine cattle standoff

By Jesse Hogan
The Age, January 10, 2006 - 12:18PM

National parks officers will again talk to rebel mountain cattlemen in a bid to end a bitter dispute over a grazing ban in Victoria's high country, acting Premier John Thwaites said today.

A group of cattlemen - and Liberal MP Graham Stoney - have been running small herds of cattle through the Alpine National Park in recent days, ignoring the Government's grazing ban.

None have been prosecuted by parks officials, although some had their details taken two days ago when they refused to turn the cattle around.

Mr Thwaites said parks officials' top priority was to protect the park from grazing.

"They are certainly seeking to ensure that damage is not done and the cattle graziers comply with the law," he said.

"People have a right to protest, but they shouldn't be breaking the law or doing something that could damage the park."

Mr Thwaites said most cattlemen had accepted compensation packages from the government, and stressed the ban did not cover the entire high country.

"We've always said cattle grazing is a good part of the Australian culture and it's continuing, but it's just not continuing in the most precious high country national park."

He also called on Opposition Leader Robert Doyle to ensure Mr Stoney, the upper house MP for Central Highlands, was not urging cattlemen to ignore the grazing ban.

"I don't think it's appropriate for a Liberal member of parliament to put himself in a position where he may be breaking the law. I couldn't say whether he is - that's a matter for Parks Victoria and the rangers to determine."

Three groups of rebel mountain cattlemen are following traditional but now forbidden stock routes through the park and plan to converge at the Wonnangatta Station cemetery tomorrow.

The alpine park's chief ranger, Peter Jacobs, said the authorities had been aware the cattlemen had planned to push cattle illegally through the park.

The maximum fine for bringing an animal into the park without permission was just over $1000, he said.

The muster is the first test of the Government's controversial ban on grazing cattle in the national park, an attempt to protect the alpine environment.

theage.com.au, with AAP"

Original article

LETTER: Pay a fair price

Author: Jill Redwood, Environment East Gippsland, Orbost
The Age, Saturday 24 December 2005.

The logging industry is still squealing about the unfairness of having to pay a fair price for logs from public forests (Business, 22/12). It wants to go back to the good old days when the price of a woodchip log rose from nine to 10 cents a tonne over five years — oh, and the extra one-cent GST. That's a 30-tonne truckload of our native forests for the price of a loaf of bread. Sorry boys, every other business has to pay the true cost for its raw materials. Why is your industry so special?

ARTICLE: Forest group protests over rises in timber, road costs

By Philip Hopkins
The Age (business section)
December 22, 2005

VICTORIA'S peak forestry group has demanded that VicForests scrap its timber prices rises, maintaining they are between three and eight times higher than average increases of the past 17 years.

The Victorian Association of Forest Industries (VAFI) said the 2005-06 price rises exceeded the highest previous increase by between 124-224 per cent.

VAFI chief executive Patricia Caswell said that, based on the accepted pricing formula, timber prices should have fallen by 1.5 per cent.

"We are perplexed how they came to their decision," said Ms Caswell, a former trade union and conservation leader. "If I were still in the trade union movement, I would not have thought it credible."

VicForests, the new government corporation responsible for harvesting and selling Victoria's native forest timber, raised timber charges by 12.4-22.4 per cent from July 1, which included a 2.4 per cent inflation (CPI) adjustment. These charges were subsequently lowered by 1-1.85 per cent in November.

Ms Caswell said the timber charge increases should be withdrawn and affected customers reimbursed. "The situation needs to be rectified urgently," she said, as VAFI and VicForests both wanted a robust and sustainable forest industry.

"It's a politicised decision based on the unfounded notion that native forest timber is underpriced and from pressure from those who think we should not have a native forest industry. The industry must be depoliticised to go forward."

VAFI has also strongly protested to Treasurer John Brumby and Minister for Agriculture Bob Cameron.

In a hard-hitting submission, VAFI said VicForests' approach and price rises:

• Make Victorian sawlogs more expensive than equivalent species and grades in NSW and Tasmania.

• Make Victorian timber products uncompetitive in domestic and international markets for timber of like characteristics.

