Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Forestry

A Christian Forester’s Views

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I received the following email from a reader of this weblog:

“Folks,

At times the church has been drawn into the forest debate causing concern among Christian timber folk, the church appearing to follow the anti forestry argument.

But now it is great to see perhaps a more balanced approach by the Church, with the Anglican Church publishing a very positive article from Christian forester Hans Drielsma.

Please take time to read,
http://www.anglicantas.org.au/tasmaniananglican/200508/200508-09.html .”

The Price of Woodchip

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On Saturday I attended a conference at the State Library of New South Wales sponsored by the Independent Scholars Association of Australia, NSW Chapter, entitled “Looking for Forests, Seeing Trees: A Continent at Risk”.

Senator Bob Brown of the Australian Greens was the keynote speaker.

It soon became apparent that many of Sydney’s ‘Independent Scholars’ hold Bob Brown in the highest of regard. The audience was clearly enthralled as he told the story of Recherche Bay – Tasmania’s equivalent of Sydney’s Botany Bay but still essentially a beautiful wilderness area of incredible historical significance according to Bob Brown.

He told of the first friendly encounters between French scientists and the local Aboriginals in 1792 and how now – shock and horror – timber company Gunns Ltd was going to clear fell the forests of Recherche Bay. And it was all for woodchip that would be sold to Japan for $10 a tonne.

We were repeatedly told that Gunns Ltd turns 90% of the 200 year old trees it fells into woodchip which are then sold to Japan for $10 a tonne. We were told it was the same across Tasmania. There would soon be no old growth forest left in Tasmania if the ruthless company Gunns Ltd supported by the horrible Howard-government had their way – and all for $10 a tonne. He described the situation as “a holocaust”.

During question time I asked Brown a question that went along these lines. Wasn’t 80% of old growth forest in Tasmania reserved, as well as 70% of the original extent of forest still being in existence? Hadn’t Recherche Bay already been logged? So to suggest that the last tree was about to be cut down in Tasmania was, to say the least, an exaggeration.

He responded along the lines that there are statistics and statistics (you know: ‘lies, damn lies and then there are statistics’) but the bottom line is that as more is logged, “the percentage protected increases and eventually all will have been logged and then they (Gunns Ltd) will claim that 100% is protected”.

The audience loved Bob and it was with gushing praise he was cheered off the stage and then departed the conference.

Maybe I should have asked a question about the $10 per tonne. I thought it was more like $150 per tonne, but I wasn’t sure.

I have just checked some sources tonight.

Brown is not alone is claiming a low price for woodchip. Jared Diamond in his much acclaimed book ‘Collapse’ quotes $7 per tonne (pg. 404).

When I queried this figure with Alan Ashbarry from Timber Community Australia early in the year he emailed me a copy of the Woodchip Settlement Price dated 18th February from Gunns Ltd for 2004 showing the price per tonne at $159.00 (Download file) and the note:

“Diamonds un-referenced figures on the value of export woodchips do not stand scrutiny. The current price for woodchips is the leading Australian Hardwood Chip Exporter (LAHCE) benchmark price settled at AUD 159.00 per BDMT (bone dry metric tonnes). This equates to US$120, it takes two bone dry metric tonnes of chip to make a tonne of pulp used in paper manufacture. The price for paper quoted by Diamond is overstated when compared to international benchmarks.”

I have checked this value against the value in the most recent publication from ABARE, see http://abareonlineshop.com/PdfFiles/PC13135.pdf (pg. 51).

The most recent figures here are for December 2004 with a total volume of 1,413,300 tonnes exported to Japan at a value of $214,147,000 which gives a value of $152 per tonne. This confirms the value of $159 to be about right and suggests the value of $10 per tonne to be complete rubbish.

I did suggest at the conference that they should check the price for woodchip. I hope that there were some independent and scholarly enough in the room to do so. If Brown could get something so basic, and readily available, wrong, as the price for woodchip, can you rely on much that he says?

