MEDIA RELEASE: Green power or green wash? Bracks’ bare earth policy

Saturday 21st April 2007

For comment: Jill Redwood 03 5154 0145

The Bracks government is planning to increase carbon emissions by allowing the burning of Victoria’s native forests to produce electricity, despite forests being seen as critical carbon stores and water producers.

“This week the ALP tabled a new set of Victorian Renewable Energy Target rules that could see native forests burnt for power generation”, said Jill Redwood, Coordinator of Environment East Gippsland. “All Victorian’s should be outraged about this sudden change of policy. Mr Bracks is now planning to cremate our native wildlife and incinerate the lungs of the land to generate electricity. They’ll need a good spin doctor to sell this one to the public.”

“Throwing forests into burners to power turbines shows the government has gone totally insane In 2002, ALP policy prohibited the burning of native forests for power generation, but now their proposed rules open the door for native forests to be burnt. The government’s definition of ‘waste’ has allowed over 75% of all wood taken from a clearfelled forest to be woodchipped. We have to wonder if power stations will also get our forests for 11c a tonne as ‘waste’.”

“This is a treacherous new direction that would increase drought and weather extremes in the state”, said Jill Redwood. “Does Mr Bracks not understand the simple concept of climate shift?”

“The forests of eastern Victoria need immediate protection as wildlife refuges, clean water catchments and carbon stores. These are public forests and must not be stealthily sold off to electricity companies under the guise of ‘renewable energy’.

LETTER: Who will benefit from anti-logging payout?

Pat Abrahams, Nunawading
Letter, The Age, 31/3/07

The Prime Minister's unrelenting belief is that it doesn't matter if Australia contributes to poisoning the atmosphere or the country is ravaged by climate change as long as Australians have jobs.

Out of guilt or as a political ploy, he has decided to throw 200 million taxpayer dollars at impoverished countries to stop them deforesting. Such an idea was slammed by the previous Malaysian prime minister as a Western notion to hamper the growth of developing countries. Rightly so; they are as concerned about jobs as we are.

If Mr Howard is the realist he claims to be, he would understand that the nations he is targeting have a high rate of illiteracy — their people know little and care even less about global warming. The idea of dangling millions before officials of dubious integrity is unlikely to catch on, because the success of this scheme cannot be guaranteed. If reports are any indication, vast amounts of tsunami dollars have yet to reach the victims. What assurance does the Australian taxpayer have that this wild scheme will produce results?

LETTER: A necessary step

Dr Mark Zirnsak, Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, Uniting Church in Australia
Letter, The Age, 31/3/07

It has been disappointing to hear the Howard-bashing in response to the Prime Minister's announcement of $200 million to be spent on tackling illegal and unsustainable logging in our region.

According to the International Tropical Timber Organisation, of 206.7 million hectares of permanent forest estate in the Asia Pacific region in 2005, only 19.5 million hectares were being sustainably managed. Our partner churches in places such as the Philippines and Indonesia identify illegal logging as a serious issue.

At the same time, we agree that the Australian Government should restrict timber and wood product imports to Australia to those that are certified, where feasible. Also, the necessary and welcome action on unsustainable logging in the region does not relieve the Government of the need to take serious action in reducing Australia's contribution to dangerous climate change. Finally, we share concerns about regulation of logging in some places in Australia, especially Tasmania. However, this is a state government as much as a federal government issue.

LETTER: Kyoto conundrum

Geoff Richardson, Glen Iris
The Age, 29/1/07

THE Labor Party is keen to sign the Kyoto Agreement but has not advised us which industries it would have to close in order to comply with the Kyoto emission requirements.

Countries with nuclear power stations would find it easier to sign the agreement than countries like Australia whose electricity is mostly provided by coal-fired power stations. The closing of several coal-fired power stations and industries with large electricity consumption would probably be required if the Labor Party were serious about Australia signing the agreement.

The planting of vast areas of forest is a better and quicker means of achieving carbon dioxide emission stabilisation, at least until alternative methods can be properly evaluated. But rather than engaging in the reforestation of South-East Asia, why not start in Australia by turning low-productivity agricultural land back into forest?

LETTER: Plank and mote

Matthew Salter, Greensborough
The Age, 29/3/2007

JOHN Howard is concerned with the loss of Australian jobs because of any response to climate change, and so has decided to help reduce logging in Asia. Just wondering, Prime Minister, how many jobs will be lost in Asia?

The Government needs to be reminded of the biblical principle of removing the plank from your own eye before worrying about the speck of dust in the eye of another. Stop shipping our climate change problems off-shore, Mr Howard and focus on making changes in our own country.

Perhaps start by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. Maybe then move on to stopping the logging of old-growth forests and investing in renewable energy. Oh, and de-deifying the economy might help: change does cost money, but it's money well invested.

THE AGE: Timber DNA profiles reduce market for illegal logging

Philip Hopkins
March 29, 2007

ONE of Australia's largest timber importers has introduced technology that ensures that no wood it brings into Australia has been illegally logged.

Simmonds Lumber now conducts DNA testing of timber — a world first — that verifies the exact source of each tree being imported from Indonesia. The test is similar to DNA testing of humans.

The technology is expected to strengthen the fight against the estimated $400 million worth of illegally logged timber products now imported into Australia annually.

Simmonds, which has an annual turnover of $100 million, has invested more than $250,000 in the past five years to develop the technology with Singapore timber auditing company Certisource.

A genetic profile is taken of each tree while it is growing in legally allocated concession areas in Indonesia. Simmonds chief executive Paul Elsmore says a sample is also sent to Certisource in Singapore.

The genetic profile is then rematched with another genetic analysis once the logs have arrived at the production mill in Indonesia.

"This proves the log has come from the concession," Mr Elsmore said. "It's checked against the data in Singapore."

The approved timber is then processed through the mill, where it is audited by Certisource, before finally being exported to Australia.

Mr Elsmore said he was confident the technology would make Australia a world leader in the global fight against illegal logging.

Mr Elsmore said Indonesia was suffering one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, with more than 80 per cent of all wood produced and sold there thought to be illegal.

"In the past five years, though, the Government has made huge inroads into reducing this," he said. "It's improving every day."

Mr Elsmore said the legal concessions were probably in regrowth native forest areas.

Many auditing systems rely on a "certificate of origin" issued in the source country to prove the legality of the cargo. "However, these systems can be corrupted. Many log smugglers sidestep the authorities by providing false certificates," Mr Elsmore said.

About 150,000 cubic metres of sawn timber is imported into Australia from South-East Asia every year. Simmonds has imported about 10,000 cubic metres of DNA-tested merbau products into Australia in a test program.

Australia imports about $4 billion worth of forest products annually, but has a trade deficit of about $2 billion in forest products.

http://www.certisource.net

Original article

THE AGE: Bushwhacked by logging industry

Marcus Ward
The Age, March 23, 2007

THE recently announced closure of the Black Forest Timbers (BFT) sawmill at Woodend is far more than just another story about yet another small business shutting its gates. It's the story of the end of a myth that has underpinned the state's logging industry for three decades: the myth of sustainable logging.

Black Forest Timber was established in 1974 at a time when the logging industry was struggling with low profits, dropping demand and a dwindling log supply caused by decades of overlogging and poor forest management. Loggers were being hammered by imports and competition from domestic pine.

Out of this crisis sprang a new industry model. BFT was both a creation of and an ardent practitioner of the then new business model. The new approach changed fundamentally the way state forests have been managed as well as the relationships between government, industry, bureaucracy and the community.

In the 1980s the new logging industry plan gained momentum and was embraced by governments at all levels, by the unions and the bureaucrats. An essential change was the move to intensive logging. Selective logging all but disappeared in favour of clear-felling. At the same time the areas of logging also dramatically increased.

In turn, this required the introduction of export woodchipping as a convenient way to profit from and practically deal with the huge mountain of trees being felled.

Herein lay a troublesome hurdle. Woodchipping has never been accepted by Victorians. Many polls have been carried out over many years. They all register a very high disapproval level. In an effort to sell the new approach to government and the community, a PR campaign was mounted and vigorously maintained, often using government grants.

The plan became more than a plan; it became a dogma. A new vocabulary was consciously developed to distinguish old "unsustainable logging" from the new "sustainable logging". "Logging" became "harvesting". The "logging industry" became the "timber industry". "Woodchips" weren't chipped trees, but rather the "waste from the forest floor that would otherwise be burnt". From dogma to mythology, criticism was incomprehensible to believers.

The industry needed huge subsidies, and they got them; again and again. They sold the idea of "sustainability" at every opportunity. It justified the enormous injection of taxpayer support because it carried with it the notion of building something for the future, something permanent.

In this new era, loggers were not only successful business managers, they were environmental stewards. This was an important part of the message.

There have been many industry restructures and rescue plans over the past 30 years.

As industry target after target failed, new plans substituted for old as quickly they failed. "Value adding" has arguably been used by no industry as successfully as Victoria's hardwood loggers for raiding the public purse. There have been export grants and product development grants. There were grants to "prove up" the viability of kiln-dried beams. There were grants to improve efficiency of kiln drying and steaming. There have been transport subsidies, marketing subsidies and several adjustment packages.