• Lacked openness and transparency.

Ms Caswell said the timber price rises had been compounded by similar rises for roading charges. Roading charges, introduced in the late 1980s, were normally based on CPI adjustments or not raised at all.

A VicForests spokeswoman said the VicForests board was considering VAFI's submission and would make an announcement shortly."

Link to article

ARTICLE: Logging demise creates a saw point

Mark Poynter
The Age (Business section)
December 21, 2005

The Great Otway National Park is unlikely to live up to promises, writes Mark Poynter.

PREMIER Steve Bracks opened the Great Otway National Park last week, proclaiming it would protect old-growth forests and threatened species, and be a huge step for tourism.

The park was promised before the 2002 state election, primarily to resolve decades of community conflict over logging. Its declaration depended on the forced closure of the small local hardwood timber industry.

Although activists portrayed logging as a dire environmental threat, the industry had access to just 22 per cent of the Otway forests before the Government announced its phased closure in late 2002.

Dispersed coupes totalling 250-300 hectares were logged each year, a tiny fraction of the total 160,000 hectares of forest. This produced about 27,000 cubic metres of sawlogs, a figure a government-commissioned study in 2001 confirmed as sustainable.

The remainder of the Otway forests were in a moderately sized national park, three state parks, state forest special protection zones, some water supply catchments and code of forest practices operational reserves where logging was excluded.

These areas covered the region's old-growth forests and its significant recreational, scenic and ecologically important sites.

Despite the rhetoric, the existing high level of reserved forest made the new national park irrelevant to old-growth protection. And the park is unlikely to significantly improve other already well-protected environmental values.

Anti-logging activists have long claimed that national park expansion would spark an ecotourism bonanza with substantial economic benefits. The Otway Ranges are a well-developed part of the broader Geelong-Otway tourism region. They attracted almost 6 million domestic and international tourists in 2002 who spent more than $1.1 billion. But the region's primary attraction is its coast, where most tourist facilities are located. Visitor statistics for 2002 show that just 4 per cent of tourists visited a rainforest or bushwalked, despite an extensive network of easily accessible walking tracks and picnic facilities that have co-existed with other forest uses, including timber production, for more than 30 years.

According to a 2003 study for the Victorian Environment Assessment Council, the new national park may increase forest visits by up to 30 per cent. It also said national park tourism generates just $30 a visitor a day."

Full text of article

ARTICLE: Neighbours warned to act on illegal logging

Greg Roberts
The Australian, December 19, 2005

AUSTRALIA'S neighbours have been put on notice to crack down on illegal logging in their rainforests or face tight restrictions on timber exports to the nation.

Federal Forestry Minister Ian Macdonald, who will meet officials in Jakarta today to urge tougher action, said illegal logging was widespread in Indonesia, PNG and the Solomon Islands.

"We have to stop the slaughter of rainforests in some of these countries," Senator Macdonald said yesterday. "This illegal trade is a threat to some of the world's most unique and rare forests."

Senator Macdonald said Australia was trying to persuade the nations to agree to international standards requiring logging to be conducted sustainably.

While mindful of the difficulties faced by developing countries in enforcing forestry standards, Senator Macdonald said the Government would legislate if necessary to ban the import of illegally felled timber.

"Local villagers get little or no value or employment from the illegal harvest," Senator Macdonald said. "The failure to manage the resource properly means that the forests, once harvested, are gone forever."

He said Indonesia had shown genuine interest in reforming its industry and he would pursue the matter today with Forestry Minister Malem Sambat Kaban."