ABC TV Got it Half Right on Rangeland Management

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ABC Television program Catalyst ran a story last night featuring the work of botanist Rod Fensham. Fensham has done some great research work on Queensland’s rangelands. But the program, by putting a popularist spin on it all, did our rangelands and Fensham no favours.

Catalyst started off by suggesting most of Queensland’s old growth forest had been cleared by graziers and then went on to explain how vegetation thickening is real. An overriding theme was that the bans on broad scale tree clearing are good and that current thickening is natural and a consequence of higher rainfall over the second half of the last century. Furthermore drought, not land clearing or fire, should be left to maintain the balance of nature.

I was left wondering what they meant by old growth forest, and how the old growth forest had survived the terrible drought to be destroyed by graziers. And wasn’t it generally acknowledged that these areas have been a fire mediated sub-climax ecosystem as in South Africa and the southern USA?

The following comment as part of the voice over was interesting:

But seeing the timbers dying in all districts of western Queensland it would seem not unreasonable to conclude that drought was the cause of thousands of miles of country in the never never to be denuded of scrub. …So there it was, proof that the climate had caused tree death and thinning.

The full transcript can be read at
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1435595.htm .

I used to have a beer with Fensham and other Brisbane-based botanists and entomologists on a Friday afternoon at the St Lucia golf links in the early to mid 1990s.

The Catalyst program suggested that Fensham was against the use of fire, as well as broad scale tree clearing. It didn’t ring true to me.

A link to a piece by him at the bottom of the Catalyst webpage also suggests otherwise.

In this piece titled ‘Trial by fire’ Fensham makes the following points:

1. The role of climate in shaping vegetation patterns should not be ignored in a land of notorious climatic extremes.

2. The structure and density of eucalypt woodlands in the Queensland pastoral zone is influenced by management (fire), land use (grazing) and climate (especially drought).

3. Appropriate burning regimes may offer Queensland pastoralists a management option that maintains productivity and is less devastating for biodiversity than tree clearing.

Read the complete article here
http://www.lwa.gov.au/downloads/publications_pdf/PN040707_trial_by_fire.pdf .

Earlier in the week I was sent this link
http://www.amonline.net.au/eureka/environmental_research/2005_winner.htm .

It came with the note, “An interesting rewrite of history – a negative reality inversion.”

The link is to an announcement titled ‘Research that shaped new bush clearing laws’ and is about how Fensham has won the Eureka prize for Environmental research and includes the following text:

The recent debate on land clearing in Queensland was fierce, with the arguments often unsupported by clear scientific evidence. Dr Rod Fensham and Russell Fairfax changed that. Over ten years, these two scientists from the Queensland Herbarium have methodically developed a scientific foundation to measure and understand the fate of Queensland’s native rangelands. Their research, and their science advocacy, gave the Queensland Government the information it needed to create stronger laws on land clearing. Their work now earns them the $10,000 Sherman Eureka Prize for Environmental Research.

I observed at close range the politics that drove the bans on broad scale tree clearing in Queensland including as a member of the Ministerial Advisory Council – Vegetation Management (MAC-VM). Fensham’s work didn’t enter this policy debate which was driven almost exclusively by very dumb (but effective) campaigning by a coalition of environment groups spearheaded by the Wilderness Society and Queensland Conservation Council and supported by a Queensland University Professor.

Had Fensham’s work been influential, the clearing laws may have turned out at least half reasonable.
……………

Update 2pm

Following discussions with Rod I have the following additional comment, and I hope Rod might do a guest post for me/us:

The Eureka Award was in recognition of Rod’s contribution to our understanding of regional ecosystems and how they can be mapped. This mapping work occurred independently of the campaigning by the Wilderness Society and the mapping is critical to the current legislation and important if the current legislation is to ever deliver reasonable rangeland protection and management.

I have also updated the title for this post from ‘ABC TV and Eureka Awards Got it Wrong on Fensham’ to ‘ABC TV Got it Half Right on Rangeland Management’.

On Jared Diamond and Environmental Law

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I had mentioned that I was reviewing Chapter 13 of Jared Diamond’s not so new book ‘Collapse’.