For a small sawmill with limited prospects of expansion, BFT's access to government support has been extraordinary. In just the past four years it has received about $1 million a year in transport subsidies and has also received several $1 million-plus industry development grants. Distributed over the

14 sawmill worker jobs disappearing with the closing of the sawmill, this equates to subsidies and grants of $150,000 a worker a year over the past four years.

The amounts of money thrown at hardwood loggers in recent times is sobering. In 2000, Steve Bracks signed an agreement with the Howard Government that locked in a further 20 years of export woodchipping and clear-felling in western Victoria; $63 million was set aside for more industry adjustments and to ensure this was a final helping hand from government. BFT was overjoyed. Two years later the Bracks Government determined that the local forests upon which BFT depended were logged out and it decided to end all native hardwood logging west of the Hume Highway. It introduced yet another "new plan": Our Forests, Our Future. Bracks threw another $80 million in industry adjustment at the loggers and reduced sawlogging by about 30 per cent but did not reduce the area of state forest being logged. Instead, less went to sawmills and more to woodchips. They continue to believe and invest.

Good myths are potent and often endure against the odds. So it was with the sustainable logging myth. Because Labor and Liberal governments had invested so heavily, they ignored the obvious warning signs of failure. Instead, they became more desperate to "make it work". Clear-felling and woodchipping were rapidly killing the hardwood sawmilling industry. Because failures were always met with new adjustment plans, failures were hidden by the "good news" of new grants and investments.

In 2000 an alternative industry plan was developed by conservation groups and Treasury. It offered a no job loss, no woodchipping, transition into plantations for western Victoria. Initially, the state's peak industry body and some sawmills received it positively.

It was the veto of BFT and the CFMEU forestry division that scuttled any hope of a secure future in plantations. Instead, BFT opted for a continued future in native forests, and hoped for the impossible.

New Zealand, with an economy about the size of Victoria's, and facing the same postwar logging industry structural problems, took another path:

it diversified and eventually completely made the transition into purpose-planted plantations. It ended all logging in public native forests in 2000.

By 2004 the NZ logging industry directly employed 23,000 people and accounted for 4 per cent of gross domestic product. It had annual sales of $5 billion, with $3.5 billion of that earned in export. It was NZ's third-biggest export earner. In Orbost, long viewed as the logging capital of Victoria, the signs along the highway proudly identifying Orbost as Victoria's timber town have recently been removed. Expect another round of industry adjustment packages soon.

Marcus Ward is forestry spokesman for the Victorian Greens

Original article

THE AGE: A cut above

Andrew Darby
The Age, March 21, 2007

Timber giant Gunns has spooked the Lennon Government into fast-tracking its $1.4 billion pulp mill. But that's the Tasmanian way.

You need to understand the way things are done in Tasmania to see why Australia's largest-ever timber industry project could fall over like a house of cards in a gentle breeze. Leave aside any notions of pragmatic decisions based on calm reflection. Set up instead a permanent chasm, a deep ravine in the political landscape, with the timber industry on one side and greens on the other. Remember the island's tiny, two-degrees- of-separation business and political worlds, its obsession with the notion of the one, giant industrial project that will secure its future, and repetitive history of disputes over these developments.

And remember also that this is the nursery of the granite batsmen David Boon and Ricky Ponting, and of the firebrand novelist Richard Flanagan. Count on the refusal of some individuals to be bullied.

All of this may help mainlanders understand that the $1.4 billion Gunns pulp mill is more what Tasmanians might call a "rum 'un" - a strange character - than "a ringtail roarer", their term for a certainty. For more than three years, Tasmania's biggest home-grown company, Gunns Ltd, has been trying to complete its transformation from Launceston-based sawmiller and hardware store to global competitor in production of the universal paper stock, bleached kraft pulp.

Gunns employs 1700 people and has a $700 million annual turnover. Before a share price decline, it was valued at more than $1 billion on the market. From the contracted tree fellers in the bush, to the woodchip loaders and the counter staff at its stores, Gunns is there. The company reaches throughout Tasmania.

When Premier Paul Lennon paid for $100,000 of renovations to his graceful but ancient sandstone house in the country, a Gunns subsidiary, Hinman Wright Manser, did the work. When the mill project in the Tamar Valley, north of Launceston, was announced, Prime Minister John Howard went to Tasmania to commit $5 million to ease Gunns' task of assessing it.

And when old-growth logging in Tasmania blew up as an issue in the last federal election campaign, timber industry interests dominated by Gunns spent nearly $486,000 on political advertising.

After the Howard Government won with a forests policy backed by Gunns executive chairman John Gay, the company donated $45,000 to the Liberals in Tasmania, and $20,000 to the party's associated Free Enterprise Foundation. It gave nothing to Labor over the same period.

Little surprise that when Gunns began to make noises in January about pulling out of the normal statutory assessment process for its giant mill, the Premier interrupted his leave to get on the highway to Launceston, to Gay's office.

Unusually in Australian corporate life, Gay is both chief executive and chairman of Gunns. He is the one who travels the globe, meets the politicians, strides the shop floor and fields the media.

Endearingly awkward of speech, evidently respected by his employees, he grew up in timber, drives a modest European car and farms for recreation. Gay is also a tiger of an opponent. Back in the 1980s, he took on a royal commission, refusing to be browbeaten when Gunns came under attack because its then chairman, Edmund Rouse, had used money on deposit with the company to attempt to bribe a state MP, and thereby buy a parliamentary majority. Though other witnesses folded, Gay sat like a rock, unscathed.

Also to appear in the box at the time under adverse questioning were two other men who are now Gunns directors, businessman David McQuestin, and the former Liberal premier Robin Gray.

In Tasmania, being what it is, there is further symmetry to this history: Gray's fall from power 18 years ago was hastened by his handling of the failed Wesley Vale pulp mill project put forward by Gunns' predecessor, North Broken Hill.

Under the present Gunns board, the company remains a fierce defender of its beliefs, and plays hard. It is pursuing a highly controversial damages case against 15 individuals and evironmental organisations. Already two statements of claim have been thrown out by the Victorian Supreme Court.

According to the Wilderness Society, the actual damages claimed in the third statement - the financial losses caused, rather than the exemplary damages sought - are far outweighed by the legal costs so far awarded against Gunns.

"What we're sick of is the malicious damage some people are doing to us," Gay said of the pursuit. "We will continue to chase that down to the nth degree."

Then last year, as the pulp mill assessment moved to its critical stages, Gay started to come up against Tasmanian characters much like himself.

The chairman of the state's Resource Planning and Development Commission, Julian Green, was the ultimate legal-minded public servant, deeply experienced and dismissive of the limelight.

Green was blunt with Gunns. At a commission public hearing called to consider the company's confusing 7000-page, $11-million submission, Green suggested that perhaps Gunns might like to do it again.

When the Lennon Government began to stick its nose into the process through a "cheer squad" it called the Pulp Mill Taskforce, Green had had enough. Assessment panel member Warwick Raverty resigned when the taskforce brought up past work that might be perceived as biased, and Green followed.

Unfortunately for Gunns, his replacement as commission chairman did not appear to be any more helpful to the company. A retired judge, Christopher Wright, a stickler for procedure, refused to meet Gay privately for discussions.

He also criticised Gunns for its repeated failure to meet deadlines set by the commission, pushing out far beyond May a decision on the mill's approval.

"It has become quite apparent that due to accumulated delays, all or most of which appear to have resulted from Gunns' failure or inability to comply with their own prognostications, or the panel's requirements, that timeline can no longer apply," Wright said.

At first Gunns tersely agreed to a new timetable set by Wright that would not have seen a decision on the project before November.

But behind the scenes, the Premier was seeking something quite different. At a meeting with Wright in late February, Lennon proposed plans to introduce special legislation and abandon public hearings to speed up assessment of the mill.

"I was gobsmacked, to be perfectly honest," Wright said. After thinking about it, he offered his resignation. Faced with this additional highly embarrassing loss, Lennon backed down. But Gunns remained dissatisfi ed. On March 14 it formally withdrew from the commission process. "We have tried to have discussions with people during this process and, from within the Government and RPDC, have never been able to talk to anyone," Gay told the ABC. "They have said: 'we can't talk to you' and obviously at the directions hearing Mr Wright said that he can't talk to me.

"I have offered to put a project which would add value to the forests and add value to Tasmania, that I can't talk to anyone about. We cannot continually run a process which has not got any timelines."

Each six-month delay would add $60 million to the cost of the project, Gunns calculated, as a result of bank commitment fees, financial hedging costs and additional construction costs. Instead it "required" a process that delivered a decision by June 30. It was time for the Premier to hit the road to Launceston again.

He put forward a plan to take the proposal, now ballooned to a breathtaking 9000 pages, through State Parliament.

A relaxed Lennon recounted his Sunday evening visit to Gunns' office where he met Gay. The Premier laid out his plan, Gay "withdrew, presumably to consult others in the company", and came back an hour later to agree.

Lennon said that essentially the mill had failed at the commission because of the organisation's inability to determine a final timetable. "Investors need certainty, and the process did not supply certainty. This process has to end now by August 31."

