Archive for the ‘Threats from Deforestation’ Category

Blind-eyed cataclysm of ‘Catamaran’ forests

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

‘Don’t clear-fell History… let’s have another vision’

[^RechercheBay.org]

… but try telling Forestry Tasmania’s out-of-control logging thugs:

State Slaughter

Tasmania’s precious ancient Southern Forests at Catamaran, today 23rd November 2011

Out of Control State Logger ‘Forestry Tasmania‘ defies the 7th August 2011 moratorium on logging Informal Reserves.

Logging Coupe CM004C (above photo) is a breach of the 2011 Tasmanian Forestry Agreement, Clause 25

[Photo courtesy of Huon Valley Environment Centre ^http://www.huon.org/]

(click above photo image to enlarge, then click again to enlarge again)

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Forestry Tasmania’s supposed ‘Sustainability Charter’:

‘The sustainability charter is a forest management plan that reflects FT’s role as stewards of the forest.

The document guides FT’s decision making over the next ten years,

and outlines how our commitment to sustainable forest management

and protection of the environment will be balanced with responsible economic and social outcomes.’

[Source: ^http://www.forestrytas.com.au/sfm/sustainability-charter, Read Charter]

Ed: What Crap!

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The fading farce of forestry’s promise

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‘Catamaran Forests’ location in southern Tasmania, near Hobart

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Old map showing relative position of Catamaran Forests (left) of Recherche Bay

^http://www.recherchebay.org/maps/index.html

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Forestry Tasmania’s map of Coupe CM004C (black area), situated east of Moss Glen

[Source: ^http://www.huon.org/, [Read PDF map]

Forestry Tasmania is scheduling provocative new logging in areas that will impact the habitat of vulnerable species like the Tasmanian giant freshwater lobster, Tasmanian devil, Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle and the spotted-tailed quoll.

And do they have a care factor beyond their pay packet?

Gotcha Forestry Tasmania!

State Logger ‘Forestry Tasmania’ photographed today logging native forests at Catamaran inside the IGA’s excluded 430, 000ha Informal Reserves.

(Wednesday 23rd November 2011)

Catarmaran forests are IGA Informal Reserves as designated by the Independent Verification Process.

(click above photo image to enlarge, then click again to enlarge again)

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Above is forestry reality, while the following is forestry greenwash…

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Forestry Tasmania: ‘Vision’

‘Tasmania’s state forests will be a globally trusted source of sustainable timber and other forest products and services for this and future generations.’

Forestry Tasmania: ‘Mission’

‘Forestry Tasmania manages state forests for optimum community benefit, using environmental best practice to create long term wealth and employment for Tasmanians.’

Forestry Tasmania: ‘Corporate Objectives’

To embrace science to achieve best practice environmental stewardship and maintain Australian Forestry Standard certification.
To create long term business and employment opportunities for the community by managing the forests for multiple use and encouraging down stream processing.
To achieve positive financial returns through sound, ethical business practice.
To build community trust through honest dialogue.

FT Values:

We care for people and their environment
We get things done.
We do what we say we will do.
We are proud of who we are and what we do
We think before we act.

Forestry Tasmania has the statutory responsibility for the management of 1.5 million hectares of State forest land. This land contains 39% of the Tasmania’s forests.

About half the forest managed by Forestry Tasmania are available (to us) for ‘sustainable’ timber production (aka clearfell logging, incineration then conversion to plantations – i.e no ecological future).

[Source: ^http://www.forestrytas.com.au/about-us ]

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And the forestry reality…‘Forestry Tasmania posts $12 million loss’

[Source: by Patrick Caruana, AAP, 20110829, ^http://www.news.com.au/business/forestry-tasmania-posts-12-million-loss/story-e6frfm1i-1226124330440] .

‘Forestry Tasmania has posted a $12 million loss, which it says is due to mill closures and the recent inter-governmental agreement on the sector. The state-owned company lost $12.09 million for the 2010-11 financial year, a marginal improvement on the previous year’s loss of $12.26 million. It will not pay a dividend to the Government.

Managing Director Bob Gordon said the closure of timber company Gunns’ mills around the state had hurt the company’s bottom line.

“Effectively, Gunns shut Triabunna, Burnie and the two Bell Bay chip mills at the same time in February-March,” Mr Gordon told reporters in Hobart today.

“In normal circumstances, that would’ve accounted for about two million tonnes a year of our sales, and they disappeared with about two weeks’ notice.”

Mr Gordon said Gunns was Forestry Tasmania’s single biggest debtor.

“We believe that Gunns owes us a bit over $25 million,” he said.

“Of that, about half to two thirds is in dispute. And by dispute, I mean Gunns aren’t paying us. But we believe that we’re on very solid legal, contractual grounds.”

Mr Gordon said the recent intergovernmental forestry agreement, which protects 430,000 hectares of high conservation value forests, was responsible for a substantial writedown in the company’s assets.