There have been some offline requests for copies of the review which has now been published by British Journal Energy and Environment. The chapter can be downloaded from the IPA website at,

http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/publisting_detail.asp?pubid=443 .

I recently also completed a paper for the AFFA inquiry to ‘secure a profitable and sustainable agriculture and food sector in Australia’. This long submission includes some detailed recommendations including the need to overhaul environmental regulation and legislation in Australia. It can be downloaded here,

http://www.agfoodgroup.gov.au/publications/Institute%20of%20Public%20Affairs.pdf .

Burn the Woodchip Instead?

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There is no campaign against the export of woodchip from Queensland’s native forests because all the forest ‘residue’ that could be turned into woodchip is burnt instead.

I understand this was the outcome of the 1999 deal between the Queensland Government,Queensland Timber Board, Wilderness Society, Australian Rainforest Conservation Society and Queensland Conservation Council. That is, that everyone agreed it didn’t matter what happened to the ‘residues’ from native forest harvesting as long as it was not exported as woodchip etcetera or used for ‘green energy’ generation.

This is so wasteful.

The Tasmanian industry has agreed to no such deal. I understand that woodchip is a good earner for their forest industry – and there is a campaign against it with at least one Japanese Company agreeing to not buy Aussie woodchip. But I don’t think they have agreed to stop making paper – and indeed there was no campaign against paper.

The Forest Industry has suggested that the Japanese should rethink their policy, and according to ABC OnLine,

The Forests and Forest Industry Council (FFIC) has made a submission to Japanese paper company Nippon Paper Group, saying the industry in Tasmania is not destructive.

Nippon Paper Group is reviewing its policy on its raw materials supply.

FFIC chairman Rob Woolley says the submission detailed the sustainability of present forest practices.

He says one of the major aims of the submission is to reiterate that any harvesting of old growth forests is minimal and only a small amount is used for woodchips.

“The harvesting is primarily done to get high quality saw log and veneer, and that the chip component that comes out is a by-product,” Mr Woolley said.

“The importance of the chip component is that is adds to the economics of harvesting these timbers.”

I am all for making use of all byproduct including woodchip for paper rather than just burning it. But as per the above media report, I wouldn’t agree that the industry isn’t destructive (it is and needs to be because involves clearfelling patches, see https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000708.html)and I understand that woodchip can be a significant component of the total harvest.

Some of the campaigns against woodchip:

http://www.chipstop.forests.org.au/whatis.html
http://www.tcha.org.au/paper.html

Timber Town Imports Timber

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I was in Gympie yesterday.

When I asked the origin of a pile of logs at a saw mill I gleaned the following story:

There are over 3,000 wooden bridges on main roads in Queensland. These bridges are held up with wooden girders many of which are reaching the limit of their design life. Restrictions on harvesting from ‘old growth’ native forests in Queensland means that timber for these bridges is now being imported. These logs have been trucked the 700 km from Coffs Harbour (in New South Wales) to Gympie (in SE Queensland), to supply this need:
View image of logs, 20kbs.

Gympie was once a proud timber town (http://thecouriermail.com.au/extras/federation/CMFedSClead.htm ).

The Cooloola region is still full of forests that extent west to the famous Conondale Ranges (http://www.travelmate.com.au/Places/Places.asp?TownName=Kandanga_%5C_QLD ).

The forests surrounding Gympie are still full of trees of the same species and with equivalent or larger girths than those being logged in Coffs Harbour. But it is apparently easier for at least one of the timber mills that has traditionally supplied Queensland Main Roads to import, because they are restricted to younger forests with smaller trees in the Gympie region. Sourcing logs is further complicated because the local Forestry Department doesn’t have enough officers to mark trees for cutting.

This situation has been driven by mindless and incessant environmental campaigning to stop logging in mature native forests followed by government dollars to ‘pay off’ and/or ‘buy out’ the industry.

The following paper by Graham Murray provides information on timber bridges in Queensland and the current dilemna facing local governments in Queensland: http://www.ipwea.org.au/papers/download/Murray_g.pdf.