Politics of forestry

Peter Boyer
The Mercury (article), April 21, 2009 12:45pm

After mature forest has been clearfelled, net carbon loss from the operation is large.

Every now and then, a sharply focused image of a gum seedling or a finely crafted piece of furniture appears on my television screen, a reminder of how good it is to live in this place, at this time.

No one pays good advertising money just to show us nice images of life in Australia. In this case, the message is how lucky we are to have a timber industry, because when it comes to greenhouse emissions, wood is so much better than other materials, such as steel or aluminium.

That message was underscored on local TV news recently when Forestry Tasmania corporate relations manager Ken Jeffries, responding to complaints about smoke haze from forest operations, pointed to the industry's re-seeding program as evidence of its climate-friendly status.

It is true, as the forest industry says, that steel and aluminium are anything but climate-friendly products. A steel furnace consumes copious amounts of coal, and aluminium smelting uses so much electricity (usually coal-fired) it has sometimes been called "congealed electricity". And it is true that the 1997 Kyoto accord allowed special dispensation for forestry as practised here.

But it is disingenuous to claim that today's forest industry presents a sharp contrast to these alternative products; to suggest that because trees absorb carbon dioxide, the industry actually reduces our carbon footprint. That may accord with diplomatic definitions, but we have to get real here.

Human carbon pollution is a physical phenomenon, independent of any political or commercial agenda, and Tasmanian forestry emissions must never be quarantined from a comprehensive carbon accounting process.

I would happily accept the assurances of Mr Jeffries or anyone in the industry, if I could find the scientific evidence behind them, but try as I might, I can't.

I was well into my climate change work when I entered the debate about forest and climate in this column about a year ago.

I drew attention then to what forest science seemed to be telling us about how forests store carbon and what happens to this carbon when the forest is harvested.

I have consulted a wide range of forest science research work, including work done by Forestry Tasmania itself about a decade ago. The science has consistently said that under today's "slash and burn" clearfelling regimes, harvesting native forest in Australia is an emissions-intensive activity.

It says that each hectare of Australian native forest stores hundreds of tonnes of carbon and no matter how vigorous the regrowth after mature forest has been clearfelled, net carbon loss from the operation is so large that recovery would take many times the length of any subsequent
harvesting cycle. Full recovery could take centuries.

SCIENTIFIC studies of forest carbon in Australia and North America have consistently indicated that, of the carbon removed from a forest as a result of clearfell operations (either taken away in logs or lost to the atmosphere in burning or decay), only a tiny proportion is preserved long-term (over 75 years) in a product such as furniture or housing.

Statistics from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics tell us that in 2008 only 13.4 per cent of harvested "roundwood" (itself only part of the forest carbon that is removed during harvesting) ended up as sawn timber, of which only part is retained in long-term product.

My reading of the science and the ABARE statistics indicates that for every tonne of forest carbon that is saved in long-term product, there is a loss of more than 40 tonnes to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

At this rate, Australian forestry as it is practised today is anything, but a greenhouse-friendly activity.

Yet, despite all the contrary scientific evidence -- including evidence from within Tasmanian forestry circles -- the industry continues to cite Australian government figures based on the Kyoto agreement to "prove" that it is carbon-neutral, leading the way to a greener future.

If the forestry industry sincerely believed this, wouldn't it secure solid evidence by means of rigorous, peer-reviewed science?

Surely it would put aside the politically convenient, but illogical, accounting framework of the Kyoto accord and seek a more rational, transparent method of determining our real forestry footprint.

It won't serve anyone if we continue this politically-driven charade. We urgently need to review our greenhouse gas accounting in the AFOLU sector (diplomatic-speak for agriculture, forestry and land use), incorporating existing carbon storage as well as annual flows.

When our forest carbon accounting is based on science and physical reality instead of politics, we can confidently include forestry in a comprehensive national or international carbon regime.

Then, and only then, will we know the real cost of a piece of timber.