“The effect of the proposed extra reservations in the intergovernmental agreement led to writedown of about $100 million in the company’s forestry assets,” he said.

Mr Gordon said the company would now focus its efforts on new rotary veneer technologies, rather than sawlogs and woodchips.

He said Forestry Tasmania would look to open mills around the state capable of creating rotary veneer products in coming years.’

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Bob Gordon’s last statement above…

“Forestry Tasmania would look to open mills around the state capable of creating rotary veneer products in coming years.”

Editor:

So if rotary veneer products are Forestry Tasmania’s new timber product strategy using only ‘Tasmanian Regrowth Timbers’, what the hell is FT doing today sending in its logging thugs to eco-rape Tasmanian old growth at Catamaran?

Is there a corporate dysfunctional addiction to ‘old-growth’? Is Old Growth Hate so systemic in FT as to be psychotic and so out of control?

Where is logger patsy Lala?

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In Bob Gordons’ 2008 press release:

‘Forestry Growth Plan’

.‘In 2007, the local community celebrated with Malaysian-based company Ta Ann, as its first Tasmanian rotary veneer mill was opened.

When Premier Paul Lennon officially opened Ta Ann Tasmania’s Huon rotary veneer mill in May 2007, it marked the culmination of many years of planning and persistance by FT to attract private sector investment to our State’s wood processsing industry.

FT’s plan in developing the Wood Centre was to provide the foundation for companies such as Ta Ann to invest with confidence in Tasmania. We have now seen the reward of this foresight, with a major project brought to fruition and 60 new jobs created for the people of the Huon Valley.

Projects such as this, which develop innovative, high-quality products from regrowth timbers, will lead the way as the industry gradually makes the transition out of old growth timber.

This growth in jobs is not only good news for the Huon region, it is good news for Tasmania as a whole. Economist Dr Bruce Felmingham has estimated that the State’s economy will grow by some $32 million as a result of this increased employment.

The rotary veneer mill also delivered on Forestry Tasmania’s long-term plan to find new ways of adding value to Tasmanian regrowth timber.

This mill will produce high-quality veneer from regrowth logs that would otherwise be classified as pulpwood. This value-added product will ensure that Tasmania receives the maximum return from its timber.

Already, Ta Ann is receiving a very favourable response to Tasmanian eucalypt veneer through market trials with its Japanese customers. The product is highly regarded in this market for its strength and durability.

In fact, Ta Ann is unable to meet the market demand for this product from the Huon mill alone. We were pleased to see the official start of work in May 2007 on the company’s second veneer mill at the Circular Head Wood Centre.

Tasmania’s ability to supply sustainable wood products has provided Ta Ann with a competitive advantage in its overseas markets.

Ta Ann services major customers, who demand that the timber they purchase is verified as being harvested from sustainable sources.

Tasmania’s reserve system, which surpasses international benchmarks, and Forestry Tasmania’s certification under the Australian Forestry Standard provide this verification.

Forestry Tasmania will continue to develop the Wood Centre to its full potential as an integrated timber processing facility. The Wood Centre will ensure that every piece of timber brought to the site is used to its most valuable end. It will also continue to support the Huon community with investment and employment opportunities.’

Bob Gordon
Managing Director

[Source: Forestry Tasmania website ^http://www.forestrytas.com.au/voices/bob-gordon, accessed 20111123]

Ed: And so today Bob’s logging thugs have been caught on camera logging Catamaran old growth.

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Tags: Bob Gordon, Catamaran, Catamaran Forests, Coupe CM004C, Forestry Tasmania, Forestry Tasmania out-of-control, Huon Valley Environment Centre, logger patsy Lala, Recherche Bay, State Slaughtered, Tasmanian Forestry Agreement, Tasmanian Southern Forests
Posted in Tasmania (AU), Threats from Deforestation, Threats from Greenwashing, Threats to Wild Tasmania | No Comments »

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Logging Tasmania like there’s no tomorrow

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

‘The axe had never sounded’…

Recherche Bay aerial (Photo by Bob Brown)

Unprotected ancient native forests around Tasmania’s Recherche Bay
(Photo by Bob Brown)

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Despite Tasmania’s Inter-governmental Agreement (IGA) on 7th August 2011 assuring immediate logging moratorium of native forests in agreed reserves, Forestry Tasmania continues to eco-rape and pillage protected native forests in defiance of this agreement.

IGA Clause 25 states:

‘The State will immediately place the 430,000 hectares of native forest identified in Attachment A (other than any areas that are not State forest), from the 572,000 hectares nominated by ENGOs through the Statement of Principles process, into Informal Reserves. The boundaries of this 430,000 hectares were verified through an independent verification process.’

The southern forests around Recherche Bay were agreed to be included into the Informal Reserves through the Independent Verification Process.