Full text of article

LETTERS: Illegal logging rolls on

Published in The Australian, 21 December 2005

FEDERAL Forestry Minister Ian Macdonald is intent on stopping the "slaughter" of rainforests in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and the illegal trade in timber ("Neighbours warned to act on illegal logging", 19/12). However, such a policy is doomed to failure. Most logging is conducted under the auspices of governments. While codes of practice are in place to minimise collateral damage during logging, they are seldom adhered to. It is too expensive for governments to monitor logging practices in remote locations, and in any case, bribery by large logging companies further reduces its possibility. To actually prove that illegal logging is happening is very difficult for the same reasons. Raw logs from PNG and the Solomons principally exported to China and Asian markets are more likely to be the result of illegal logging than sawn timber. A ban on sawn timber by Australia would likely leave the transgressors unaffected while hurting the legitimate operators.
Dr Colin Hunt
Holland Park West, Qld

I HAD no problem with Ian Macdonald's use of "slaughter" to describe the treatment of "some of the world's most unique and rare forests". But what got me is his concurrent tolerance of Tasmanian logging, which is flattening native forests at a rate proportionally four times as fast as PNG, for chips worth a fraction of the sawn timber being shipped out of PNG, with a similar lack of financial recompense to the hapless people living there. Worse, Tasmania is planning to increase the gargantuan harvest, almost wholly for the benefit of one company. While it's true that the slaughter is largely legal in Tasmania, this means only that the Tasmanian politicians are more brazen about their involvement. If Senator Macdonald is talking about sustainability, Tasmania belongs in the same basket with our northern and Pacific neighbours.
John Hayward
Weegena, Tas

NEWS: Regional Victoria expected to feel DSE job cuts

ABC Online
Wednesday, 14 December 2005

The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) has announced 70 job cuts to its land stewardship and biodiversity group.

The union representing DSE employees, the Community and Public Sector Union, says most of the jobs lost are based in Melbourne.

But the union's Karen Batt says the cuts will have a severe impact on teams working in regional Victoria.

"The impact that it's going to have on regional Victoria is quite severe - if you lose the knowledge and the expertise of the staff in this area, how are we going to have the staff in the field being able to deliver the services that regional Victorians rely on very heavily," she said.

Original article

ARTICLE: Larger Otways park has loggers bushed

By Claire Miller

December 11, 2005

SEVERAL years ago, the Sabine Falls were doomed. The walking track was closed and picnic tables were removed.

The waterfall was designated a star tourist attraction, but the Government had eyes only for the timber surrounding the spectacular 130-metre cascade.

That was when the timber industry swore it would not let the Government give any more ground for conservation. Now the tables are back, the path is repaired and logging is no longer an issue. Once the scene of battles between environmentalists and state foresters, the Sabine and other sites are safe in the new Great Otway National Park.

Old adversaries will rub shoulders today in celebrations at Triplet Falls, where Environment Minister John Thwaites will declare the 100,000 hectare park open. The park incorporates the existing Otway National Park, the Angahook-Lorne, Carlisle and Melba Gully state parks, and another 60,000 hectares of state forest and Crown land.

Logging will continue in the Otway Forest Park, a 40,000 hectare area where dogs and horse riding, and other activities are allowed. But logging will be phased out by 2008, when the licence expires for the last sawmill left in nearby Colac.

Trisha Caswell, chief executive of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries, had regrets. She said the Otways could have been a model for sustainable forestry. "Basically, the Otways are 1939 regrowth, they are gorgeous forests and they relate to all kinds of industries and jobs," she said.

"It is a pity we hadn't struggled through to an accommodation to have the forest and ecological views understood, and have some forestry production because everyone has wood products in every room in their house, and it is better they be sustainably harvested and produced than not."

Simon Birrell, spokesman for the Otway Ranges Environment Network, said logging in the Otways was not sustainable once water, community and other factors were considered.

He said poor stewardship was to blame for logging's demise. "The greatest adversary was the forestry bureaucracy," he said. "They were the staunchest recalcitrants who did not understand what community compromise and liaison was about.

"The loggers were constantly being the meat in the sandwich when the issue was about the Government's administration."

He said the Otways experience had big lessons for forestry elsewhere in Victoria, lessons the Victorian Association of Forestry Industries was learning. "Who is this for?" he said. "It is not really for us … it is a gift for the children of the future. They will have the benefit of it long after we have all been forgotten.""

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/larger-otways-park-has-loggers-bushed/2005/12/10/1134086848140.html

ARTICLE: Chips are down but don’t gamble away future

The Age (article)

Tuesday 6 December 2005

This is an edited version of a speech by shadow minister for primary industries, forestry and tourism Martin Ferguson to a seminar last week.