Peter Boyer is a Hobart-based science writer and a presenter for Al Gore's Climate Project.
pb@climatetasmania.com.au

Source: The Mercury

See also

• Green carbon, Greenlivingpedia

LETTER: We cannot drink woodchips

Sarah Rees, MyEnvironment Inc, Healesville
Letter to the editor, The Age, 17/4/09

THE Thomson dam drops lower (The Age, 15/4), catchments have been burnt and still the logging machinery rolls into Victoria's last remaining healthy water catchment to woodchip them for as little as $8.50 a tonne. Roads for logging machinery are being cut into Cement Creek Catchment, one of the Yarra tributaries and part of Melbourne's water supply.

In the Thomson catchment, about 70 per cent of the area of highest rainfall is being logged, and the dam has reached epic lows: could there be a link? In 2004 the Government commissioned a four-year investigation and found that the best option for improving catchment water yields was to end all logging by 2009. But this option was omitted from the range of choices presented to the Government because it compromised woodchip arrangements with the now Japanese-owned paper giant Australian Paper.

What will it take to end such barbaric management of our water resources? Perhaps only when the last load of logs enters the pulp mill. Then we will know we cannot drink woodchips.

Source: theage.com.au

LETTER: Unwarranted fears

Mark Poynter, Institute of Foresters of Australia, Doncaster East
Letter to the editor, The Age, 13//4/09

PREDICTABLY, the Victorian Government's consideration of wood-based bioenergy production (The Age, 9/4) generated howls of protest based on inaccurate or ill-informed claims (Letters, 10-11/4).

Fears of "massive deforestation" and "ecological wastelands" are baseless given that regenerating harvested areas is a central tenet of forest management. Less than 10 per cent of Victoria's forests are legally available for timber harvesting. Salvaging of burnt timber is also restricted to these areas.

Aside from periodically available fire salvage material, the vast majority of waste wood that could be used for domestic bio-energy production is material that would otherwise be exported to offshore paper manufacturers.

Around the world, sustainable timber supplies are widely used as a source of carbon-neutral "green" power. Ironically, in Australia, the most passionate advocates of combating climate change tend to be the most strident opponents of one of the more achievable forms of renewable energy.

LETTER: Beyond belief

Jill Redwood, Orbost
Letter to the editor, The Age, 12 April 2009

Recently, the radio carbon dating of a 10-metre diameter, freshly cut tree stump in East Gippsland showed it to be almost 600 years old.

Last week's story of the Brumby Government selling off these ancient forests for as little as $2.50 a tonne compounds the crime into enormous proportions.

In 2009, we are still watching while the Government destroys ancient forests that were young in the days of Joan of Ark. These are immense carbon stores that we need right now, not in another 600 years. Economically and environmentally, this is an appalling act. So much for the claim of sustainability.

The rain follows the trees Mr Brumby, as sure as public revolt follows the clearfelling of our public forests.

Homes for critters

Dr Anna Boin, Castlemaine
The Age (letter), April 10, 2009

"LOWER-quality" logs: they are the ones with the notches and holes, the ones that wildlife call "high-quality" housing. The bushfires have already left lots of critters homeless. And now we are going to burn their last few homes for electricity? Fire is naturally occurring, logging is not. Native forests are not a renewable resource if we interfere by salvaging what's left. They are ecosystems that can take hundreds of years to regenerate. There is nothing clean, green or smart about burning them.

Stand by promise

Scott Bilby, Kensington
The Age (letter), April 10, 2009

MR DALIDAKIS' statement that the native timber industry is "focused on producing sawlogs" is wrong. When woodchipping began in the 1960s, it was justified on the basis that only "waste wood" from saw-logging would be used. However, woodchipping soon became the main focus.

As demand for woodchips falls, the "waste wood" argument is being used to justify burning native forests for electricity. Perversely, due to concern about greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, the native timber sector could get to emit even more greenhouse emissions and receive a renewable energy subsidy funded by the taxpayer.