So by embarking on new logging in these Informal Reserves, clearly Forestry Tasmania is in breach of the IGA and operating out of the control of the Tasmanian Government. Forestry Tasmania is logging Tasmania like there’s no tomorrow, because it knows there it has no tomorrow. The business is seriously loss-making. It’s continuing unfettered destruction of Tasmanian native forests is akin to the calculated genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils in May 2009 by the Sinhalese Sri Lankan dictator Mahinda Rajapaksa. Forestry Tasmania’s manic mindset has it logging and woodchipping native forests until they’re all decimated. And Lala’s Labor Government doesn’t have the gumption to enforce the moratorium on its own renegade department.

Forestry Tasmania getting stuck into native forests near Tasmania’s Recherche Bay, May 2011

[Source: ABC, ‘Bid for forest peace funding’, 20110519, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/18/3220585.htm?site=hobart]

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Not only is this organisation out of control, it has no market for its woodchip product. The logs are trucked to woodchipping mills only to be stockpiled with nowhere to go. With no income, it is a business heading for collapse. Unpaid wages will likely remain that way, when the doors are finally closed up. Meanwhile Tasmania’s remaining old growth forests are being logged and the ancient vital ecology decimated.

Loaded logging truck (New Norfolk, 20110929)

(Photo by editor, free in public domain)

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Conservationists are this morning conducting a protest in a logging area in the far south of Tasmania, where world heritage value forests are being clearfelled.

Huon Valley Environment Centre’s Jenny Weber says:

‘Tasmania’s world heritage value forests continue to be logged despite yesterday’s controversial announcement that woodchips shipments have been postponed by Tasmania’s only export woodchipping company, Artec (Artec Pty Ltd, Lilydale).’

‘Ta Ann is driving logging in contentious forests, and woodchip logs are leaving these same forests regardless of a viable market for the timber. The Tasmanian taxpayers are subsidising a logging industry that is economically unviable and environmentally unsustainable.’

‘This morning at Catamaran, in threatened forest behind Recherche Bay, a conservationist is in a tree sit, and thirteen people are halting logging. Huon Valley Environment Centre is repeating it’s calls for the immediate end to logging in this forest that borders the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, (TWWHA).’

Logging in this area, identified by Forestry Tasmania as CM004C, commenced after the Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Premier Lara Giddings announced the Inter-governmental Agreement on 7th August 2011 would provide ‘immediate protection in informal reserves’ for forests such as these.

Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard

signing the Tasmanian Forests Agreement, 7th August 2011

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Forestry Tasmania Coupe ‘CM004C’ is located within the 572 000ha of identified forests for legislated protection. Last week conservationists participated in a protest in the coupe, and it was revealed that the area is being clearfelled for Ta Ann, export peeler logs and woodchip logs.

Forestry Tasmania’s cable logging of The Weld Forest, 2009

Tasmanian Southern Forests

(Huon Valley Environment Centre)

(click image to link to slide show)

IGA Clause 26 states:

‘The State will ensure that, until the further independent verification process required under Clause 20 is completed, wood supply required under Clause 17 will be sourced from outside the 572,000 hectares of ENGO-nominated High Conservation
Value forest area unless the remaining State Forest area is insufficient to meet the contractually specified quality and quantity of wood supply. Where this is the case, the Tasmanian Government will ensure that wood supplies are sourced outside the 430,000 hectares placed in Informal Reserves. The Tasmanian Government will ensure that the 430,000 hectares of State Forest identified in Attachment A is not accessed’

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Analysis:

There are copious hundreds of hectares of Tasmanian forest area available outside the 572, 000 hectares of ENGO-nominated High Conservation Value forest area.
The Lala Labor Government by not ensuring wood supply is sourced outside the 430,000 ha in Informal Reserves is not accessed, and thus in prima facie breach of the IGA. Lala Labor is deliberately and mischievously exercising selective deafness by not listening to ENGO accusations of the breach of the IGA terms. Labor as head wolf of the chicken pen, turning a blind eye to its fellow wolves while they help themselves to the plunder.
The Gillard Labor Government is in breach of IGA Clause 27, by failing to act on this trigger ‘to appoint independent expert specifically to review scheduling and other relevant data and attempt to reschedule harvesting activities so as to meet the requirements of contracts and maintain the interim protection of the 430,000 hectares’. The option of log anyway is not an option. The prescribed option under IGA Clause 27, is that the Commonwealth will instead compensate the contract holder for the value of lost profits and unavoidable costs.
Both Governments, by sitting on their hands as forests in the Informal Reserves are logged, are in breach of the spirit of the Agreement.