A sustainable forest industry is crucial to the Australian economy and to help wipe out illegal logging around the world, says Martin Ferguson

Australia's forests are very important in both an environmental and industry resource context. About 10 per cent - 11 million hectares - of Australia's 155 million hectares of native forests is managed for wood production, which is less than 1 per cent harvested in any one year.

The small proportion of forests harvested annually is regenerated so that a perpetual supply of native hardwood and softwood is maintained in this country. Australia is fortunate to have some of the best foresters in the world working to maintain our assets in perpetuity

Rather than being recognised for their contribution to forestry, profession is often criticised by those who think that forests should be left to their own devices.

The withdrawal of foresters, funding and management resources from forests turned over to conservation purposes in recent decades has led to some environmental disasters in this country. I could point to uncontrolled bushfires in a number of areas, and shudder to think of the consequences of runaway fire in the vast Tasmanian wilderness areas.

We are also one of a few countries in the Asia-Pacific region with the land availability and capability to expand sustainable forestry through further plantation development over the coming decades. Demand for forest products is skyrocketing. So the sustainable expansion of Australia's forest industry is very important to meet global demand and contribute to our own economic prosperity

Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister, arguing that the rest of the world is benefiting from PNG's natural forest wealth without shouldering the environmental cost, recently put the proposition that perhaps the developed world should pay for the preservation of rainforests in developing countries.

I would argue that any foreign aid directed in that way should come with reciprocal obligation, and that obligation has to include stamping out unsustainable forestry practices in those countries.

There are claims that illegal logging in Indonesia destroys about 3 million hectares of forests every year. That's about three times Australia’s legitimate harvest each year.

With the world facing significant problems in managing global demand for forest products and maintaining a sustainable forestr resource, I find it difficult to understand the campaign being run by the Greens against Australia's and particularly Tasmania’s forest industry.

The Labor Party knows full well that the key to a better Australia is jobs and economic prosperity for all. Australia and Tasmania's forest industries are part of the key to achieving that.

Tasmanian forestry is conducted in accordance with the Australian Forestry Standard, the development of which was initiated by the Commonwealth Government and based on internationally agreed criteria.

The AFS was developed through a three year process where community, expert scientists and government representatives came together to draft the standard. It holds global mutual recognition under the Endorsement of Forest Certification, which is the largest international sustainability recognition framework for forestry in the world.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation has recognised Forestry Tasmania's AFS-certified forests for exemplary forest management as part of its In Search Of Excellence program. This puts the AFS and Tasmanian forestry in the world's best practice

Let me also say that, at a time when industrial relations and the protection of our most vulnerable workers are top of mind for many of us I am pleased to see the collaborative work of the CFMEU forest division and the industry, includes key ILO (International Labour Organisation) conventions in its provisions.

Labor supports changes in forest industry practices to end clear-felling and restructure the sawmilling industry. The move away from dear-felling to more selective logging practices comes with the need for retraining. The campaign being run by the Greens, however, has nothing to do with the environment or sustainability.

The result of the Greens' actions could well be to scare international customers away from sustainable forest resources in Tasmania to countries where illegal logging in forest products leaves a trail of devastation, but where ignorance is bliss.

This will cost jobs and ecomomic prosperity in Tasmania, and our forest resources will be the poorer. Australia’s deficit in forest products - already a massive $2 billion - will grow, and the products demanded by the global market will still be supplied, but by countries and producers who don't care about sustainable forestry standards and who don't care about trashing Thirld World forests forever.

More of Tasmania's land and forests are protected than anywhere else on earth – four timees the benchmark set by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and 40 per cent of the state.

The realitv is that we have to be part of the solution to the environmental impact of economic growth in our region. Part of that solution is to continue to grow a sustainable Australian and Tasmanian forest industry.

It is estimated that almost 10 per cent of timber products imported to Australia are of suspicious origin. The trade in illegal and unsustainable timber distorts trade, suppresses prices, and causes damage to the environment.

Dubious importing practices are already contribute to job losses in Australia, where local producers are arguably being unfairly undercut.