Because of community opposition to burning native forest for electricity, the governments of Victoria, NSW and Queensland prohibited it. It is hoped that lobbying by the native timber industry won't weaken the Victorian Government's resolve to stand by a promise it made to the people who elected them.

In the dark ages

Glenn Osboldstone, East Malvern, Lawyers for Forests
The Age (letter), April 10, 2009

JOE HELPER'S plan (The Age, 9/4) to burn native forest for electricity shows how out of touch he is. The vast majority of Australians want to keep our remaining ancient forests standing. This dark-ages technology, raised as a means of propping up our unsustainable logging industry, fails to acknowledge the downsides — massive deforestation and habitat destruction, loss of vital carbon storehouses, degradation of our water purifiers and transformation of beautiful forests into ecological wastelands.

The claims that only the "byproducts of sawlog harvesting" will be used are misleading because, as shown by Vicforests' own figures, barely 2 per cent of what is clear-felled ends up as a high-value product. Most, including sawlog-quality wood, is trucked to woodchip mills to end up either as paper or shipped off to Japan.

A far better approach would be to move logging workers into our extensive plantation estate and support real renewable energy projects such as huge solar thermal facilities and geothermal and wind plants.

Plantantion sector place for jobs

Bruce McGregor, Brunswick
The Age (letter), April 10, 2009

IN JUSTIFYING the proposal to log native forests to save the forestry industry (The Age, 9/4), Philip Dalidakis continues to promote discredited myths.

For years the Victorian Association of Forest Industries has been in denial about the softwood plantation industry and the decline in real value of commodity woodchips of about 2 per cent a year.

Further, they claim they focus on native forest sawlog production for high-value timber products but these are only a tiny fraction of total timber harvested from softwood and hardwood plantations combined with native forest harvesting.

The real opportunity for employment is in the plantation sector, a sector undermined constantly by policies that price native forests so low to try to compete in the commodity export woodchip market.

The real value in native forests is in the water yield, which is reduced for decades following native forest clear-felling. Low water yields severely affect water supplies and Victoria's rivers.

Labor attacked on forest credits plan

Adam Morton
The Age (article), March 31, 2009

AUSTRALIAN-backed proposals to reward companies that stop deforestation in poor countries will derail efforts to tackle climate climate, according to a report.

Released overnight at United Nations climate talks in Germany by Greenpeace International, the report says plans to recognise forest protection in a global climate deal would trigger a collapse in the carbon permit price of up to 75 per cent.

It found issuing forestry credits for avoiding deforestation would also drastically reduce investment in clean energy technology, locking in "dirty" technologies such as coal-fired power.

The report comes as climate bureaucrats meeting in Bonn consider proposals on how to reduce the 20 per cent of annual global emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries.

In a speech in New York last week, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said she supported a global forestation credit program, suggesting it could cut the cost of reducing greenhouse emissions by up to 25 per cent. Greenpeace campaigner Paul Winn said the introduction of forest credits would encourage rich nations to buy cheap offsets overseas instead of reducing emissions from energy at home.

"(Senator) Wong seems to think Australia can keep polluting and push the burden of its emissions reduction responsibilities on to developing countries and their forests," he said.

He called for forests to be excluded from carbon markets, backing the creation of a fund to stop deforestation and protect biodiversity.

The Greenpeace report was released at the year's first major meeting of climate bureaucrats.

The Bonn meeting plans to lay the foundations for a post-2012 climate agreement, due to be signed in Denmark in December. Beyond forestry, it will consider emission reduction targets and how to find the billions of dollars needed to cut emissions in the developing world.

US climate envoy Todd Stern won sustained applause on the summit's first day after promising that the Obama Administration would take a markedly different approach to that of the Bush administration, which opposed the Kyoto Protocol.

"We want to make up for lost time," he said. Mr Stern said the US recognised its "unique responsibility … as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases".

He praised China, now the world's largest emitter, for its efforts to rein in carbon emissions, but said developing economies must join with rich nations to tackle climate change. "America itself cannot provide the solution, but there is no solution without America."