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2009: ‘Woodchip stockpile in Tasmania a ‘health risk’

[Source: Matthew Denholm, Tasmania correspondent, The Australian, 20091014, ^http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/woodchip-stockpile-in-tasmania-a-health-risk/story-e6frg6ox-1225786465432]

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The woodchip stockpile in Burnie could pose a “significant health risk”, according to an expert opinion being assessed by health authorities. Tasmanian Director of Public Health Roscoe Taylor said the advice that the stockpile would at times contain Legionella bacteria is being examined.
“I have actually asked someone to have a look at it — we’ll be taking a look at it,” Dr Taylor said.The advice from Legionella expert Trevor Steele concludes the bottom layer of the stockpile on Burnie’s wharf would “undoubtedly” contain Legionella at times. Dr Steele warned the bacteria’s dispersal via dust could pose a significant health risk to townsfolk near the wharf and to workers at the port.

“It (the bottom layer) will at times undoubtedly contain Legionella and these could multiply there given the right conditions,” he said.

“This layer would also act as a source to contaminate newly arrived woodchips, setting the stage for a new cycle of Legionella growth.

“Dispersal of dust … containing these organisms could pose a significant health risk to susceptible persons working in, or residing in, adjacent residential or business districts, as well as to susceptible workers on the Gunns site and in the port area.”

Dr Steele was commissioned to provide the advice by Royal Hobart Hospital physician Frank Nicklason. Last week, Dr Nicklason apologised to timber company Gunns for his 2004 statement that the woodchip pile “almost certainly” had Legionella present that could blow across Burnie. However, he said his concerns about the potential for public health risks from the pile — initially sparked by several Legionella cases in Burnie — remained.

Dr Nicklason said he accepted that Gunns’ sampling in 2002 had not found Legionella in the pile. However, he said Dr Steele’s findings, from July this year, contributed to his concern and warranted further investigation.

Gunns’ own advice, conducted independently in 2002 and released under Freedom of Information, found that the available evidence “suggests strongly” that the bottom layer is “not a reservoir for Legionella”.

However, Dr Steele, formerly director of clinical microbiology at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science in Adelaide, disagreed.

“To claim that the sacrificial layer did not contain Legionella on the basis of two tests of small samples is misleading,” he says.

He agreed the bottom layer, because it was relatively undisturbed, was unlikely to pose much risk to the community, but that this did not mean there was no risk, since Legionella there could contaminate new woodchips.

When asked whether Gunns stood by its own findings, a spokesman said: “We don’t have to: Dr Nicklason has stood by it.

“At the time Dr Nicklason gave this apology he was in possession of the Steele report. His attempt to retract his apology by reference to this report is hypocritical, disingenuous and beggars belief.”

Dr Nicklason said his “carefully worded” apology — made as part of settlement of defamation proceedings — merely acknowledged that Legionella had not been found in samples taken by Gunns, and that its report had concluded there was “no available data” to implicate woodchips as a microbial health risk.

There are few detailed studies of Legionella in woodchip piles, although Dr Steele has found the bacteria present in all forms of composting and degrading wood products, including woodchips.

On the basis of his work, Dr Steele believes that conditions in woodchip stockpiles are ideal for Legionella and other micro-organisms that require moisture and warmth.

Legionella is thought to spread by people inhaling the bacteria contained in tiny water droplets, known as aerosols, or in dust.

Over the years, there have been complaints about dust and debris blowing from the stockpile to the Burnie CBD, adjacent to the port.

These have been focused on days of easterly winds, which occur about 20per cent of the time, and when woodchips were being loaded on to ships.

The 2002 Gunns report, conducted by Adelaide environmental health expert Richard Bentham, pointed out that survival of Legionella in aerosols was “highly dependent upon ambient weather conditions”.

For this reason, Dr Bentham concluded the health risks from the Burnie pile were “most probably confined to employees or contractors working on the site” and that transmission beyond the port area was “unlikely”.

However, Dr Steele says Legionella “could survive well in dust travelling long distances, even in adverse climatic conditions”. He cites instances of up to 20km.

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Recherche Bay – a brief background

.French explorer D’Entrecasteaux led his ships to grateful shelter in Recherche Bay, southwest of Hobart, in 1792 and 1793, recording “ancient forests, in which the sound of an axe had never been heard”. Barely 200 years later, the forest of Recherche Bay is being threatened by the sound, not merely of axes, but of bulldozers and chainsaws.In spite of public protest and National Heritage listing, the green light to log the area has been given.

24/1/06 Entrepreneur/adventurer Dick Smith offers $100,000 towards the purchase of Recherche Bay plus a $1.9 million no-interest loan to be paid back within 12 months.
5/11/05 Over 5000 people rally in Hobart for the protection of Recherche Bay. Bob Brown launches a bid to purchase the peninsula, asking people to pledge units of $1,000 to raise the money. Bob pledges $5,000.
6/10/05 Senator Ian Campbell announces Recherche Bay will be placed on the National Heritage list but says logging will still go ahead.
19/8/05 Launch of Bob Brown’s photographic exhibition and book, Tasmania’s Recherche Bay
27/4/05 Actor David Wenham and director Robert Connolly fly over Recherche Bay and visit the tall trees in the Styx Valley, stating their support for conservation.
20/4/05 Tasmanian Greens leader Peg Putt calls on French scientists to help save Recherche Bay
17/4/05 1000 people rally on site to protect Recherche Bay
Nov, 03 Tasmanian Heritage Council recommends the protection of the north east peninsula for its cultural significance.