Our own economic and environmental future is in jeopardy if we don't adopt measures to control importation of illegal and unsustainable timber products and if we fail to set the example world’s best forestry forest industry practices with our trading partners. That’s why the Australian Labor Party supports the development of a worldclass-pulp mill in Tasmania. Our high standards could add around $100 million to the cost of the mill compared to less stringent standards for our competitors in this industry.

Despite the cost impediment, we required the development of Australian manufacturing industries, which we require to operate on a world's best practice basis with respect to environmental and greenhouse emissions, and not drive them offshore to countries with lower standards.

The Federal Labor platform commits a future Labor government to encourage moves away from woodchip exports by promoting greater value-adding and downstream processing.

The Tasmanian pulp mill be an important step in this direction, quadrupling the value of Tasmania's woodchips and going a long way to reduce Australia's, trade deficit in pulp and paper products. It is up to us as a nation to ensure that our imports and exports of forest products are certified to give us confidence about the origin of the products, the legality of their acquisition, and the reputation and forestry standards of the producers.

ARTICLE: Greenie hand on timber goals

Philip Hopkins and Melissa Fyfe
The Age, November 21 2005

A LEADING environmentalist has helped launch a campaign that aims to create a sustainable, long-term future for Victoria's native forest timber industry.

Environmentalist Rob Gell, chairman of Greening Australia, joined the chief executive of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries, Tricia Caswell, in releasing VAFI's 2005 Sustainability Report on Friday.

The report, the first in a series, "represents where the industry is now, what the issues and hot issues are, and how VAFI sees the future", Ms Caswell said.

The association aims to work with the State Government and stakeholders to develop a 40-year plan. "By 2025, the industry will be supplying high-quality hardwood timber and wood fibre from native forests, commercial plantations and farm forestry," the report says.

"We aim to have the most sustainable forest practices recognised worldwide. The industry intends to be a significant provider of ecosystems services from forests that include catchment health, salinity control, water flow management, carbon sequestration, linking and expanding remnant forest vegetation and production forests to enhance biodiversity."

VAFI's Vision 2025 sets out many aims, which include having the highest-quality products, third-party certification, sustainability reporting, resource security, enhanced research and innovation, redressing the $2 billion forest trade deficit, no illegal log imports, value-adding and finding niche markets.

The report notes that 651,300 hectares of native forest, less than 10 per cent of Victoria's 7.9 million hectares of native forest, is available to the timber industry.

Mr Gell, a member of VAFI's community council, said he was comfortable with the direction of Victoria's native forest sector.

The industry's first sustainability report was "a very, very valuable document". "It sets a course, marks an intention and it sticks someone's neck out," he said.

But Gavan McFadzean, Victorian campaigns manager for the Wilderness Society, said VAFI's sustainability report was disappointing. "It contains plenty of the usual rhetoric but no new approaches to creating environmental sustainability in native forests," he said.

"Yet again VAFI has a confused understanding of sustainability. This report is about creating sustainability in wood supply, that is native forests can be logged like plantations on 60-year rotations. This is a world apart from environmental sustainability, the outcome of which is that old growth forests … are not destroyed."

Full text

ARTICLE: Sawmillers fear compo fund shortfall

20/10/2005. ABC News Online

Tasmania's country sawmillers can now apply for government compensation to upgrade their equipment to handle plantation logs.

The $4 million compensation package was promised in the Community Forest Agreement (CFA), along with funding for softwood and hardwood operations.

Stephen Cornish, from the Country Sawmillers' Association, says many owners have indicated they will phase out of the industry, but there may not be enough funds to satisfy everyone who wants to continue.

"We've known for a long time that the resource is changing and is going to change and we know there are some mills that are operating now, simply won't be competitive in five, 10, 15 years' time," he said.

"So it's a matter of evolution I guess that these mills will disappear from the scene.

"The sawmillers I've been speaking to are looking to upgrade or changing their gear.

"You're talking about capital expenditure of equipment that is quite expensive, so the $4 million I suspect won't go very far and will go fairly quickly.""