He urged delegates to adopt a long-range plan. Mr Obama has pledged to introduce policies that will return emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and cut them by 80 per cent by 2050.

UN climate chief Yvo de Boer urged delegates to heed the call of the millions who switched off lights for Earth Hour.

• Article source

Conservationists slam logging backflip

Carmel Egan
The Age (article), March 29, 2009

One of Victoria's most prized but controversial cool temperate rainforest sites is being clear felled by loggers after the State Government reneged on a deal to protect it.

Logging started in College Creek catchment in the Strzelecki Ranges six days after the Black Saturday fires devastated vast tracts on the hills that rise at the southern end of the Latrobe Valley.

College Creek was one of five environmentally significant core areas declared off limits to logging by then environment minister John Thwaites in 2006. It was to have been given to the people of Victoria. The core sites were to be linked by protected wildlife corridors joining the Strzeleckis' Tarra-Bulga National Park in the east to the Gunyah Gunyah Reserve, home of Australia's biggest tree by girth, at its western tip.

But last year Mr Thwaites' successor, Gavin Jennings, jettisoned the "cores and links" agreement and signed a new deal allowing Hancock Victorian Plantations to log College Creek and other areas that had been set aside.

Environmentalists have accused Mr Jennings of caving in to the logger, which has commercial contracts to supply timber to the Maryvale pulp and paper mill.

Now 1500 hectares within the "cores and links" will be clear felled, with the 350-hectare College Creek site the first to go.

Friends of Gippsland Bush secretary Susie Zent said the site was the most politically contentious forested area in the state. "We have fought so hard to have this area saved only to have it signed away in a secret deal made against all rainforest ecologists' advice."

College Creek is Crown Land over which Hancock holds a 60-year lease. With the lifting of the moratorium on logging, Hancock is now logging the site before it is replanted and returned to the stewardship of the state.

Unlike higher-profile state forests and national parks in the Alpine region, the Grampians and the Otways, the Strzelecki Ranges are a hodgepodge of native vegetation, remnant old growth forest, regrowth, reserves, blue gum and pine plantations, freehold and Crown land. Their chequered history of compromise and trade-off, cultivation and preservation, exploitation and sanctuary has been dictated for 60 years by the needs of the timber industry and Maryvale mill at Morwell.

Hancock is contracted to supply the mill and insists logging College Creek was necessary to meet its commitments. But community groups and environmentalists have condemned the logging and accuse the Government of caving in to Hancock.

The 2006 agreement negotiated between Mr Thwaites, Hancock, Australian Paper (then owner of Maryvale mill), Trust for Nature, three local councils and community groups expired in 2008 when the parties failed to reach consensus and the company withdrew from negotiations, saying commercial conditions had changed.

Mr Jennings said this meant the Government had to negotiate a new deal with Hancock from which other interest groups were excluded. Hancock chief executive Linda Sewell said the "cores and links" agreement was not legally binding and the company gave six months' notice of its intention to walk away if a consensus could not be reached.

Pulp wood and plantation legislation gives industry lease holders the right to remove native vegetation from Crown land.

According to Ms Sewell, College Creek is a plantation established by Australian Paper for forest production in the 1970s. However, rainforest botanist Stephen Mueck believes it regenerated to become much more than a plantation.

"There is still some surviving cool temperate rainforest and some threatened fauna," he said.

Friends of the Earth campaigner Anthony Amis, also involved in negotiations with Hancock, believes the company needed to log the cores and links because blue gum and shining gum plantations in the Strzeleckis have failed.

"Hancocks are logging under unsustainable contracts that can't possibly be met due to the failure of thousands of hectares of blue gum plantation," Mr Amis said.

Original article

LETTER: Trees? Oh, please

Lynn Good, Weegena, Tasmania
Letter to the Editor, The Age, 25 March 2009.