[Source: ^http://www.leatherwoodonline.com/wild/2006/recherche_bay/index.htm]

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1993: ‘Campaign over Recherche Bay scores win’

[Source: Bob Elliston, Hobart, Green Left Weekly, 19931117, ^http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/34677]A five-year campaign to save part of historic Recherche Bay, in south-east Tasmania, has been won, with all parties involved having achieved a satisfactory resolution. The agreement was announced on February 8 by Labor Premier Paul Lennon.Thanks mostly to the support of well-known philanthropist Dick Smith, the tireless negotiations of Greens Senator Bob Brown and the decency of owners David and Robert Vernon, 142 hectares of forest will now be purchased by the Tasmanian Land Conservancy for $2.21 million.Recherche Bay had been under the threat of logging by Gunns Ltd since a contract with the owners was signed in 1998. The bay became home to a French expedition to observe the Earth’s magnetic field in 1792 and 1793. Had logging gone ahead, today’s very destructive logging techniques would have destroyed any chance for useful archaeology of the site to be conducted.Under the deal, Dick Smith will lend the Conservancy group $2 million, $100,000 of which is a personal donation. The state government, which initially supported the Vernon brothers’ decision to have the area logged, has now agreed to assist with $210,000 towards the cost of the land. In addition, the government will waive the $80,000 it would have collected in stamp duty. donations exceeding $238,000 have already been pledged.Although the small forest will not be harvested, no jobs will be lost. More jobs are likely to be generated in services supporting the local community and scientific interest.

However, the deal is not without its critics. Terry Edwards, CEO of the Forestry Industries Association, is distressed that the forest will continue to grow, rather than be turned into cash for Gunns. Newly appointed federal forests minister and Tasmanian senator Eric Abetz has also criticised the agreement, describing it as “a grubby deal”. According to Abetz, the area “has no heritage value”.

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‘Impact of Bushfire on Sooty Owls and Powerful Owls’

[Source: Rohan Bilney, Report on Sooty Owls and Powerful Owls for the Supreme Court proceeding number 8547 of 2009 – Environment East Gippsland v VicForests, pp.12-13]

Greater Sooty Owl (Tyto tenebricosa)

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‘Fire is likely to kill individual owls and small mammals, and remove potential habitat in the short-term, potentially resulting in long-term impacts.

‘How owl populations adapt or respond to fire is largely unknown’

‘Fire can consume hollow-bearing trees, while also stimulating hollow formation, but as hollow formation can take decades, frequent fires are likely to result in a net loss of hollow-bearing trees from the landscape (Gibbons and Lindenmayer 2002). This is likely to cause detrimental effects to all hollow-dependant fauna (Catling 1991; Gibbons and Lindenmayer 2002; Garnett et al. 2003).

‘Sooty Owls typically occupy habitats subject to infrequent fire regimes such as wetter forest types, possibly due to higher densities of hollow-bearing trees in such landscapes. Frequent fire regimes also simplify habitat structure, which can cause deleterious impacts on terrestrial mammals (Catling 1991; SAC 2001), which includes increased predation rates by feral predators due to the loss of habitat refuge (Wilson and Friend 1999). Overall, it therefore seems likely that owls and small mammals will be negatively impacted by frequent fire regimes. It is likely, however, that it will be the impacts of fire on prey densities that dictate how the owls respond to fire.

Brown Mountain ancient old growth logged, incinerated, razed by VicForests

(Photo by Environment East Gippsland)

‘Most species are not adapted to fire per se, but adapted to a particular fire regime, which include fire aspects such as intensity, frequency, seasonality and scale (Bradstock et al. 2002). Due to variations in the life history requirements of species and their ability to survive fire, particular fire regimes can advantage some species, while being deleterious to others (Bradstock et al. 2002; Gill and Catling 2002; Keith et al. 2002). Due to the varying ecological responses to fire, it is important for biodiversity conservation that we not only understand species responses to particular fire regimes, but to ensure that appropriate fire regimes are maintained across the landscape. As prescribed fire is used as a management tool for reducing fuel load to minimise fire risk, it is important that its effects on biodiversity are well understood.