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1487037.htm

LETTER: Dingo Creek logging continues

Author: Tony Hastings

Letter submitted to the Age follows:

The logging at Dingo Creek on the Errinundra Plateau continues, destroying old-growth forest, threatened species habitat and rainforest values within a National Heritage sited site, a Rainforest Site of National Significance and
so called “Special Management Zone”.

These values include “Catchment integrity” and “Scientific value,” which are undoubtable being lost due to the logging. Despite being warned in 2001 that this logging was contrary to the Code of Forest Practice and Management Plan, the DSE refuse to modify the logging plans.

Following arrests at the 2001 blockade, 2 botanists testified that rainforest had been logged and the Supreme Court of Victoria ruled that logging contrary to the Code of Practice is illegal. Why is the DSE allowed to show such contempt for environmental laws?

A private landowner who clears forest like this would be prosecuted.

For more information call 0427 534 548

LETTER: Logging blunders unacceptable

Author: Peter Campbell

10 March 2005

Not published

Recent “logging blunders” by The Department of Sustainability and Environment (The Age, 3/10) clearly demonstrate yet again that the Department is not capable of managing their conflict of interest between protecting our forests and logging them too.

It is simply unacceptable that these blunders have led to the destruction of our forest that is supposed to be protected, which is home to threatened species such as the long-footed potoroo. With friends like this, our forest doesn’t need enemies.

In addition, breaches of the so-called “code of forest practices” have been occurring for years without adequate policing by the Department. No substantive action has been taken about breaches that have been detected over the last two decades.

Rather than conducting more audits, Environment Minister John Thwaites needs to taken urgent and immediate action and ensure that the Department is prosecuted for all breaches.

He should also reinstate separate management for our National Parks, old growth forests and water catchments that are simply too precious and important to be ignored by a department that is intent on logging at any cost.

ARTICLE: Logging blunders to be investigated

Some more evidence of incompetence and possible corruption with the innaccurately named "Department of Sustainability and Environment". Logging old growth forests - and National Parks - is clearly not sustainable or good for the environment.

Original article available here.

Excerpt of text from article follows:

Logging blunders to be investigated
By Adam Morton

October 3, 2005

THE Victorian Government will today ask the state's environment watchdog to investigate at least two logging blunders that felled protected trees in national and state parks, putting endangered species at risk.

Environment Minister John Thwaites will instruct the Environment Protection Authority to audit breaches in the Barmah State Forest, near Echuca, and the Errinundra National Park in East Gippsland. The Department of Sustainability and Environment conceded it logged more than half of a protected habitat for the endangered superb parrot in the Barmah, and VicForests felled at least 250 square metres at Errinundra, home to threatened species including the long-footed potoroo.

The minister's intervention came after a coalition of environmentalists led by the Victorian National Parks Association called for the agencies to be prosecuted over four alleged logging breaches.

. . . continues

ARTICLE: Malaysians 'fed up' with Indonesian haze

The Age, breaking news
August 13, 2005 - 2:29PM

Malaysians saw a clear and sunny sky for the first time in days as a hazardous haze dissipated overnight.

But anger mounted against Indonesia for failing to control the man-made forest fires that caused the pollution crisis.

Seven elderly people who died in recent days may have been victims of the haze, which turned into Malaysia's worst ecological emergency in years. However, doctors said it was too early to attribute the deaths to pollution, The New Straits Times newspaper reported.

"Enough is Enough, Indonesia," screamed the headline of a commentary in the Star newspaper by its deputy editor, Wong Chun Wai.

The haze, which appeared on August 2, has been caused by fires on Indonesia's Sumatra island - across a narrow strip of sea from Malaysia.

In Sumatra, farmers, plantation owners and miners clear land during dry weather. It's an annual occurrence and Malaysia has often complained that Indonesia does little to prevent it.

"Let's be clear about this ... Malaysians are fed up with having to put up with this annual problem, and this time many of us think it has gone too far," Wong wrote.
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"Indonesia has to wake up to the fact that the forest fires have become a (regional) problem, full stop. Let's end this annual ritual once and for all with serious enforcement.""