But he confirmed that he had an understanding with Gunns that the project would be unchanged from the one that fell short in the commission. Dr Raverty, the Victorian organic chemist whose resignation from the assessment panel started the cards collapsing, is convinced that on existing data, the mill will not be environmentally acceptable at its site in the Tamar Valley.

Raverty said Gunns was yet to show that its airborne emissions would fall within prescribed limits, in an airshed already notorious for poor quality. Gunns had also left open the option of using a bleaching process not used by any other pulp mill in the world.

"You would have to worry that the process is going to get out of control some days and produce highly toxic organochlorines. If that happened, Australia would be in breach of its international obligations under the UN Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants."

Lennon is confident that consultants employed by the State Government will be able to make the project comprehensible to state MPs. The mill would meet stringent environmental guidelines, or be rejected, he said. "If it doesn't meet the emission limits, I won't be voting for it."

Having abandoned the process that he previously endorsed, Lennon apparently faces fewer difficulties in getting the project through the Parliament. Less than half-way into a fouryear term, he has political time on his hands, and a secure lower house majority.

In the state's upper house, conservative independents and Labor MPs, who could be expected to be kind towards the project, predominate. Their sensitivity to lobbying is legendary. More immediately, Lennon faces heavy political criticism over his attempt to sway Wright.

As the Tasmanian Greens leader Peg Putt surveyed the special treatment awarded to the party's longtime foe, she said: "This is not in the public interest. This is in Gunns' interest. In the final wash-up, Parliament is set to make an entirely political approval after a second-rate charade."

Original link

ABC ONLINE: Lennon says Gunns agrees to new pulp mill process

ABC Online
Monday, March 19, 2007

The Tasmanian Government says Gunns has agreed to take part in the new assessment of its $1.5 billion pulp mill.

The Government hopes to put an end-of-August deadline on the assessment.

The Premier, Paul Lennon, says it would be impossible for a new assessment of the mill to meet the timber company's end-of-financial year deadline.

"The 31st of August was the date that would allow us to achieve a responsible and sensible examination of the data," he said.

But he says Gunns has agreed to the new approach.

Mr Lennon maintains he does not see the need for public hearings, and that Parliamentarians will only have three sitting days to consider the final report before voting on whether the pulp mill should proceed.

The Premier hopes to have details of selection criteria for the new consultants ready by the time Parliament's Lower House debates the bill on Thursday.

Mr Lennon says the Federal Government will need to conduct its own assessment to ensure the mill meets Commonwealth guidelines.

Original article

ARTICLE: Forestry sector has growing role in combating climate change, says minister

Philip Hopkins
March 12, 2007

Victoria's forest industry will play a big role in the State Government's climate change and greenhouse policy, according to the Minister for Agriculture, Joe Helper.

Mr Helper said emissions trading was perhaps the biggest opportunity for forestry. '

'Placing a value on carbon may open up new opportunities for forest industries," he said.

Mr Helper said forestry featured strongly in the Department of Primary Industry's action agenda on climate change, drawn up last year.

"While it may be an inconvenient truth for some, the forest and wood products sector has an important role to play," he said.

Mr Helper was giving the opening address to a seminar on forestry's role in combating global warming. The seminar was sponsored by Australian Paper and the Victorian Association of Forest Industries.

Mr Helper said strategies in the department's action agenda included:

• A profitable and credible forestry carbon sink industry.
• Greater recognition of the value of forest products over man-made or fabricated alternatives.
• Potential of carbon-neutral bio-energy from sustainable forest management.
• Engaging with Victoria's timber producers to help them mitigate climate risks.

Mr Helper said wood was a renewable resource with low embodied energy. "Forests provide effective carbon sinks, which can be applied on a large scale," he said.

Forests provided other environmental services, such as habitat maintenance, ameliorating salinity and providing long-term stability for landscapes.

"And let us not forget that growing, harvesting and processing wood provides one of the most ecologically sustainable forms of employment," he said.

"As a land use option, growing trees for timber in the right landscapes is one of the more economically productive options."

However, Mr Helper said awareness of all this in the broader community was not what it should be.

"Some of the relevant carbon accounting tools are also in need of attention," he said. Mr Helper said wood products such as furniture and construction stored carbon in the longer term, while newsprint and packaging, even though shorter term, may be recycled or remain inert in rubbish tips.

"All wood and wood products ultimately have the potential to be used as carbon-neutral fuel, which can effectively offset (greenhouse) emissions," he said.

Mr Helper said wood and wood products should gain greater recognition as a sustainable building material of choice.

"In this regard, I am aware that some building codes discriminate against the use of timber, particularly that from native forests.

"This is something we will continue to work together with industry to address, because Victoria has perhaps one of the most effective forest management systems in the world," he said.

Mr Helper said Victoria's reserve system was now one of the most extensive in the developed world. VicForests, the State Government's commercial forestry arm, had just received Australian Forestry Standard certification and was regularly audited by the state's Environment Protection Authority.

Source

ARTICLE: Forest council aims to bridge green gap

Philip Hopkins
March 6, 2007

THE Forest Stewardship Council forest certification scheme has been formally launched in Australia with a pledge to increase FSC membership.

FSC Australia chief executive Michael Spencer said the group was seeking support for a two-year program to develop an FSC-accredited Australian forest management standard.

This would involve building consensus on key issues, he said, including a definition of high conservation value Australian forests, appropriate forest management practices and community benefit from forestry operations.

FSC maintains its standards ensure sustainable forest management and a rigorous chain of custody system that allows tracking of certified wood and wood products from FSC-certified forests from manufacture to the retailer and customer.

Mr Spencer said the number of Australian companies with FSC chain of certification had grown from about 10 in November 2005 to more than 30.

FSC Australia is supported by environment groups, several forest products companies and community groups.

Environmental members include WWF-Australia, the Wilderness Society, Friends of the Earth, the Australian Conservation Foundation and Greenpeace. Business members include ITC, Hancock Victorian Plantations, Australian Paper and Timbercorp.

In Australia, more than 650,000 hectares of forest have been certified to FSC standards. Globally, more than 80 million hectares have been certified in 70 countries to FSC standards, and about 5000 companies are participating in the FSC chain of custody system.

Original article

ARTICLE: Forestry Tasmania to appeal Wielangta ruling

ABC Online, February 9, 2007

Forestry Tasmania is set to challenge the Federal Court's ruling on logging in the Wielangta State Forest, saying the ruling could jeopardise all forestry and farming activity in Tasmania.

Forestry Tasmania will appeal against the court's ruling that logging activities in the area breached the Regional Forest Agreement.

Greens Senator Bob Brown successfully challenged Forestry Tasmania in the Federal Court.

Forestry Tasmania managing director Bob Gordon says the ruling has thrown doubt over the bulk of the company's wood supply contracts.

He says the effects could be felt further afield, impacting not only on forestry, but agriculture and development.

"It could have the effect of effectively meaning no development could occur in Tasmania," he said.

Senator Brown is not impressed, saying Mr Gordon is scare-mongering.

"He's trying to say, 'oh, woe is us, this is the sky falling in'," he said.

Both parties say they are confident of winning the appeal.

Original article

ARTICLE: Illegal logging threatens survival of orangutans

Karen Calabria
The Australian, February 08, 2007

NAIROBI: The UN warned yesterday that illegal logging by international companies could lead to a 98 per cent loss of Southeast Asia's tropical rainforests by 2022, threatening the habitat of tens of thousands of endangered orangutans.
To supply the growing global demand for timber and biofuels such as palm oil, illegal loggers have begun to raid Indonesia's national parks, resulting in a devastating loss of biodiversity, a report by the Nairobi-based UN Environment Program found.

"This is a stark reminder of what we're talking about when we're looking at the degradation of natural resources in the context of globalisation," UNEP chief Achim Steiner said at a UN environment meeting in the Kenyan capital. "The pressure from the global market is leading the illegal logging industry into the national parks."

The report, The Last Stand of the Orangutan: State of Emergency, found more than 73 per cent of all logging in Indonesia was illegal, and that traces of the illicit timber trade had been found in 37 of the country's 41 national parks, the last remaining habitats of the Bornean and Sumatran orangutans.

Up to 98 per cent of the country's tropical rainforests could be destroyed by 2022 if the exploitation of timber continued unabated, the report said.

Urgent action was needed to counter the effects of illegal logging, which the report found to be the work of large multinational corporations, not impoverished local people.

"At the current rate of intrusion, some of these parks may be severely degraded in three to five years," said the lead author of the report, Christian Nelleman.

Current estimates put the number of Bornean orangutans at between 45,000 and 69,000, while only 7300 Sumatran orangutans remain in the wild, signifying a 91 per cent decrease in population since the beginning of the 20th century, the report says.

"Orangutan populations are seriously affected when their forest is destroyed or logged, not least because they are often killed for meat or to protect newly planted crops."

Other orangutans are stolen from their habitats while logging occurs and smuggled out of the country - often on the same boats that are transporting the illegal timber.

Efforts are being made to monitor the illegal logging trade in Indonesia, but the Government has few resources to use as it attempts to cover the vast areas of forest.

