Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Forestry

The Wilderness Society and Bushfire Management

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I have been critical of many environmental activists over the years on the grounds that they know what they are against, but they don’t know what they are for. For example, bushfire management systems developed by forestry agencies over many decades are savagely condemned, but no alternative system is offered up as a replacement.

I was therefore interested to see that the Wilderness Society News 173 (Winter 2008) contains a Six Point Action Plan that the Society says will “reduce bushfire risks and help to protect people, property, wildlife and their habitat”. They have done this because they assert that a “massive increase in hazard reduction burning and firebreaks is destroying nature, pushing wildlife closer to extinction and in many cases increasing the fire risk to people and properties by making areas more fire prone”.

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National University fosters Forest Activism based on Ignorance: A Note from Mark Poynter

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A recent paper by economist Dr Judith Ajani of the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society, states that:

Deforestation and the degradation of native forests account for an estimated 20 per cent of Australia’s annual net greenhouse gas emissions. Most of the degradation occurs via (wood) chip exports …

Pardon? This is completely at odds with the Department of Climate Change (formerly the Australian Greenhouse Office) whose website quotes figures based upon the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) showing that emissions from the “land use, land use change and forestry” sector comprise just 2.5 per cent of Australia’s annual greenhouse emissions.

Dr Ajani’s paper (ANU E-press, Agenda, Volume 15 No. 3) goes on to explain that her estimation of annual emissions from forest “deforestation and degradation” is compromised of 11-13 per cent from land clearing for agriculture, with 7 per cent (or 38 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent) from logging native forests.   However, this latter figure studiously excludes carbon capture by regenerated forests and, while said to be based on AGO figures, has actually been calculated by prominent “green” activist Margaret Blakers using a briefing paper from the Wilderness Society.

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Important Article by Friend and Forester Mark Poynter

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Friends,

 

An important article has been published today at Online Opinion http://www.onlineopinion.com.au by Mark Poynter.

 

  Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 30 years experience. He is a member of the Institute of Foresters and the Association of Consultant Foresters, and author of the book Saving Australia’s Forests and its Implications (published in 2007).

 

Mark’s article looks at two recent publications by the Fenner School of the Australian National University.  The first by the WildCountry Hub director Professor Brendan Mackey and colleagues that colour codes carbon and speculates that there is ten times more carbon potential in forests than a world wide estimate made almost 20 years ago.

 

The second report critiqued is from Judith Ajani (formerly Clark) that extensively quotes the Mackey report to argue that native forests should be used as carbon stores, and existing plantations will provide all our timber needs.

 

Both reports appear strongly influenced by the Wilderness Society, its political ally the Greens and an organization known as the “Greens Institute”.

 

So it’s worth a read and even a comment.

 

Comment can be made at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8094 

 

Cheers

Alan 

 

The photograph, taken by Jennifer Marohasy, shows Mark preparing for his recent presentation to the Australian Environment Foundation.

How to Save the Red Gum Forests: A Note to Mr Kelvin Thomson MP

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Kelvin Thomson is the federal member for Wills, representing inner-city northern Melbourne.   He was the Shadow Attorney-General in early 2007 when it was discovered that he had provided a notorious Melbourne gangster, Tony Mokbel, with a personal reference describing him as a “responsible, caring husband and father”.   Mr Thomson subsequently resigned from the front bench, but he still has trouble telling good from bad. 

Last Tuesday in federal parliament as part of debate on the Water Amendment Bill 2008, Mr Thomson described me as an anti-environmentalist and made much of my opposition to the creation of another 100,000 hectares of National Park along the Murray River.   He suggested that converting state forest to national park would be a very significant nature conservation outcome for the Murray River which I opposed.  

In reality converting state forest to national park is not going to address the current key issue for the forests which is provision of adequate environment flows in an efficient manner.  Furthermore, by ‘locking-up’ the forests and banning current management practices the forests may become less, rather than more, resilient.  

I do oppose the continual ‘locking-up’ of ever more forest principally on the basis that those in metropolitan Australia, in places like inner-city Melbourne, like the idea of national parks.  

Many city people have a romantic notion of wilderness – an idea that wilderness is a place where people do not go.   In reality the beauty of many wild places is a consequence of careful management by people.  Indeed the red gum forests of the central Murray Valley, the forests that Mr Thomson would like to see ‘locked-up’, are only about 6,000 years old following a geological uplifting that changed the course of the Murray River.  They have always been managed, first by indigenous Australians and more recently by the wood cutters and cattlemen who now live there. 

In July this year I launched the 152-page ‘Conservation and Community Plan’ for the Red Gum forests at the Victorian Parliament House.   This plan is about protecting the Red Gum forests not leaving their survival to fate.   The plan developed by 25 community groups under the guidance of foresters Mark Poynter and Barry Dexter proposes the creation of a public land tenure known as RAMSAR Reserve with management to integrate the principles of multiple-use with environmental care.   Current government policies and plans relating to timber production, cattle grazing, and recreational activities would be retained in RAMSAR Reserves in accordance with zoning that takes account of prevailing values and conditions.   

The community plan proposes that funding for more on-ground resources be obtained from revenue generated by these commercial uses of the forest such as timber production, grazing, firewood collection and bee keeping.   

The Alliance of community groups supports more environmental flows for the forests and the plan explains how to achieve the more efficient delivery of this water through the use of water regulators that already exist in many of the forests. 

In short, Mr Thomson misrepresents me when he suggested in federal parliament last week that I do not care about the Red Gum forests.   I care deeply about these forests and I recognise that their preservation is dependent on appropriate management regimes, not the romantic notion of wilderness implicit in the speech by Mr Thomson that falsely assumes less people equals more trees.    

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Additional Reading:

While the Murray River is flowing despite the drought, many of its tributaries are drying up: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2007/11/murray-river-tributary-reduced-to-billabongs/ 

After a fire in the Barmah forest:    https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2007/11/after-the-%e2%80%98top-island%e2%80%99-fire-in-the-barmah-red-gum-forest/

Some forests can be ‘drought proofed’ through thinning: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2007/11/thinning-red-gum-forests-at-koondrook/ 

You can read my speech at the launch of the community plan here:  https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2008/08/a-new-plan-for-the-red-gums-of-northern-victoria/

Enjoying the Murray River, surrounded by River Red gums, just upstream of Barham, October 2007.  Photograph taken by Jennifer Marohasy.