Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Forestry

Saving Australia’s Forests for Carbon: Valid Science or Green Activism?

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Tasmania May 05 008 blogA RECENT Australian Government study of 115 key industries found that only the forestry sector was net carbon-positive. Yet, a major Wilderness Society campaign is advocating the closure of Australian timber industries to help mitigate climate change.

Their campaign revolves around research by scientists from the Australian National University Fenner School of Environment and Society who have found that large amounts of carbon reside in some Australian “old growth” forests. Environmental activists have shoe-horned this finding into their over-arching 40-year campaign to completely evict timber production from all Australian forests. Their rationale is that a total absence of timber harvesting will allow all forests to become “old growth” which will store maximum amounts of carbon.

This raises several important issues. First, closing a carbon-positive industry that is based on a renewable resource is hardly likely to reduce carbon emissions. Second, the capability of most forests to attain “old growth” is reliant on fire, irrespective of timber harvesting. And third, there is concern about the integrity of the Wilderness Society’s campaign and the key participatory role of several ANU scientists.

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The Already Bankrupt Brown Green

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Tassie forests blog blue gums.JPGIN the south east of Tasmania, there was once a thriving timber town known as Wielangata. In its heyday it had a general store, bakery, blacksmiths’ shops, school and of course several saw mills.  Wielangta was ravaged by bushfires in the 1920s and abandoned in 1928.

Australian Greens’ Senator Bob Brown has been claiming the area as pristine forest and suing those with permission to log it:  Not log it to destroy it, but log it as part of a sustainable rotation.

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Defining the Greens (Part 11)

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ASK a forest worker from Tasmania, a commercial fisherman from South Australia, a sugarcane grower from Queensland or a cattle producer from New South Wales what they think of Greens and a common complaint will be that “Greens tell lies”.  

Each of these groups have been the target of clever campaigns by Green groups including The Wilderness Society and WWF Australia.

Tasmanian forest workers have put up committed and organised resistance and many of their truck and utilities sport bumper stickers with the comment “Greens tell lies”.  

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Unethical Forest Protestors in Tasmania: A Note from Alan Ashbarry

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IN a rare display of sympathy and understanding for forest contractors, ABC journalist Tom Tilley has put the hard word on protestors in the Upper Florentine Valley, accusing them of perhaps even being “unethical”.  

You can play the interview at the ABC Triple J website  while watching a slide show. [1]
  

The issue is ongoing conflict at a blockade in the Florentine Valley along a road that was constructed in the mid 1960’s. Until recently a protest camp has blocked the path of a new spur road to access forest harvesting areas.  The timber of the Florentine Valley, together with the Styx Valley, was granted to a consortium of media companies in the late 1930’s to create a newsprint pulp and paper mill and jobs at the end of the last world recession.

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No ‘Happy New Year’ for Koalas in the Central Murray Valley

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THE Victorian Premier, John Brumby, has waited until New Year’s Eve to announce the end of timber harvesting and grazing in 83,000 hectares of red gum forest in the Central Murray Valley in north western Victoria, Australia.

The creation of new national parks was a 2006 election promise to secure inner-city votes but is based on a lie – on the false belief that by declaring an area a national park you can somehow “save it”. 

In reality the red gums of the mid-Murray need water and thinning and a national park declaration will achieve neither.    The national park declaration will simply increase the risk of wild fires and the death of koalas.

The Rivers and Red Gum Alliance, representing local forest users, provided the government with a well research plan whereby 104,000 hectares could be managed under the principles of the internationally recognised Ramsar convention.  

As Peter Newman, chairman of the Alliance, explained yesterday, “The forests exist in a highly modified landscape surrounded by farmland and need active management to maintain forest health.  This includes fuel reduction through controlled grazing and thinning of the red gum trees to keep the forest open and in a healthy state.” 

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