AFP

Original article

LETTER: Catchments need trees

David Allen, Rosebud
The Age, 4/2/2007

In reply to Noel Jackson (Letters, 28/1), have a close look at where our water catchments are and you will notice they are in higher altitude and forested areas. These areas are commonly called rainbelts and were usually uninhabited until recently. High-density forests attract high rainfall; cut down the forests and there's much less rain.

LETTER: Note - trees use water

MARK POYNTER, Institute of Foresters of Australia, Doncaster East
The Age, 28/1/07

It is disappointing that public discussion about the small annual timber harvest in the Thomson catchment continues to ignore the overriding impact of fire in determining how much "water guzzling" regrowth resides in our catchments.

The critical importance of keeping fire out of our catchments has been obvious during the recent bushfires. It is worth noting that the loggers were at the forefront of the firebreak construction that saved the Thomson catchment.

If maximising water yield was our only criterion we'd be better off with pastured or concreted catchments. If we prefer healthy forested catchments we must accept that trees use water.

LETTER: Eyes wide shut

Noel Jackson, North Ringwood
The Age, 28/1/07

Your story talks about the loss of run-off into our water catchments. The alternative view is that logging increases rather than decreases runoff into our catchments. When rain falls, the drops gathers on leaves, trunks and soak into ground cover where it is consumed by natural processes or evaporated. If you were to clear the catchment and the ground is able to harden up through less ground cover, then the water has to run off.

Logging in water catchment areas is therefore going to aid our water system through less evaporation and absorption into the soil. Unfortunately that argument does not suit the greenies which is why they will shut their eyes.

LETTER: Fire in the forest

Peter Sheehan, Camberwell
The Age, 28/1/07

The report by Peter Weekes on the impact of timber harvesting on the Thompson catchment (21/1) is a good illustration of the difficulties surrounding this issue. By far the greatest is to get accurate reporting of unbiased information. Mr Weekes reports projections of potential water yield based not on the real world but on the assumption that the catchment will not eventually be burnt in a wildfire.

The catchment was burnt out in 1939 and very nearly was again in the recent bushfires. We might be able to save it from future fires but, based on history and ecology, that is unlikely.

A fair comparison would be to model the expected water yields from the forest with and without timber harvesting assuming that it is burnt by a wildfire at least once each century.

It is not clear whether it is the hydrologists or a reporter that are determined to give the timber industry another few kicks but it is high time that the public was given a more compete picture.

LETTER: Parties on logging drip

Lynn Good, Deloraine, Tasmania
The Age, 28/01/2007

Peter Weekes' story on the massive diversion of catchment water to forestry ("Dry city counts costs of logging," 21/1), missed a crucial part of the story, the flows of money between the logging industry and major political parties. Without this stage, it is hard to understand why our elected leaders would allow the loggers to divert vast amounts of increasingly precious water to an industry which is already drawing heavily on the public purse.

ARTICLE: The reality of catchments

Seamus Bradley

The Age, 28/01/2007

MELBOURNE prides itself on its pristine water sources. Rain falls in our all-natural catchments and the water gurgles through native forests so beautiful you could imagine the girl with the sun in her hair stopping off to shoot a quick shampoo commercial.

The reality, as illustrated last week, is somewhat different. There are big burly blokes (and sheilas?) with chainsaws, mucky boots and heavy equipment in the catchments stripping out thousands of tonnes of timber for some sawlogs but mostly for woodchips.

The logging is done in the highest- rainfall area of the catchment, meaning that millions of litres of water are lost to you, the public, because young trees suck up more water than mature trees. As Doctors for Forests warn, logging in the catchments also has negative health implications.

But banning logging in the catchments could also have negative health impacts for state governments. Logging unions would fight anything that looks like a win for the pinko greenies, and government would need to avoid/offset any job losses, dodge a plunge in business confidence and soften any economic downturn that the economies of logging-dependent rural communities would face.

There is nothing simple about logging in the catchments and nothing elegant about the arguments around the matter.

For instance, reaction to our page-one story has ranged from "if you want water, cut down all the trees and concrete over the catchment" to "brave loggers save the Thomson catchment from raging bushfire".

So while city people need good clean water from pristine catchments, many country people need secure jobs that pay well. Are these two needs mutually exclusive? Should logging be moved to plantations — also controversial — where the timber is of consistently better quality?

Why is the whole topic shrouded in such secrecy? Why won't government and companies answer straight questions? What did the State Government mean when it announced on Thursday that it would be "moving some logging to maximise water harvesting"?

Which Victorian Greens politician hears the voice of Bob Brown as Obi-Wan Kenobi in his head?

Elsewhere there were bouquets and brickbats for Tom Hyland's opinion piece on Melbourne's transport woes. Brilliant say some, what a whinge say others.

And Professor Sue Willis is criticised for saying that ill-informed criticism is driving the brightest away from teaching because it tarnishes the profession's reputation.

Original article

ARTICLE: 'No plan' to export timber

Philip Hopkins
The Age, 25/01/2007

The Victorian Government has denied it will export timber logs salvaged from the state's bushfires.

Rumours have been swirling in the Victorian timber industry that export sales of salvaged logs were being considered.

But a spokesman for Environment Minister John Thwaites said that in the first instance, timber salvaged would be offered to Victorian customers.

"If they are all not sold in Victoria, we can look at other options," he said.

VicForests' director of strategy and planning, Pat Groenhout, confirmed that VicForests' first focus would be to sell salvaged timber to meet existing commitments.

"If there is excess produced, we will also make first offers to domestic customers," he said. "If there is excess beyond that, we would look at all opportunities."

About 1.1 million hectares of native forest have been burnt in Victoria this summer — the same extent of forest that was burnt in 2002-03. Some fires are still burning, and the bushfire season is only half over.

Mr Groenhout said VicForests estimated that about 2 million cubic metres of standing sawlog had been burnt in this year's bushfires.

"We don't know how much of that is burnt beyond repair or burnt at all," he said. "That's the first assessment — they're rough figures because we're doing it on the run."

Mr Groenhout said the first step would be to check the condition of the fire area. This would determine how much timber was still alive and how much would continue to grow.

"That gives us two things — what we can focus on for the salvage program, and the area that will contribute to future sustainable yield," he said."There is clearly an impact on long-term sustainable yield, but we don't yet know what that will be."

Victorian Association of Forest Industries chief executive Trish Caswell said it was crucial for the Government to consider the Victorian industry's long-term needs, and not just immediate cash income.

Original article

ARTICLE: Canberra cuts down timber standard

Michael Spencer
Chief executive of the Forest Stewardship Council Australia.
January 22 2007

The failure of the Federal Government to respond swiftly and effectively to Australia's $400 million involvement in the international trade in illegal wood is symptomatic of a deeper malaise in Canberra over policies towards the forest industry.

The minister, Eric Abetz, recently released a "do almost nothing" response to an earlier report that identified the extent of Australia's involvement in the illegal wood trade — a trade that robs poor nations of income, causes deforestation and contributes to global warming.

The Australian industry needs leadership from Canberra on this issue. Apart from the impact in host countries, US research shows that the trade in illegal wood is depressing world prices for wood products by between 7 and 16 per cent.

Unfortunately, the Government has chosen to ignore the firm action being taken by European governments in Britain, Denmark and Belgium.

In these countries, Forest Stewardship Council certification is an important part of action being taken by governments through public procurement programs that ask for verification of legality and sustainability of timber supplies.

Canberra's problem with FSC certification was illustrated when Senator Abetz opened a forest growers' conference recently by criticising British Government ministers for "promoting the virtues of FSC" and for "suggesting Australia should adopt this standard".

The strength of his antipathy was highlighted on radio the next day when he attempted to disparage the FSC as a "Mexico-based" group, even though it has been based in Bonn with the strong support of the German Government for several years.

These churlish attacks appear to be driven by a desire of the Tasmanian senator to defend forest practices in his home state rather than an understanding of what is happening globally, and in the broader Australian industry.

The minister and his "me too" Opposition shadow, Tasmanian senator Kerry O'Brien, seem determined to establish Tasmanian practice as the benchmark for Australia rather than supporting the efforts of companies on the mainland to meet the global FSC standard.

In Victoria, the largest players in the forest products market, including Australian Paper, ITC, Hancock Victorian Plantations and Timbercorp, have adopted FSC certification. The industry association has also indicated its interest in the potential of FSC certification.

Western Australia has three tree plantations certified to FSC standards. In Queensland, the industry association recently joined FSC Australia. Nationally, more than half the privately owned tree plantations are FSC-certified.

One week after the minister's attacks on the FSC, about 70 people assembled near Melbourne to start developing an Australian FSC forest management standard. They included 20 corporate representatives, eight industry-association representatives and eight government representatives as well as the national environmental groups and people with industrial and community interests in forests.

In the same week, seminars in Melbourne and Sydney aimed at linking FSC-certified companies with architects and builders attracted more than 50 participants each.

Canberra needs to get over its mind-set that anything environmental groups support must be attacked and vilified.

The FSC provides neutral ground for economic, social and environmental interests to agree on what responsible forest management means on the ground. The FSC certification system is a market-driven tool for responsible forest management.

Strong growth in the FSC system globally is being driven by consumer concern about the environment and forests, and recognition by leading companies that dealing with this concern is important for developing their business.