Full text

ARTICLE: Finally, it's just about politics

The Age
By Shaun Carney, October 9, 2004

Illustration: Spooner

The first five weeks of the 2004 election campaign were about policy and personalities. The final week has been about politics - raw, number-crunching, visceral politics.

Mark Latham on Monday made a final lunge, throwing a net over every available Green voter in the hope of compensating for Labor's stubbornly low level of primary support. Two days later, John Howard responded by returning to the political method that had given him a massive majority in his first election victory in 1996: the chiselling-off of conservative blue-collar voters from Labor's base.

In what appears to be a tightly fought contest, both of these tactical manoeuvres will work, shifting votes from one side to the other. But only one can be decisive.

As this week progressed, an air of quiet confidence - but something short of absolute certainty - permeated the Liberal camp. The feeling among a number of people working on the campaign was that the Government had done enough to create doubts about Latham during the first month and that in the final few days the circumstances had been right for a Liberal foray into Labor's heartland.

One Liberal put it this way: "We lured Latham into putting all his eggs into the basket marked 'Greens'. They're not our people, the Greens. They never will be. We sat back and let it happen. Then the PM goes down to Tassie and offers to protect the timber workers' jobs above all else. We get pictures all over the country in the papers and on TV of blokes in overalls cheering the PM.

"I mean, you can't buy that stuff. The message is: if you're a working person and you think greenies are wankers - and lots of blue-collar people think like this, not just in Tasmania but all over the mainland - then John Howard is the only one prepared to do what is necessary to keep you and your family together."

At the same time, the Labor camp got a bad case of the jitters in the 24 hours after Latham announced his Tasmanian forests policy on Monday. The denunciation of the policy and explicit criticism of Latham by the ALP member for Lyons, Dick Adams, briefly stopped Labor's campaign dead.

Those who say politics is boring and predictable should think just how much and how quickly the political scene can change.

Adams' attack on Latham and his subsequent threat to rat on Labor after the election confirmed much of what the Government has been saying all the way through about the Labor leader's unfitness for office. Having one of your own desert the leader only a few days out from polling day is every campaigner's worst nightmare.

Acting in tandem with Adams was the head of the forestry division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, Michael O'Connor, who started actively touting for the Liberal Party even before the Prime Minister released his forests policy.

This is the second time that O'Connor has worked vigorously and publicly to help the Coalition's electoral prospects. In 1995, as one of the organisers of a loggers' blockade of Parliament House, O'Connor seriously weakened the Keating government's authority.

Senior Liberals have since credited O'Connor with inadvertently showing them the way towards their successful strategy in the 1996 election that gave Howard a landslide majority, a strategy that exploited the divisions between Labor's urban, white-collar base and its blue-collar supporters in the outer suburbs and regional areas.

Greens' leader Bob Brown, the Wilderness Society and the Australian Conservation Foundation held back endorsement of Latham's policy until after Howard's announcement, which meant that Labor appeared to swing in the breeze for 48 hours.

Labor's problem all through this campaign - and in fact for its whole time in opposition - has been its apparent inability to lift its primary vote. When Gough Whitlam took office in 1972, Labor secured 49.6 per cent. In 1983, which was Bob Hawke's first victory, it scored 49.5 per cent.

The published and private polling this time suggests that it's refusing to go above 40 per cent. That can be enough for Labor to win - Hawke's last victory in 1990 came on the back of a 39.4 per cent primary vote - but absolutely everything has to go right.

The feeling among Labor campaign workers last weekend was that they had done everything possible to gain the ascendancy over the Government.

Two weeks earlier, Latham had declared the election a referendum on Medicare, a bold boast given that the normal dynamic of election campaigns is that the terms are dictated by the incumbent. Last week, courtesy of Labor's Medicare Gold policy announced at its formal campaign launch, health did become the battleground, so some in charge of the ALP effort felt they had drawn level with the Government.

But it still was not enough. The grand gesture of the forests policy, with $800 million to keep timber workers in jobs and the locking up of old-growth forests, was seen as the way to kick Labor over the line.