‘Unfortunately, knowledge on how native species respond to particular fire regimes is poorly understood, especially for fauna (SAC 2001, 2003; Clarke 2008). So, in the absence of this crucial ecological information it is virtually impossible to implement appropriate fire regimes which will result in minimal negative ecological impacts, let alone enhance biodiversity. Fire, both prescribed burning and wildfire, can present a threat to owls if conducted at inappropriate seasons, frequency, intensity or scales. It is therefore difficult to quantify the threat. The threat of inappropriate burning at high fire frequencies is likely to be mainly concentrated around human assets and populations, while fires in more remote forested areas will be subject to less frequent fires (DSE 2004). Fire also affects the entire owl population because all habitats occupied by owls is flammable.

‘Victoria has experienced three catastrophic fire events in the past 7 years, and combined with prescribed burning, approximately three million hectares have been burnt in this time.‘

‘This equates to approximately 2/3 of potential Sooty Owl habitat in Victoria. How populations of Sooty Owls and many other forest dependant fauna have been affected by these fires remains poorly understood or unknown. The ability for forest fauna to recover is therefore being hampered by further prescribed burning, and recovery is also hampered by reduced fecundity caused by a decade of drought, and for the owls, low prey population densities.’

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The ‘Bushfire Fighting Principle’ corrupted by blinkered economic rationalism

The traditional principle of bushfire management is to put out bushfires…one would think. Yet this simple concept has been hijacked, bastardised and corrupted by successive governments as a consequence of systemic under-resourcing. Government under-resourcing has contributed to the deadly human toll in recent years.

The corrupting of this core bushfire management principle has morphed into a blanket one-size-fits-all defeatist policy of broadscale prescribed burning – burning the bush before it burns. The bushfire management tradition of ‘suppression‘ has been economically rationalised and politically supplanted by the proactively sounding notion of ‘prevention‘.

In Victoria, the fundamental job of putting out bushfires has bureaucratically morphed into a ‘Code of Practice for Fire Management on Public Land’, with its two general principles…

.Fire management planning on public land must address the threat of wildfire, guide the use of prescribed burning, and provide for the achievement of integrated land management objectives such as human safety and environmental management.’ (Clause 50)

‘Fire management activities must be undertaken in a participative manner where the responsibility for reducing the likelihood and consequence of wildfire is appropriately shared between public and private land holders and managers.’ (Clause 51)

What happened to the fundamental principle of bush fire fighting?

To put out bushfires!

Instead, vast areas of remaining native bushland and forests across Australia are being deliberately burnt to the point where critical faunal habitat is sterilised – only the trees remain, while the rich underlying vegetation, demonised as ‘hazardous fuel‘ is incinerated and repeatedly prevented from regrowth. Wildlife habitat has become a fuel hazard targeted for burning by the very custodians charged with wildlife conservation. And out of the Victorian Royal Commission into the Black Saturday bushfires, the anticipated kneejerk response by bushfire agencies to commence Prescribed Burning Armageddon against the bush has started as many genuine conservationists have feared.

And what has been the full realised cost of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires – valuing human lives, human injuries, ongoing trauma, livelihoods, wildlives, livestock, private property, natural assets, on top of the direct operational response cost, the indirect costs of contribiting agencies, the donations raised, capital costs, the opportunity costs, the investigation costs, the Royal Commission costs? No one has come up with a figure. These values were outside the Victorian Royal Commission’s terms of reference – so what real value was it? Economic rationalising of emergency management is costing lives and contributing to species extinctions.

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Victorian Government Policy of Bushfire Lighting

The Victorian Government’s delegated custodian on natural areas across the State is the infamous Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), with a reputation for lighting most of the bushfires it euphemistically labels as ‘prescribed burning’ wherein it finds unburnt bushland and prescribes its own burning regimes. When such custodial agencies restore the word ‘conservation‘ back into their title, some respect may return.

DSE’s ‘Code of Practice for Fire Management on Public Land‘ was revised in 2006. It relies upon background premises that since “much of the Australian continent is fire-prone”, that “fire occurs naturally”, that “many species of vegetation and wildlife have adapted to living within the natural fire regime” and that “Victoria’s Indigenous people used fire as a land management tool for thousands of years”. The Code justifies that “Victoria’s flora, fauna and the ecosystems they form are adapted to fire of varying frequencies, intensities and seasonality.” Victoria’s Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 has objectives to ensure “Victoria’s native flora and fauna can survive, flourish, and retain their potential for evolutionary development”. Now the integrity of this Act is under threat. Perversely DSE’s Code of Practice argues that deliberate burning of bushland and forest habitat will help Victoria’s native flora and fauna to survive, flourish, and retain their potential for evolutionary development.

Crap!

DSE stretches its rationalising propaganda further, claiming that excluding bushfire can have “negative consequences for Victoria’s flora and fauna“. And this is where the hijacking, bastardisation and corrupting turns from mythology into unsubstantiated falsehood and misinformation. No document exists to zoologically prove that native fauna will suffer such negative consequences if it does not have a bushfire range through its habitat. As a result, the Code of Practice implies that bushfire is ok for all Victorian bushland and forests – DSE conveniently convinces itself that the urgent moral imperative for DSE to suppress bushfires is extinguished. So now it lights more fires than it puts out.