Vince Erasmus, chief executive of ITC, said after the minister's attack on the FSC: "The vast majority of our end customers for both woodchip and sawn timber products demand FSC-certified product."

Erasmus went on to urge the Government to support the initiative to develop a national FSC standard for Australia because "certification delivers significant commercial advantage to our industry".

Academic research shows that consumers believe independent certification is helpful in verifying the origin of forest products and put most trust in independent non-government organisations such as the FSC to certify the products.

That is why the FSC has more than 5000 companies participating in its chain-of-custody system around the world and the number of Australian companies participating in this system has tripled in the past year from 10 to 30.

In Britain the nine major retailers now account for more than £1 billion ($A2.5 billion) in annual turnover of FSC-certified products. Many of them not only carry the products but are members and participate in the FSC system.

In the past two years, the presence of certified products in Britain has spread from major retailers down to smaller retailers.

The FSC system has also been picked up in government procurement policies and is the first global system recognised as verification of legality and sustainability in British Government public procurement policies.

It has spread to local government. The Greater London Authority has a policy that says: "We will purchase sustainably produced timber and timber products (such as joinery, fittings, furniture and veneers), specifying that products carry the Forest Stewardship Council certificate."

It has spread to the banking sector, where HSBC has published guidelines that state: "It is HSBC's preference to deal with customers in (the forestry and forest products sector) that are either operating managed forests that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, or equivalent FSC-recognised standard, or trade in products that are FSC-certified or equivalent."

In the Netherlands, 13 per cent of the wood trade is FSC-certified and one in four Dutch people look for FSC certification when buying forest products.

The picture in Switzerland is just as strong and FSC certification is spreading through Germany, Sweden and Italy and into the newly emerging countries of middle Europe while gradually picking up in Spain, Portugal and even France.

Across the Atlantic in North America, FSC certification is the issue for the paper industry, with companies such as Citigroup citing it in its policies. The green building industry is a major driver of demand for FSC-certified solid wood.

Of course Japan is another important market, where the FSC system is taking off, and that is having a big impact on buying decisions.

The same growth is taking place in Australia, where the biggest issues are the availability of FSC-certified papers and sawn wood.

Instead of trying to undermine the FSC system in Australia, Canberra politicians should be supporting efforts by the local industry to win a stronger share of global export markets through FSC certification.

A change in attitude towards the FSC would also give them more policy options to tackle Australia's participation in the global illegal wood trade and the opportunity to adopt the best-practice approach of the British Government.

Instead, both federal parties are obsessed with the local politics of Tasmania. Their obsession deprives the industry of genuine national political leadership.

Original article

ARTICLE: City counts cost of logging

Peter Weekes
The Age, 21/01/2007

Melbourne is losing out on a million litres of drinking water every year from continued logging in the city's main catchment area. And it comes at a cost to the taxpayer of at least $147 million — the difference between the royalties paid by the logging industry to the State Government and the value of the lost water, according economic consultants commissioned by Melbourne Water.

As the city heads towards stringent stage 4 restrictions, a host of scientific studies indicate the Thomson Dam, which supplies about 60 per cent of Melbourne's water, is losing up to half the potential run-off in the highest rainfall area owing to effects of logging.

"It's a big effect, it's not tiny," said Associate Professor Brian Finlayson, director of the Centre for Environmental Applied Hydrology.

It is estimated that if logging was stopped, water yields in the catchment would increase by 20,000 megalitres within two decades.

Despite the existence of studies dating to the 1950s, in 2004 the Bracks Government decided to conduct more research into the reduced water yields caused by logging. It is scheduled to be completed in May 2008.

All the scientists spoken to by The Sunday Age questioned the need for further studies, saying the numerous existing reports, many of which were commissioned by the Kennett and Bracks governments and on which this article is based, were sufficient.

The Government is also planning to bring forward the 2010 deadline to reconnect the Tarago Reservoir to increase Melbourne's supply by 21,000 mega-litres. It was decommissioned by the Kennett government because of problems with water quality and requires a new treatment plant costing $70 million.

The Government is also conducting a feasibility study into having a desalination plant online by 2015, which it conceded would cost more than $1 billion and require huge amounts of energy from carbon-emitting brown coal.

The Thomson, the largest of Melbourne's four water catchments, is the only one where logging is permitted. Logging in the 49,000-hectare catchment took place before the dam was built by the Bolte government to "drought proof" Melbourne.

Loggers are drawn by prized giant mountain ash, alpine ash and shining gum species. These trees are found in a third of the catchment area along the Mount Baw Baw escarpment, where most of the logging coupes are, and as the map shows, where about two-thirds of the rain in the region falls.

Physical research and theoretical modelling of the Thomson catchment shows that once an area has been logged there is an immediate increase in the water yield because there is little vegetation to draw up the rainfall. But once these water-guzzling species start to regrow, the amount of water they take from the soil doubles, cutting run-off by half, according to research by Australian hydrology expert Dr Fred Watson, an assistant professor of science and environmental policy at California State University.

"The place where you get the most wood is the same place you are going to get the most impact on water yield because they are using the most water to produce that wood," he said.

Water yields do not return to pre-logging levels for more than 150 years, Dr Watson said.

The time between the logging of coupes was also crucial to water yields. Favoured coupes in the Thomson are logged about every 60 years, by which time the water yield is still about 25 per cent lower than at pre-logging. "Rotating every 60 years is the worst thing you can do from a water yield impact," Dr Watson said.

A Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman said the Government's new study would use an updated model for determining water yields, examine timber substitution and look at economic, social and environment issues involved in logging in the Thomson. "Using the latest modelling for hydrological studies (the Macaque model) will produce more accurate and far more useful results, as previous models had wide margins of error," the spokesman said.

However, Dr Watson, who developed the Macaque model, said when he applied it to the Thomson it didn't produce fundamentally different results from the previous "Kuczera curve" model. "Any improvements to the model you make will still give you a situation where over the first few decades after logging there will be a big decline in water yield and than over the next 100 or so years it will slowly recover," he said.

Original article

ARTICLE: "Trouble at mill: resignations add air of pollution to pulp project

Andrew Darby
January 6, 2007

The architectural sketches for Australia's biggest forestry project show a clean-lined sprawl on a verdant Tasmanian river bank. Industry goes bush.

The sky is summer blue above the smokeless stack and production lines, which are mostly painted a drab green.

Gunns calls its $1.4 billion baby "the world's greenest pulp mill", and it has much more in mind than the paint job. Supporters, including both major political parties, say it is the industry's best chance yet to reduce Australia's timber imports.

But opponents of the project say this mill's green is just that: skin deep. They believe it is a liquidator of native forest life in Tasmania, and a polluter of Bass Strait.

As reliably as a swallow returning in spring, a big environmental issue is looming in Tasmania in the lead-up to the federal election. Gunns' pulp mill, already mooted to be completed in three years, is reaching critical hurdles in regulatory approval.

There are blunt criticisms from a Tasmanian Government department about potential dioxin pollution in Bass Strait, and Australian Medical Association concerns about the mill's effect on local air quality.

Now the assessment process itself is in question with the sudden resignation on Thursday of two of the four members of the panel set up by the regulator, the state Resource Planning and Development Commission.

There are many reasons why Greens senator Christine Milne is against the project — not least her long-held opposition to pulp mills. But she is unequivocal. "I think it is doomed," she said.

The mill would be built on Gunns land beside the Tamar River at Bell Bay, north of Launceston, next door to one of its three export woodchipping plants.

The largest private sector development in Tasmania would employ thousands in construction and almost 300 directly in operation.

About 80 per cent of its 3.2-million-tonne annual feedstock of timber would come from native forests and only 20 per cent from plantations. Woodchip exports, now running at about 4.4 million tonnes per year, could also continue.

Powered by wood waste and using an "elemental chlorine free" process, the mill would produce up to 800,000 tonnes of pulp for paper annually, and pump about 73 million litres of effluent into Bass Strait each day.

It would be the state's single largest private sector investment. It also represents a long-held ambition for Gunns executive chairman John Gay, and others including Gunns director Robin Gray, who was premier when the Wesley Vale project failed under attack from a campaign led by Christine Milne in 1989.

Since then, federal pulp mill guidelines have tightly restricted any pollution potential. Gunns has also spent $11 million to put together a 7500-page integrated impact statement for the Resource Planning and Development Commission on the social, economic and environmental effects of the mill.

The Howard Government gave Gunns $5 million to ease the assessment task, and the Tasmanian Government has spent millions on a project cheer squad called the Pulp Mill Task Force. The two governments agreed after the last election that the Regional Forest Agreement was the linchpin for the state's timber industry But the battle over the mill's environmental effects on Tasmania's native forests is not over.

Gunns has given commitments that no old-growth logs will be used, and there will be no "intensification" of its use of native forests because more plantation timber will gradually be used. The Wilderness Society expects woodchip exports to continue, and is arguing for greater analysis by the commission of the mill's effect on the forests.

Just before Christmas the commission refused this request, and Wilderness Society campaigner Paul Oosting said the organisation was looking at further action. "Whether we make a Supreme Court challenge or continuing talking about it with the RPDC is yet to be seen," he said.