IT WAS not surprising that Alan Ashbarry's letter (24/3) denying Australian forests are being ravaged by logging came from the same Tasmania that hosts the most intensive native forest logging in the OECD.

Damage control down here consists mainly of reclassifying reality. A block of native forest that has been clear-felled, burnt, deep-ripped, herbicided, and resown with seeds of commercial eucalypts remains on the Tassie books as "native forest". A shining gum plantation is classified as "forest". As old-growth forest is steadily flattened, the consequent increase in the percentage of such forest listed as "reserved" is proudly trumpeted.

If you want a true picture of what goes on down here, look out the plane window. And weep.

Logging stopped in rich mammal site

Media Release, Wednesday 25th March 2009

This morning a group of 20 forest conservationists are preventing the clearfelling of one of the last stands of old growth forest in the upper Delegate River catchment in East Gippsland.

Members of the group have prevented six logging machines from working using a complicated series of tripod structures, cables and a tree platform.

“This particular old growth forest was recently surveyed by trained biologists and the result showed very high density of tree dwelling mammals”, said spokesperson for the group Carmel Roberts. “The DSE’s own policy states that areas containing high densities of tree dwelling mammals, must be protected. The DSE are saying they are unable to protect these species' habitat despite this prescription.”

“In 2006, Premier Brumby made an election promise to protect the “last significant stands of old growth”. These forests are the very the last refuges for our endangered wildlife.”

“Since the devastation caused by the bushfires, East Gippsland’s forests are now even more critical to the survival of Victoria’s native species than before. Rare native wildlife could have been made locally extinct in other areas due to the fire damage.”

“Old growth forest is critically important for the survival of these threatened species in Victoria. The logging industry can survive in plantations and regrowth, endangered species can’t.”

For comment:

• Carmel Roberts - on site with trunk phone 03 9416 2129 - (dial tone) - 8384620 - on the hour.
• Jill Redwood - 5154 0145

(The decision of DSE/VicForests to prioritise the placement of staff at protests is their decision. However we would hope they’d give precedence to keeping communities safe from fire if needed rather than to convenience a small number of logging operators. There are normally no more than three or four DSE/VicForests personnel allocated to protesters - police don’t fight fires).

LETTER: Catchment cry

Robert Stephen, Monbulk
Letter to the editor, The Age, 19 February 2009

Every year we clear-fell 150 hectares of Melbourne's prime water catchment forest near the Thomson reservoir. We lose 20,000 megalitres of water (one full Maroondah dam) every year due to regrowth, which uses vastly more water than old growth.

Clear-felling turns wet sclerophyll forest into dry sclerophyll forest and drastically increases the risk of fire. To save our water supply and reduce catchment fire risk we must stop clear-felling our water catchments, especially the Thomson.

Link

See also: Stop logging Melbourne water catchments

LETTER: Whales in a forest

Jeremy Fitzpatrick, Heidelberg
Letter to the editor, The Age, December 3, 2008

I would like to question Phillip Dalidakis' facts (Comment & Debate, 1/12), as he asks environmentalists to roll over so that the forestry industry can continue unchecked in its, oh, so sustainable enterprise.

As reported by The Age in January, figures obtained after a freedom of information request to VicForests show that, based on its industry knowledge, more than 85 per cent of the wood derived from Victoria's native forests ends up as woodchips, waste and sawdust — hardly high value resources.

Dalidakis quotes a seemingly inconsequential threat when discussing the forest industry's effect on our water supplies; a percentage figure which, in real terms, equates to millions of litres of water. How is the industry justified in posing any threat whatsoever to Melbourne's water supply as yet another drought looms this summer?

To our great fortune, outdated ideology has saved some magnificent tracts of Victoria; perhaps Dalidakis should take a trip to Brown Mountain or, rather, those parts of it that VicForests hasn't yet had the opportunity to clear-fell — or, as he puts it, manage.

I'm sure that whaling companies wished that environmentalists could have stopped their futile debate too.