The Code also premises that “often these wildfires can be difficult to suppress”. Well no wonder with an grossly under-resourced, firetruck-centric volunteer force.

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‘DSE holds fire management workshop in Bendigo’

On 22nd June 2011, DSE staged a workshop of stakeholders to discuss some recommendations of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s February 20o9 bushfire tragedy. According to the website ‘Friends of Box-Ironbark Forests’, in attendance were representatives from the CFA, local government, The Wilderness Society, Bendigo Field Naturalists Club, Friends of Kalimna Park, North Central Victoria Combined Environment Groups [NCVCEG], Apiarists Association and DSE attended a workshop on June 10 to learn about the process for implementing the findings of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission. Though Friends of Box-Ironbark Forests (FOBIF) was not invited to this workshop, we were represented by members of some of the other groups.

Once again DSE’s Code of Practice for Fire Management on Public Land (COP) is to again be reviewed and updated, except its premises have not changed, so what’s the point? The following notes taken on the issue of Fire management Zones/Prescriptions is telling of how disconnected DSE is from wildlife habitat conservation:

‘Fire Management Zones (FMZ) have been reviewed recently. An interim zoning is to be released soon. With little time left the group briefly discussed the merits of fire management zones, and how they might relate to the risk model. It was highlighted that the residual fuel load is an important aspect, but further detail as to how was not provided.

NCVCEG made the point that the current diagram used by DSE to represent the relationship between ecological outcomes and fire management outcomes across the four FMZ is misleading, encourages poor planning, discourages biodiversity management in zones 1 and 2, and neglects to recognise that fire management outcomes may be achieved in all zones, especially where integrated planning and alternative practices (to prescribed burning) are established.

In relation to FMZ the Apiarists pointed out that Box Ironbark forests generally have very low fuel levels in comparison to heavily forested regions where many lives were lost during the fires in 2009. The merit of burning areas used for honey production was questioned and the long term impacts of severe burning on Box Ironbark forest ecology was raised.’

[Source: Friends of Box-Ironbark Forests, 20110622, ^http://www.fobif.org.au/2011/06/dse-holds-fire-management-workshop-in-bendigo/]

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Yet at the same time DSE points out that… ‘biodiversity is in decline‘

In its ‘Victoria’s Biodiversity Strategy 2010–2015: Consultation Draft‘ DSE reminds us that two hundred years of (immigrant deforestation), severe droughts, major bushfires and the impact of climate change, has severely affected Victoria’s species and ecosystems. DSE professes:

Victoria is the most cleared and densely populated state in Australia. Victoria has the highest proportion (48%) of sub-bioregions in Australia in poor condition, with four out of Australia’s five most cleared bioregions found in western Victoria (CES 2008).
Approximately half of Victoria’s native vegetation has been cleared for agricultural and urban development, including 80% of the original cover on private land. Victoria is losing native vegetation at a rate of some 4,000 hectares per year, mostly from endangered grasslands (DSE 2008).
Victorian landscapes are the most stressed in the country (NLWRA 2001). One third of Victoria’s major streams are in poor or very poor condition. Two thirds of wetlands have been either lost or degraded and nearly half of our major estuaries are significantly modified. Flows at the Murray mouth are estimated to be a quarter of what would naturally occur (VCMC 2007).
44% of our native plants and more than 30% of our animals are either extinct or threatened (CSIRO 2004). The highest number of threatened species in any one region in Australia occurs in north western Victoria.
Exotic species represent about 30% of the Victorian flora with 1,282 species considered naturalised and a further 214 species considered incipiently naturalised in Victoria. This has increased from 878 naturalised species in 1984. It is estimated that an average of 7.3 new plant species establish in Victoria per year, and this number is increasing by a rate of 0.25 plants per year. Approximately 90% of the native vegetation in Melbourne is impacted by weeds, with more than 50% considered severely degraded. There are 584 serious or potentially serious environmental weeds in Victoria with 129 very serious (CES 2008).
Over 100 marine species have been introduced to Port Phillip Bay.’

[Source: Victorian Government’s Department of Sustainability and Environment, ^http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/conservation-and-environment/biodiversity/victorias-biodiversity-strategy/biodiversity-strategy-renewal/draft-victorian-biodiversity-strategy-2010-2015/current-state, Clause 2.2 ‘Biodiversity is in decline‘]

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State aware but doesn’t care

The Victorian landscape has undergone massive changes in the past 150 years. As a consequence of environmental degredation and destruction of indigenous flora and fauna:

Over 60% of the state has been cleared, and much of what is left is seriously degraded by weed invasion;
Of the two thirds of the state which is privately owned, only 5% retains its natural cover;
Soil erosion and salination have become serious problems;
Over 35% of our wetlands have been drained;
Close to 80% of rivers and wetlands have been substantially modified;
Almost all native grasslands have been eliminated or modified;
Many other vegetation communities are almost extinct, or critically endangered;
Over 900 exotic plant species have been established in Victoria, many of which are weeds, and scores of noxious exotic animal species are now widespread;
23 native mammal species have become extinct in Victoria.