The courts have just set up another hurdle for the mill with Greens leader Bob Brown's landmark victory in the Wielangta case. The Federal Court found the state agency Forestry Tasmania, which supervises logging on public land, failed to take account of its effect on three endangered species in the Wielangta forest.

Premier Paul Lennon was alarmed by the decision, which he said directly threatened the whole industry's stability. He sought the urgent help of Prime Minister John Howard. "If we can't restore certainty that the the RFA promised, then they'll be unable to conclude commercial arrangements for a pulp mill either," Mr Lennon said.

The state is contemplating an appeal, but Mr Lennon said that could take years. Instead, the two governments may have to try to legislate to close the gap that the court found in their protection of endangered species.

The prospect of a lengthy legal battle was the reason that Melbourne forestry scientist Warwick Raverty gave for quitting his sensitive post on the panel assessing the mill for the commission.

A principal research scientist with the CSIRO subsidiary, Ensis, Dr Raverty's role came under scrutiny last year from the Greens. The party claimed CSIRO publications showed there was a "reasonable apprehension" he had prejudged some key environmental issues involving the mill.

"I am speaking personally, but I refute in the strongest terms that either I, the CSIRO, or Ensis is biased in any way, for or against the proposal," Dr Raverty said. "However, I have been advised that had I chosen to fight in the courts, it could well have taken two years and could have gone to the High Court. Therefore in the interests of the project being heard I have decided to resign."

At the same time the panel's chairman, commission executive commissioner Julian Green, announced unexpectedly that he was also resigning. Their departure opens up half of the places on the pulp mill assessment panel at a critical time.

The Lennon Government has the task of appointing a new executive commissioner and the state's Greens leader, Peg Putt, warned they must be seen to be independent. "This Government has a list as long as your arm of mates in top jobs," Ms Putt said. "We saw that most recently with the appointment of the head of the Pulp Mill Task Force, Bob Gordon, as the new chief executive of Forestry Tasmania. If they put a mate in for the pulp mill assessment, any shreds of credibility will be completely gone.""

Original article

LETTER: Propaganda

Jason Foster, Windsor
The Age, 3/1/07

The opinion essay by Catherine Murphy was propaganda for the forestry industry masquerading as a concern for national parks.

Much of the recent bushfires in Victoria started or spread outside the parks in land that was not "locked away", as the current cliche (parroted by Murphy) has it. We all know that forests must be managed to reduce the impact of fires, but logging has no particular benefit in this regard and destroys the value of national parks as natural habitats, especially by removing trees that should be left to grow old and provide essential homes for wildlife. And the very problem of invading weeds and other pests that Murphy identifies as a consequence of fires is also caused by logging.

Our parks need active management, but logging should remain locked out.

LETTER: Managing our forests

John Morgan, Ferny Creek
The Age, 3/1/07

Catherine (Opinion, 2/1) suggests that when national parks are created, passive forest management becomes the "norm" and, hence, this ultimately leads to their destruction by bushfire. But this overlooks the fact that many Australian forests occur in fire-prone areas, that they have been burnt repeatedly over the past few centuries, and that their regeneration is intimately linked to occasional bushfire.

Landscapes are not permanently bare and blackened, and nor do the fast-growing shrubs persist in the long term. Succession, a natural process of vegetation development after fire, occurs with sufficient time between fires, leading once again to the tall forests that characterise much of south-eastern Australia.

Rather than conveniently pointing the finger at the environmentalist as the cause of the problem, perhaps an injection of some science is necessary here. I have yet to see the alternative forest vision (to current national park management) actually portrayed. How extensive and frequent should prescribed fire be to reduce the risk of landscape-scale fire, and what impacts will these prescribed fire frequencies have on biodiversity, as opposed to infrequent but large-scale bushfire? Is this acceptable in a national park?

There is an important discussion to be had among land managers, many of whom have competing goals for the land under their care. My fear is that we will be in the same predicament in a few years when the next (predictable) bushfire occurs on public land.

ARTICLE: Locking up forests increases risk of fires

Catherine Murphy,
Chief executive officer, National Association of Forest Industries
The Age, 1/2/2007

The past months have been a catastrophe for the Victorian environment. Almost 900,000 hectares, particularly in national parks, have been devastated by bushfires, with hundreds of thousands of birds and animals killed or injured amid enormous losses of vegetation.

At a time when the issue of climate change has never been more important, these fires have released millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. Given the environmental catastrophe, it is incongruous that we have heard little from the environmental movement. Australian conservationists are the first to applaud the locking up of more forests into reserves, but refuse to acknowledge the often negative environmental consequences.

Tasmania's Wielangta Forest is an example. It was the focus of a court case by Greens leader Bob Brown against sustainable forestry operations. He wanted to see the area placed into a reserve, ending forest management practices that have been occurring over decades.

While the forest's future was pursued through the courts, a moratorium on harvesting was in place, which effectively locked up the forest and resulted in reduced access and increased fire risk during the current fire season. Large areas of the Wielangta Forest were destroyed in recent fires.

Environmentalists continue to decry the need for active park management through controlled burning, yet are silent on the massive loss of biodiversity resulting from fires. Once productive forests are locked up, the passive management approach adopted by national parks bodies becomes the norm.

One of the major contributors to the destruction of forest areas by fire is the loss of access for fire crews. Previously developed roads in commercial forests are not maintained, with the result that they become overgrown and impassable. Some park managers have placed padlocked gates across roads.

Passive management of national parks is a recipe for environmental disaster. The destruction caused by the 2003 bushfires in NSW, Victoria and the ACT is still evident. More than 3 million hectares of forest were destroyed and the damage to biodiversity was enormous.

It is estimated that 130 million tonnes of carbon was emitted into the atmosphere in the few weeks that those fires blazed, equal to one-quarter of Australia's annual greenhouse emissions.

The Kosciuszko, Alpine and Namadgi national parks were devastated in the 2003 fires. Thousands of hectares of alpine ash forests were reduced to blackened remnants. There has been almost no regeneration in much of the area.

Unlike commercial forestry operations, which must regenerate all species harvested, there has been no active program by national parks bodies to reseed the forests, and no management or environmental requirements for them to do so.

As we witness one of the worst periods of drought on record, of equal concern is the effect that the 2003 fires and the latest fires will have on water supply. As forests regenerate, their need for water is enormous. CSIRO studies have shown that the Melbourne water catchment has only recently recovered from the effect of bushfires in 1939. The effect of the 2003 fires is likely to be of the same order, with studies predicting a reduction of up to a fifth in water flowing into the Murray-Darling Basin because of regeneration. It has been estimated that the regrowth will absorb 430 billion litres of water a year for the next 50 years. This will have a significant impact on the availability of water for communities, irrigators and environmental flows.

State governments and environmentalists applaud themselves in continuing to convert sustainable and productive forests into national parks. But limited resources are made available to ensure proper forest management, with the result that there are worse environmental outcomes.

We have many wonderful national parks of which we can be justifiably proud, but proper forest management practices are essential. The damage caused by catastrophic wildfires permanently changes landscapes, creating bare and blackened scenes, and open once well-managed forests to scrubby undergrowth. Noxious weeds and pests are able to flourish and the original environmental values that national parks are designed to keep for future generations are lost. Feral animals, weeds and pests are also unwanted problems for neighbours of national parks such as farms and townships.

We need to question the locking up of well-managed forests into poorly managed national reserves, including national parks. Otherwise the environment and Australian communities neighbouring these areas will continue to be the major losers.

Catherine Murphy is chief executive officer of the National Association of Forest Industries.

Original article

LETTER: Guess who saved our forests?

Peter Sheehan, Camberwell
The Age, December 28, 2006

My forester daughter was fortunate to spend Christmas Day with us after two weeks in the mountains near Matlock fighting the bushfires. With others, she was planning and setting out control lines that were then constructed by a team of bulldozer operators. Their collective skills in dangerous bush operations held those fires until the rain came. They stopped the Mount Terrible fire from burning through Melbourne's catchments.

Guess where these saviours of the forests came from? Not from the Wilderness Society, but primarily from the timber industry. They mainly used access constructed for previous logging. So Melbourne's catchments are saved for another blow-up day when, after another lightning strike, they will need saving again.

Unfortunately, most foresters in Victoria are public servants and so constrained from responding to the mangled forest science that passes for "the forestry debate". They deserve better thanks for this most recent effort than pre-emptive and opportunist distortions.

Gavan McFadzean of the Wilderness Society sure knows how to defend a weak position ("Trees don't start fires", Opinion, 27/12) — imagine and exaggerate any potential opposing argument and then mount a scattergun attack on things never claimed! We do agree on one thing, though, within the stream of inaccuracies: the logging and regeneration of forests probably has little net influence on the frequency of bushfires.

What McFadzean conveniently omits to mention, though, is that the timber industry undoubtedly does make a huge contribution to controlling the inevitable and potentially more frequent bushfires.

ARTICLE: Trees don't start fires

Gavan McFadzean, Victorian campaigns manager for The Wilderness Society
The Age, December 27, 2006

More management of forests does not necessarily make them less fireprone.

Don't be taken in when the anti-national parks lobby feigns concern about bushfire risk. Their latest contributions to the debate have been unscientific, insensitive and opportunistic.