LETTER: Taking the timber

Domenic Gibbs, Moonee Ponds
Letter to the Editor, The Age, December 2, 2008

Philip Dalidakis' article is a welcome change from the emotive rhetoric that seems to dominate the logging debate. Many viewpoints on this issue are high on sentiment and low on facts and science.

As a former doubter of the timber industry's credentials, I can see how environmentalism is turning into ideology. With 3.2 million hectares of forests already in protected reserves, it would be more environmentally beneficial to properly manage our remaining forests for timber production rather than import more illegally logged timber.

LETTER: Save a tree and drink more water

Simon Birrell, Melbourne Water Catchment Network and Otways Ranges Environment Network, Ascot Vale
The Age, December 2, 2008

Philip Dalidakis, of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries, reminds us (Comment & Debate, 1/12) that the native forest woodchipping industry is about to start its annual summer destruction in Victoria.

However, this summer the chainsaws will be quiet in the Otways' native forests as logging has been banned.

Mr Dalidakis' predecessors at VAFI spent a huge amount of money and time dismissing arguments put forward by the community to stop Otways logging, and failed.

Now VAFI has put up exactly the same sort of simplistic statistical arguments that rely on public ignorance. VAFI suggests that Melbourne's water has a 157,000-hectare catchment area, with 306 hectares, or 0.19 per cent, logged each year. Such a statement assumes that the rainfall and forest types across the catchments are uniform. They are not. About half cannot be logged as they are within national parks. About half of the catchment is ash forest, which produces 80 per cent of the water run-off to Melbourne. Logging that targets these forests has a disproportionate effect on run-off.

Recent State Government research shows banning logging by 2010 would increase water yields from the Melbourne catchments by enough to supply a city the size of Ballarat within 40 years — or about 100,000 people. The loggers are right to be worried.

THE AGE: Greens fail to see wood for the trees

Philip Dalidakis, Chief executive for the Victorian Association of Forest Industries.
The Age, Opinion, December 1, 2008

The Victorian forest industry provides significant benefits.

As the timber harvesting season gets under way for another year, already one week has been lost to protesters chaining themselves to industry equipment in the hope of saving "what is left" of our native forests. Often such protest action is greeted with a mixture of silent and open consent from those of us who are concerned by climate change but who don't fully appreciate the environmental or scientific ramifications of simply locking up our forests. After all, how can an industry that cuts down trees claim to be both environmentally sensitive and sustainable?

Victoria has more than 3.5 million hectares of forest in protected reserves while on average only 0.19 per cent of our 3.2 million hectares of state forest is harvested each year. Victoria's state forests are well managed and a range of concerns, including conservation of flora and fauna, protection of landscape and indigenous and historic values, recreation and education, are considered before any timber production.

Victoria is a global leader in the regulation and oversight of forestry activities. Planning, harvesting, regeneration and other forest management activities are required to meet a code of practice for timber production. They are regulated by the Department of Sustainability and Environment and independently audited annually by EPA Victoria. VicForests, the state-owned organisation responsible for the sustainable harvest and sale of timber from state forests, is also independently certified to the Australian Forestry Standard, an internationally recognised standard for responsible forest management.

An example of propaganda outstripping the pace of truth is the issue of timber production in Melbourne's water catchments. Annual timber production in the 157,000-hectare catchment area averages only 306 hectares, or 0.19 per cent. Yet numerous environmental groups continue to claim that timber harvesting is directly responsible for Melbourne's low water yield. Independent reports commissioned by the DSE demonstrate that the impact of timber production on Melbourne's water yield is minor in comparison with the real threats of climate change and bush fire.

Recent history supports these studies and provides a level of perspective when you compare this small amount of timber production with the 1 million hectares of forest burnt in 59 days during the 2003 alpine bushfires. One of the many benefits of the timber industry is that it provides vital support in defending our forests against the effects of bushfire through the maintenance of fire tracks, reduction of fuel loads and the provision of fire-fighting machinery and personnel.

