Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Alan Ashbarry

Bushfires in Tasmania: A Note from Cinders

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Hi Jennifer,

This year’s bushfire season in Tasmania has been accompanied by the shrill political voice of the Australian Green’s Senator Christine Milne. On Thursday she attacked the state’s professional forest service in a game of one upmanship with Tasmania’s Eric Abetz, Minister for Forestry and Conservation.

“The truth is most bushfires in Tasmania are deliberately lit or escape from forestry operations or regeneration burns,” Milne claimed.

The claim drew this response from Forestry Tasmania the next day:

“Senator Milne knows from publicly published fire statistics that more than 80 per cent of forest-related fire-fighting is from arson, lightning and other causes, not escape planned burns.”

Managing Director of Forestry Tasmania had this to say on Milne’s self promotion:

“She is cruelly wrong to accuse forestry of being a major cause of wildfires and the release of greenhouse gases. This week, when hundreds of forestry workers, their fire tankers, dozers, low loaders, helicopters and aircraft are fighting forest fires all started by arson or in Victoria by lightning strikes, she is so wrong.”

In Tasmania, due to an innovative inter-agency agreement between the Tasmanian Fires Service, Parks and Wildlife Service and Forestry Tasmania we can apply maximum resources whether the bushfire is on private or public land, in State forest or a reserved area.

For the latest on Tasmanian Fires check out Tasmanian Fire Service at: http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/mysite/Show?pageId=colFireRestriction

And for a photo or two, the Mercury at: http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,20902092-3462,00.html.

Regards,

Cinders.

How Many Trees Did Bob Carr Really Save? A Note from Cinders

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Hi Jennifer,

The former Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, has made the following claim in a Daily Telegraph Editorial:

“ONE of my first acts as premier in 1995 was to introduce controls on the clearing of native vegetation. It was controversial and it involved me in endless arguments.

But stopping broadacre land clearing in NSW (Queensland followed) is the only thing that has enabled Prime Minister John Howard to boast that Australia can meet its Kyoto targets.”

I have compared this claim with information compiled by the Australian Greenhouse Office and it doesn’t appear to stack up.

landuse change emissions.JPG

The table indicates that landuse change emissions have reduced dramatically from 1990 to now by about 70 percent. Much of this occurred prior to 1995, the date Mr. Carr claims that he acted. In fact the table shows an extremely small decrease from 1995 to 2003 for New South Wales. There was no significant change in Queensland from 1995 to 2002.

Mr Carr’s statement that stopping broad acre land clearing in NSW in 1995 is the only thing that allows Australia to meets its Kyoto targets is not supported by the available evidence.

In the same article Mr Carr claims:

“In 1800 much of North America, South America, Australia and Asia was covered by forest. But the explosion in the human population meant massive clearing. Australia lost an estimated two-thirds of its vegetation.”

These statements can be compared with the Department of Environment and Heritage Australian Native Vegetation Assessment 2001 that states:

“At a continental scale, approximately 13% of the total land has been cleared.”

This assessment estimates that about 50% of the continent was covered by forest and woodland. Indeed this was mostly woodland, with forest accounting for just over 44 million hectares or about 6% of the continent. In 2001 the Audit estimated that over 31 million hectares remained, that is 71% of the original extent. This is less than a third of the forest cleared not two thirds as claimed by Bob Carr.

Regards Cinders.

ABC Should Apologize For Misleading Viewers on Forestry: Cinders

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The Australian Communications and Media Authority has found that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) breached the ABC’s own Code of Practice 2002 by failing to make every reasonable effort to ensure that a Four Corners program about the forestry industry in Tasmania was impartial. ACMA also found the ABC failed to make every reasonable effort to ensure that the factual content of the program was accurate.

Following is some comment from Cinders, a reader of this blog and member of Timber Communities Australia:

“The ABC broadcast a summary of the finding at the conclusion of Monday’s Four Corners program but failed to apologise for the inaccurate and biased program of February 2004.

No apology was forthcoming when the ABC’s own Independent Complaints Review Panel (ICRP) found the same program inaccurate, misleading and seriously lacking in balance and fairness.

Whilst the forest industry feels vindicated by the ACMA findings, when will the ABC actually publish facts about Tasmanian forestry such as 45% of its native forest being reserved and managed for conservation, that it has a million hectares of old growth locked up as well as 97% of its high quality wilderness? That its native forest harvesting has been assessed as ecologically sustainable and complies with all Australian and State laws and is internationally accredited.