Insensitive and opportunistic because while exhausted fire crews fight blazes across three states and people's lives and property are at serious risk, the logging industry launches another round in its attack against national parks to get greater access to forests for logging.

Unscientific because the more "managed" a forest is for logging, roading and four-wheel-drive access, the more fireprone it becomes.

The anti-national park lobby argues for greater access to our forests — not for logging, of course, but to prevent bushfires. Unmanaged forests, they say, are a firebomb waiting to explode; they need to be logged and burnt regularly to make them less fireprone. But letting loggers into our old-growth and native forests is like giving Dracula a key to the blood bank.

More management of forests does not necessarily make them less fireprone, and national parks less fireprone than areas managed for logging.

Parks are not "locked up" — they are managed as part of fire protection plans. Management burns are routinely made in most parks, and firebreaks are found in most of them or along their boundaries.

Contrary to popular opinion, most fires start outside parks and burn in. Of the most recent blazes this summer, 70 per cent started in state forests. This is consistent with the average, where about 70 per cent of fires start in state forests and burn into national parks.

The fires of Black Friday, 1939, burnt 10 times the area of the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires, yet there were few national parks back then. We can, and should, take sensible measures to reduce the risk and severity of bushfires, but it's a case of horses for courses. Controlled burning can reduce fire hazard around towns and urban centres, but may also create a fire timebomb in the bush.

Forests are ecosystems; they respond to whatever you do to them. Their response to regular hazard-reduction burns is for fire-tolerant plants to take over from fire-resistant plants, because they thrive in a regular fire environment. As a result, so-called hazard-reduction burns may, in fact, create a more fireprone landscape.

Advocates of more fuel-reduction burning talk as if it is risk-free. Remember Wilsons Promontory last year, where a fuel-reduction burn got out of control, burnt vast areas of the park and threatened campers? Controlled burning has many risks.

In the past few years, numerous controlled burns have escaped in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania. Premier Steve Bracks is right to say drought conditions can make controlled burns in the lead-up to summer too dangerous, and impossible to control. This is not to say we should never have hazard-reduction burns, but you have to pick the right environment and day.

The 2003 bushfire inquiry noted that the "prescribed-burning debate has been at times ill-informed and peppered with gross exaggerations and the view by some that one size fits all". The inquiry noted that there are only about 10 days a year when conditions are right for prescribed burning.

The oversimplification of this issue by some sectors of the public is dangerous. Bushfires are a complex phenomenon, and no single land-management practice will reduce the extent and frequency of large, intense fires across the entire landscape.

The argument that we should engage in widespread and regular burning of the forest because that's what Aboriginal people did for years is, as the 2003 bushfire inquiry put it, "a highly attractive philosophy".

But the inquiry rightly concluded that unfortunately "we do not know enough about traditional burning in southern Australia to be able to re-create an Aboriginal burning regime".

Since European settlement, the landscape has changed dramatically. Trying to replicate Aboriginal fire practices in southern Australia would unfortunately now be a risky experiment. Instead, the goal must be to produce a fuel-reduction management plan that protects biodiversity and reduces the effects of wildfire for protection of people and assets.

As for the pro-logging interests, their hypocrisy is breathtaking. They say a logging industry is essential to help fight the fires, yet this is the same industry that has contributed to making the forests of south-eastern Australia so fireprone in the first place.

Logging destroys old-growth forests and rainforests, which are less fireprone, and replaces them with young, dense, fireprone regrowth over vast areas.

The Ash Wednesday and Black Friday fires were mostly in managed regrowth forests recovering from logging. The royal commission on the 1939 Black Friday fires concluded that logging had increased the severity and the extent of the fire.

The Canberra suburbs of Duffy and Curtin, which were razed in 2003, were surrounded by pine plantations and grasslands. Pine plantations are managed forests with plenty of roads and easy access, yet these forests created a firestorm.

Logging and regeneration burns create big gaps in the forest, which in turn create a drier, more fireprone environment. Huge amounts of debris are left on the forest floor after logging, adding to the fire hazard.

About 75 per cent of fires are started by humans, and logging roads provide greater public access to the forest.

If the logging industry really cared about reducing the bushfire hazard, it would be calling for an end to the logging of native forests.

In big bushfire seasons, national parks are demonised. We need to remember that these areas are huge carbon sinks that buffer us from the impacts of dangerous climate change. Our parks take the equivalent emissions of 250 million cars for a year out of the atmosphere.

Prime Minister John Howard's comments that the recent bushfires are unrelated to climate change are alarming. CSIRO has predicted global warming may double the very high and extreme fire danger days. South-eastern Australia is already one of the three most fireprone areas in the world.

Fire is a natural and vital part of Australian landscape; it has been a key process in shaping Australia's unique biodiversity.

With the onset of dangerous climate change, fire frequency and intensity is likely to increase unless we take a different approach to forest management.

Original article

LETTER: The cattlemen versus fire furphy

Adam Pepper, Ringwood East
Letter, The Age, 26/12/06

People such as Suryan Chandrasegaran (Letters, 23/12) who argue that grazing cattle through alpine areas reduces the severity of fires should produce the scientific research that supports their claim. I can't see cattle eating the dried bark or leaves off trees affected by one of the hottest and driest years on record.

We have not seen smoke like this before because we have not seen weather like this before. From what the maps have shown, the fires have swept through former cattle grazing areas, logging areas, wilderness areas and state parks with equal severity.

The reality with changes brought by climate change is that we are going to need new approaches to managing our environment. Management should be based on scientific evidence, not the interests of lobby groups whether they be cattlemen, environmentalists or the logging industry.

ARTICLE: Warning on forestry

Phillippa Duncan
The Mercury, 21/12/2006

Premier Paul Lennon has warned a Federal Court decision to protect two rare birds and a beetle could destroy Tasmania's forestry and agricultural industries.

Mr Lennon said Greens senator Bob Brown's legal win stopping logging in the Wielangta State Forest could also have "serious ramifications for the Tasmanian economy".

Forestry Tasmania would be unable to continue to offer long-term wood supply, threatening sawmills and the proposed pulp mill.

Mr Lennon has asked Prime Minister John Howard to urgently change the law to protect the milling industries, 10,000 forestry jobs and farmers' livelihoods.

He said the decision could extend to all activities in Tasmania's environment and had introduced a "whole new set of requirements".

The court had ruled people whose activity impacted on the eagle or its habitat had to protect and enhance the species' population.

Mr Lennon said legal advice indicated the ramifications of Justice Shane Marshall's decision "go way beyond" Wielangta and forestry.

"The wedge-tailed eagle does not confine itself to a particular forest," he said.

"Activity outside a state forest could well find itself in the same position as activity inside the forest.

"The situation is very serious."

The court ruled that logging would have a "significant impact" on the endangered Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, swift parrot and broad-toothed stag beetle.

It also ruled that Forestry Tasmania had not adequately protected the three species and had breached the Regional Forest Agreement in the forest near Orford.

In the biggest blow, Justice Marshall removed Forestry Tasmania's exemption from the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

Mr Lennon said Tasmania had locked up 40 per cent of its landmass in reserves and parks for the exemption, which Mr Howard should restore.

Mr Lennon has indicated the State Government will not appeal the decision because it would only extend the action and not end the uncertainty.

He is "optimistic" Mr Howard will amend the law and possibly the RFA to protect forestry and farming jobs.

"We can't have a situation in Tasmania where 10,000 families and their livelihoods are put at risk," he said.

The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania predicted the decision could even impact on tourism which depends on the state's natural wilderness.

FIAT chief executive Terry Edwards said the state and federal governments had to act urgently to restore wood-supply certainty.

He said the decision had undermined the intent of the RFA and jeopardised $1 billion of industry investment and 10,000 jobs.

"We call on both governments to reinstate the original intent of the RFA and to take whatever actions are necessary to ensure the principles agreed upon by them in negotiating that agreement are honoured," he said.

Senator Brown predicted any legislative change would "enhance and accelerate the extinction of species".

"If they do this in an election year, they do this at their own peril," he said.

Forestry Tasmania and the state and federal governments have until February 9 to appeal the decision.

Original article

ARTICLE: Rudd shuts out green groups on Tasmanian forest plans

Andrew Darby, St Helens, Tasmania
The Age, December 19, 2006

KEVIN Rudd has infuriated green groups by shutting them out of a key national environment debate, the formation of Labor's Tasmanian forest policy, and pledging strong support for the island state's forest industry.

In one of his biggest policy moves since assuming the Labor leadership, Mr Rudd has rejected the party's previous position on Tasmanian forests and backed existing deals between the Howard Government and the pro-logging Lennon Government.

Stopping in Tasmania on his national "listening" tour, Mr Rudd declared that former Labor leader Mark Latham had got it wrong with his pledge on forestry conservation before the 2004 election — which was blamed for Labor losing two seats.

In rejecting the Latham policy, Mr Rudd confirmed that there was no place for the conservation movement in shaping Labor's new policy on Tasmania's forests.

Green groups reacted angrily, with the Wilderness Society saying Mr Rudd had paved the way for a sell-out on forests.

Mr Rudd also came under fire from Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown and conservationists for not taking new Labor environment spokesman Peter Garrett with him on his trip to Tasmania.