Despite accusations to the contrary, the principal objectives of any native forest harvesting operations are to maximise the value obtained from the timber, maintain the health of the forest and ensure good regrowth for future generations.

Saw logs from native forests remain the priority of timber harvesting and are a high-value resource processed domestically to produce flooring, furniture, decking and other value-added products. Harvested timber that is unsuitable for processing into high-value sawn timber is used to produce essential secondary forest products such as paper, cardboard, firewood, garden products and energy. This makes the forest industry very efficient and a generator of little waste.

Current timber plantations are largely being managed for the production of paper products and not furniture or flooring. Even if this were to change overnight, it would require a substantial area of eucalypt plantations grown on good land and need at least 25-30 years to replace what is being sourced from native forests.

All sustainably managed plantation and native forests also store carbon, which is important as we enter a carbon constrained world. Australia's forestry industry is carbon-positive, helping to offset our national greenhouse gas emissions. Growing trees absorb carbon from the atmosphere and store carbon; about half the dry weight of a tree is carbon. This carbon remains "locked" in the wood for the life of the product, until it decomposes or is burnt. For example, a 50 kilogram wooden table contains about 20 kilograms of carbon.

Wood products have amazing environmental credentials. They are renewable, recyclable and biodegradable. The production and processing of wood products is energy efficient. They offer a climate and environment-friendly alternative to many other products and building materials.

Although green groups and activists accuse the timber industry of no longer being relevant in today's world, the opposite is true. The forestry industry directly employs 25,000 people in Victoria and contributes $6 billion in output. It provides significant social and economic benefits to regional communities and Victoria as a whole. It is also environmentally sustainable, and is based on responsible and accountable forest management.

Rather than disrupting forestry workers and shutting down timber production in pursuit of an outdated ideology, environmentalists would be better off ending this futile debate and working constructively with industry to ensure ongoing balanced management of our forests.

All sustainably managed plantation and native forests also store carbon.

Source

AGE LETTER: Conservation? That's a laugh

Jeremy Fitzpatrick, Heidelberg
Letter, The Age, 14/11/08

You'll need to excuse my mirth, Max Rheese (Letters, 12/11), in taking your approach to "wise use principles". Surely someone whose organisation lobbies for the logging of old-growth forests has a conflict of interest when lecturing about the "key to conservation".

I'm sure you feel that Australian forestry practice is among the best in the world; it seems we have a State Government that reneges on its 2006 promise and simply allows the logging industry to bulldoze through our state forests, destroying 400 years of Victoria's natural legacy.

Aside from the fact these forests are massive carbon storage banks, which release carbon into the atmosphere when clearfelled, old-growth forests are far more fire retardant than your proposed monoculture plantations; essentially a crop of pine trees.

As someone genuinely concerned for the environment, this view may seem a little over emotional, but I'd like to be able to show my kids, and your kids, just how magnificent Australia is.

AGE LETTER: Show some leadership

Luke Chamberlain, Victorian forest campaigner, The Wilderness Society, Fitzroy
Letter, The Age, 13/11/08

Old growth forests are one of the most important stores of carbon on the planet and logging them releases enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Logging old growth forests causes less water to flow into our rivers and further pushes our endangered species towards extinction.

Premier Brumby has a clear choice to make, and one that will upset those that apologise for industrial destruction of the ecological systems that support life on this planet. He can show leadership by pulling the bulldozers out of Brown Mountain, or he can ignore the wishes of the community and his own policy to protect our magnificent old growth forests.

AGE LETTER: Telling tall stories

Jill Redwood, co-ordinator, Environment East Gippsland, Orbost
Letter, The Age, 13/11/08

Trees of many ages continue to provide the shelter, hollows and nectar that an old giant of 400 years would have when it eventually falls.

What else can the logging industry or Government now try to tell us? That annihilating these stands of forest are essential to provide five blokes with work for four weeks?

Come on Mr Brumby, we're all waiting for you to protect what you promised us in 2006.