E-journal Crikey has raised another dilemma for the ABC: What to do with its Eureka award for outstanding journalism that it received for three environmental programs including ‘Lords of the Forests’?

Can the ABC continue to advertise Four Corners and its journalist as Eureka award winners in the light of this damming report?

The ACMA also needs to review its procedures. This finding comes two years and five months after the program was first shown.

Despite having extensive powers to investigate and hold hearings under Section 168 of the Broadcasting Service Act, it chose to only assess the written submissions of the ABC and the complainants. In fact it provided only the ABC with a copy of its preliminary findings, denying the complainants of opportunity to dispute findings.

Four Corners claims to be Australia’s premier television current affairs program. It has been part of the national story since August 1961, with consistently high standards of journalism and film-making earning international recognition and an array of Walkleys, Logies and other national awards. The program claims that its current team of reporters maintains a proud tradition of investigative journalism and rigorous analysis.

Can these claims and its place in TV journalism be maintained if it fails to apologise and issue a retraction over this discredited program?

Hopefully the ABC will return the Eureka Award to the Australian Museum and the $10,000 to the Australian taxpayers who sponsored the award.

Cinders.”

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Christian Kerr from Crikey summarized the case against the ABC in a piece published by the IPA titled ‘ABC’s Paralysis on Bias’ in March 2005.

Species Vulnerable to Extinction: Part 2, Tasmania

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According to Professor Norman Myers earth is experiencing the largest mass extinction in 65 million years with the loss of species more severe than the five mass extinctions of the geological past.

As mentioned at a previous blog post, Tasmania has been listed as one of the hotspots in Australia.

Thinksy provided this link to a list of critically endangered bird species. The list includes three species from Tasmania – the masked owl, the azure kingfisher and the wedge-tailed eagle. Habitat clearing including for pine forest (1), competition with brown trout which have reduced the availability natural prey (2), and shooting (3), are listed as the most likely reasons for decline of the three species respectively.

Alan Ashbarry who describes himself as a Tasmanian researcher with Timber Communities Australia sent in the following note:

“Recent media reports on a new list of 20 hot spots for species extinction of terrestrial mammals are based on a new report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately such an important report is available by subscription only and the general public has to rely on snippets fed to it by the media.

Lead author Marcel Cardillo uses phylogenetics to answer questions in ecology and conservation. Phylogenetics treats a species as a group of lineage-connected individuals over time. On this basis it is hardly surprising that the isolated islands of Bass Strait and Tasmania would have a “latent extinction risk”.

The media reports refer to the Convention on Biological Diversity to reduce the rate of world biodiversity loss by 2010, as part of this plan the Conference of Parties to the convention has adopted the following target:

Goal 1. Promote the conservation of the biological diversity of ecosystems, habitats and biomes

Target 1.1: At least 10% of each of the world’s ecological regions effectively conserved.

In Tasmania this target has been achieved and exceeded with the State having 42% of its land mass in conservation reserves. There is no indication that the authors of the Hot Spot report accounted for this outstanding achievement.

If there was it would be unlikely for the report to conclude that “Human population growth in hotspot areas is one of the greatest threats to vulnerable animals,” for Tasmania as human population development is banned in these areas.

The media reports also refer to an environmental scientist Professor Norman Myers claiming that Earth is experiencing the largest mass extinction in 65 million years.

The media report Myers as claiming 33 extinction hotspots around the world, 13 more than the report in the Proceedings of National Academy of Science.

Professor Myers says if governments do not do more, the planet will continue to lose 50 species per day compared to the natural extinction rate of one species every five years. Yet the Professor fails to state that his trip to Australia is partly sponsored by the Federal Government as part of it biological diversity program. He also fails to quote sources for this alarmist claim to determine if it is a real, or a theoretical claim based upon un-described and notional species.”

Alan also sent a couple of links that he said showed that Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands and those other hotspots have the lowest attrition rates for terrestrial mammals.

Maps here: http://audit.ea.gov.au/anra/vegetation/bio_asses/popup.cfm?case_no=fig_6_7.

And see also commentary here: http://audit.ea.gov.au/anra/vegetation/vegetation_frame.cfm?region_type=AUS&region_code=AUS&info=bio_asses.