But the local forest industry warmly welcomed Mr Rudd's pledge to support the existing Regional Forests Agreement and Community Forests Agreement, negotiated between the state and the Howard Government.

Mr Rudd's statement on forests came days after he pledged to push for relaxation of Labor's restrictive policy on uranium mining — a move that has put him at odds with Mr Garrett.

On Tasmanian forests, Mr Rudd said Labor's guiding principle was that it wanted to see a long-term sustainable industry, based on three pillars:

• Close consultation with the State Government, unions and forest industries.
• No overall loss of jobs.
• Consultation with the State Government over conservation and protection of old growth forest areas.

Mr Rudd said he was in Tasmania to listen carefully to local communities, but confirmed that he had spoken to no-one in the forest industry on his visit. He said he would talk to the conservation movement from time to time. "But when it comes to the architecture of our forests policy here in Tasmania, it is as I've described before, based on those three principles and two sets of agreements which we support."

Labor's loss of two seats in Tasmania at the last election, Bass and Braddon, was attributed to Mr Latham's $800 million package that would have secured nearly all remaining contested old growth areas.

Industry and unions instead backed the more modest Howard conservation package in what was widely portrayed as a poll-eve political coup by the Prime Minister.

Mr Rudd followed his predecessor, Kim Beazley, in distancing himself from the Latham policy. "Labor got it wrong. Part of the reason it got it wrong was that it didn't listen to the local community," he said.

His statement yesterday was welcomed by the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania. "We support and endorse the approach that Kevin Rudd has outlined," said executive director Terry Edwards.

The conservation movement, which has fought for more than 20 years for the protection of the state's old growth forests, came out swinging.

"The policy Kevin Rudd is set to adopt is the one endorsed by the Lennon Labor Government which is destroying our forests," said the Wilderness Society's campaigns manager, Geoff Law.

"It is desperately ironic that it comes almost 20 years to the day after Peter Garrett came to the Lemonthyme forest in Tasmania, and stood beside Bob Brown and said these forests must be saved."

The Australian Conservation Foundation said it was surprised that Mr Rudd was closing doors during a "listening" tour.

"I think he should be certainly talking to the wide range of environmental stakeholders to get a full picture of issues as complex as these," said Matt Ruchel, Manager of Land and Water for the ACF.

Mr Rudd deflected questions about Mr Garrett, the former rock star and ACF head who now holds the Climate Change and Environment portfolio on Labor's front bench.

In 2004, Mr Garrett described the Tasmanian timber industry as logging gone mad and carnage in the forests.

Mr Rudd said that he was now leader of the party, and Mr Garrett had a job to do on climate change.

Mr Rudd was speaking on a visit to bushfire-ravaged areas of Tasmania's east coast, where he said he had seen no indication of any gaps in the federal response to the fires. The main east coast fire has burned more than 20 homes and 25,000 hectares of land.

With AAP

Original article

ARTICLE: Crunch time today for Thomson Dam

Daniella Miletic and Ben Doherty
The Age, December 14, 2006

As bushfires continue to push towards the Thomson Dam in the state's east, firefighters fear today's return of high winds and hot temperatures may threaten efforts to protect Melbourne's water supply from contamination.

Fire authorities believe forecast 36-degree temperatures and north-westerly winds could push the Mount Terrible fire into the catchment. "(Today is) the big day … It could burn the catchment," the Country Fire Authority's state duty officer, Gary Weir, warned.

Using more than 60 bulldozers, including five from the army, firefighters were racing against the clock last night to build containment lines. But they said backburning would not be finished by today.

If the threat does not eventuate, the week ahead is expected to bring cooler conditions. Fire authorities hope to use the reprieve to finish backburning.

Small business owners and farmers burnt out by the blazes, meanwhile, could be eligible for grants up to $10,000 for clean-up and restoration of their livelihoods. Prime Minister John Howard announced the cash lifelines yesterday, stressing that they would come on top of the existing federal commitment for much of the personal hardship payments, loans and infrastructure rebuilding.

Non-profit groups affected by the disaster would also be eligible for small grants, and financial counselling will be offered.

Authorities were able to get a good idea of how far the bushfires have spread when clouds and smoke lifted yesterday.

The fires have consumed an area roughly equivalent to a 35-kilometre radius around Melbourne — spanning as far as Frankston to Belgrave to Whittlesea and Sunbury.

Fires have blackened more than 409,000 hectares.

The Mount Terrible fire, threatening the Thomson Dam reservoir, has burnt through 36,000 hectares.

Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman Duncan Pendrigh said fire reaching the Thomson catchment would be a worst-case scenario. "The fire didn't do that last Sunday when it was much hotter and winds were stronger, so we are hoping it won't happen (today)," he said.

Melbourne Water spokesman Ben Pratt said if fire hit the water catchment, the supply could be stopped for up to three months to allow ash to settle.

In the north-east yesterday, CFA crews took advantage of favourable conditions to conduct backburning and containment work. The largest fire — an amalgamation of fires in the alpine region — has now burnt through more than 370,000 hectares.

Communities to the south and east of the big bushfires will come under the greatest threat tomorrow. A statewide total fire ban has been declared for 24 hours from midnight tonight.

Yesterday the Jamieson area remained under ember attack. Glencairn residents were put on high alert as the Mount Terrible bushfire closed in, and winds are keeping towns such as Heyfield and Briagolong and Valencia Creek at high risk."

Original article

ARTICLE: Reports of a dying catchment 'greatly exaggerated

Glen Kile
Executive director of the Forest and Wood Products Research & Development Corporation
The Age, December 12, 2006

THE impact of logging in Melbourne's water catchments is topical, given the drought, but has been greatly exaggerated.

While it is true logging results in fast-growing regrowth that uses more water than mature forests, the fact that less than 0.2 per cent is harvested annually means the effect is small.

Overall, timber production for saw logs is only permitted within a 13 per cent portion of the total catchment area and this is planned for logging on an 80-year cycle.

The claim that stopping logging will save water is largely theoretical given it relies on the unlikely long-term absence of severe fire that has traditionally determined the extent to which regrowth reduces stream flows.

If dense forest regeneration is a concern, it can be thinned. This is the most efficient, cost-effective means of increasing run-off and is being practised in at least one Perth water catchment in response to reduced rainfall and low storage levels. A potentially warming and drying climate may make it an imperative here in the future.

Catchment thinning could substantially improve run-off into Melbourne's storages, and the capability to do it in the future relies on the continuation of a sustainable timber industry.

There are also claims that Victorian native-forest logging emits 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year that contributes to global warming. However, as timber harvesting is sustainable and mostly occurs in regrowth stands, carbon uptake across the whole forest exceeds the carbon removed in harvesting.

Furthermore, much of the harvested carbon has a long storage in wood products both in-service and subsequently in landfills. The situation in Victoria is consistent with the conclusions of the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory that Australia's managed forests are a net carbon sink.

The harvesting of "old-growth" forest has long been used as an emotional hook for enlisting community support to shut down timber industries.

While old-growth forests are important repositories of biodiversity, they are nearing the end of their life and their management, either in parks and reserves or wood-production forests, raises important questions about forest renewal.

Ecologically sustainable forest management at the broad landscape level ideally requires a mixture of age classes to maximise biodiversity and ensure continuity.

Contrary to popular perception, "old-growth" forest is not endangered. About 94 per cent — or more than 4 million hectares — of Australia's old-growth forests are reserved. In East Gippsland, the current focus of the debate, there are 224,000 ha of old-growth forest, of which 191,000 ha (or 85 per cent) is in reserves. The balance is an important source of timber scheduled for harvesting over the next 30 years.

A further 124,000 ha of reserved East Gippsland forest will become old growth over the next 50 years. From this it is evident that the "old growth" debate is essentially about ideology rather than environmental outcomes.

Environmental activists in their single-minded pursuit of a "no-logging" agenda have ignored or downplayed the implications of closing the local hardwood-timber industry. One critical impact is in developing countries, as higher Australian demand for hardwood imports contributes to production of tropical-rainforest timbers, some illegally logged.

A report to the Australian Government by Poyry Consulting recently noted that Australia imports about $5 billion of forest and wooden furniture products a year, and that while we could be self-sufficient, our hardwood timber industry now has neither the resource access nor the processing capacity to meet this goal.

Since 2001, imports of tropical sawn hardwood have risen by more than half (our suppliers are mainly Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea) as end-product prices for Australian native-hardwood products such as Brush Box flooring have more than doubled over the same period.

Across all product types, the equivalent round-log volume of tropical imports from suspect origins now equals the combined Tasmanian and Victorian harvest of native-forest sawlogs. The upward trend of tropical-timber imports will no doubt continue if the area of Australian native forest available for harvesting is further eroded.

Australia's native-forest timber industry has suffered for years from dishonest and deceptive anti-logging campaigns attributing it with supposed impacts way out of proportion to its actual nature.

The philosophical and policy arrogance of a small minority seeking to dictate to the rest of the community the conditions of access to their forests is somewhat breathtaking — combined with an insatiable demand for taxpayer funds to shut a sustainable industry.

Perhaps environmental groups should quantify the economic, social and environmental benefits of their policies so there could be a more informed discussion.

Original article