Bob Brown's extraordinary endorsement of Labor on Wednesday night, in which he asked his party organisation in 26 extra seats to draw up tickets that gave preferences to Labor, suggested that it could pay off.

But will the pay-off be big enough? This is the question that lies at the heart of today's ballot.

Both sides of politics have seen this coming. That's why the Liberals have fed anti-Green propaganda to the Murdoch press all the way through the campaign, and it's why the Liberal Party distributed anti-Green pamphlets with no obvious Liberal markings to households even in safe seats such as Goldstein in the past few days.

Labor expects the preference flows from Greens voters to be much tighter - perhaps above 90 per cent - because of the forest policy. The Liberals know they have to frighten waverers away from voting Green in the first place because the impulse will be to follow the Greens' pro-Labor ticket.

The other side of the coin is that Howard could have played the situation beautifully, casting himself as the workers' friend at just the right time in the campaign.

Howard's relentless portrayal of himself since Day One of the campaign as the king of low interest rates and the only leader in Australia who understands how to make the economy grow has undoubtedly been effective.

The connection with the Tasmanian logging workers put flesh on the bones of this message. Its potency could well have spread beyond Bass Strait and onto the mainland, shoring up support in a range of marginal Liberal-held seats.

Those who say politics is boring and predictable should think for a moment just how much and how quickly the political scene can change. The public discussion during the Howard Government's third term was dominated by war, terrorism and the American alliance.

None of these issues have figured in any substantial way in the past 42 days. Instead, it's been the home mortgage, hospital trolleys, school buildings, and wilderness areas that most of us will never see.

Happy voting.

Shaun Carney is an associate editor of The Age.

Original article

ARTICLE: Logging fires hit catchments

The Age
Melissa Fyfe, Environment Reporter, May 10, 2004

The State Government has admitted that it lost control of five fires connected to logging operations, most of them in Melbourne's water catchments.

One fire incinerated several boxes that forest animal specialist David Lindenmayer had set up as experimental habitats for the endangered Leadbeater's possum. It is believed possums were not using them at the time.

Two post-logging fires escaped into national park in the O'Shannassy and Maroondah areas - "locked" parts of the city's water catchments. Two other fires in April, also lit to regenerate logged areas, burnt 280 hectares of the Thomson catchment, one of the city's major water sources.

Logging in water catchments is sensitive because it replaces old trees with young trees which, while growing, suck up water that would otherwise flow to dams. Melbourne Water research shows that water yield from logged areas drops 50 per cent by the time the trees are 20 to 30 years old. For this reason, the Department of Sustainability and Environment and Melbourne Water only allow 150 hectares to be logged each year in the Thomson catchment. A fire, which also encourages young trees to grow, also has a water-reducing effect.
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A department spokeswoman said the two fires that escaped into the Yarra Ranges National Park were minor. In the Maroondah catchment, a quarter of a hectare was burnt, and half a hectare in O'Shannassy, she said.

"These escapes occurred during the extreme weather conditions experienced post-Easter," she told The Age. Another controlled burn got away in a special forest experiment, also part of Professor Lindenmayer's work. In a logging area, an island of trees that was supposed to be left for future animal habitat was burnt. But the spokeswoman said: "At Toolangi the regeneration burn did get into the island, but the mountain ash will survive and provide animal habitat in the future."

Professor Lindenmayer is helping research ways that clearfell logging can be changed to leave clumps of forest that will grow old and provide hollows, key habitat for Leadbeater's possum.

"Essentially we have a big problem in the Central Highlands with clearfelling," Professor Lindenmayer said. "It eliminates the structural complexity of the forest ... There needs to be a mixture of old trees and young trees."

Professor Lindenmayer, from the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University, said he did not know how many possum boxes he had lost. The experiment - to see if they would live in boxes in the absence of suitable hollows - had not attracted possums so far.

The Wilderness Society and local conservationists believe that logging should be stopped in Melbourne's water catchments.

Sarah Rees, the Central Highlands Alliance president, said her group had stumbled on the "smouldering secret" in water catchment areas. "The (department) has displayed nothing but nonchalance and disregard for the sensitivity of these surrounding national parks," she said.

Original article