[Source: The Southern Peninsula Indigenous Flora & Fauna Association Inc., ^http://www.spiffa.org/victorias-biodiversity-crisis.html]

And the Victorian Government is well aware.

DSE acknowledges that the ‘clearing of native vegetation (across Victoria) and habitat has also led to the loss or decline in wildlife species. Habitat fragmentation has meant that wildlife are more at risk from predators, harsh environmental conditions, and human influences (e.g. roads) as they move between remnant patches. Isolated patches support fewer and lower densities of wildlife, increasing the chances of population extinction in individual patches as a result of the impacts of chance events upon genetically simplified populations. Habitat loss and degradation also increases the susceptibility of wildlife to severe environmental conditions, such as fire and drought, and broader processes, such as climate change and changing rainfall patterns.’

DSE acknowledges that ‘while maintaining or restoring ecosystem function will help to reduce the rate at which species decline, we already have a legacy of species that are at risk due to past ecological disruption, and a latent ‘extinction debt’. Victoria’s past land management actions have resulted in the loss of species and created and ongoing risk of future losses. Many existing threatened species occur in remnant or fragmented landscapes where the work required to recover them is intensive, expensive and long-term. In extreme cases it is necessary to remove part of the remnant population to captivity until critical threats have been mitigated.

DSE acknowledges that ‘effective threatened species recovery requires:

Effectively dealing with threats to reduce the rate at which species become threatened;
Conducting recovery efforts in situ by managing the processes that degrade their habitat or directly threaten them, including, where required, support from ex situ conservation programs;
The best available knowledge and an adaptive management approach, including adoption of the precautionary principle when required;
Co-operative approaches to recovery, with an effective and efficient mix of incentives and regulations; and
Planning and regulatory frameworks to provide clear and consistent policy, process and outcomes.’

Yet in the same breath DSE goes on to reinforce its ‘fire is good for wildlife‘ propaganda – ‘a substantial proportion of Australia’s unique biota is dependent, to varying degrees, on fire and the variety of fire regimes for its continued existence and development.‘

[Source: DSE’s ‘Code of Practice for Fire Management on Public Land‘, Clause 2.3.8 ‘Challenges relating to fire management’]

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‘Fuel reduction burns threaten species’ – or Black Saturday incompetence an excuse for broadscale State Arson

[Source: Peter Vaughan, Monash University, Melbourne, 20100531,^http://www.reportage-enviro.com/2010/05/fuel-reduction-burns-threaten-endangered-species/]

‘Conservationists are concerned that fuel reduction burns in East Gippsland will threaten endangered species and reduce biodiversity.

On March 16, fire managers from the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) ignited a fuel reduction burn in the Dinner Creek catchment of Waygara state forest, approximately 14 km West of Orbost. The fire quickly gained intensity, aided by a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius. It burnt most of the environmentally sensitive vegetation within the fire zone along four kilometres of the Dinner Creek.

DSE Fire Manager for the Orbost Region, Steve de Voogd, said that the Dinner Creek fuel reduction burn grew hotter than intended. The fire was meant to burn 2206 hectare of coastal forest and leave a mosaic of burnt and un-burnt areas within the fire’s containment lines.

According to Mr de Voogd, the DSE is now under community pressure to reduce the risk of wildfire through fuel reduction burning, and that must take precedent over ecological considerations.

“Although there is probably room for more fire ecology planning, it is incumbent on the DSE to take action because the consequences of doing nothing may be worse,” Mr de Voogd said.

Most of the hollow bearing trees in the burn zone, which were home to a number of endangered species protected under state and federal law, were destroyed.

Dr Rohan Bilney, an expert on Australian forest owls and spokesperson for the Gippsland Environment Group, said that the program intended to burn large areas of coastal forest without adequate ecological planning, monitoring or research, which threatened crucial habitat and food sources for the forest’s owls species.

“The coastal forests of East Gippsland are the strong hold of the Masked Owl, a species listed as threatened under two laws: the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act and the Federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Most of East Gippsland’s Masked Owls live in the coastal forests now being subjected to intense broad area fuel reduction burns by the DSE,” said Dr Bilney.

Masked Owl (Tyto novaehollandiae)

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The Masked Owl Action Statement, prepared under the Victorian Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, estimates only 150 pairs of Masked Owl exist in Victoria. Of that total, 100 pairs are found in East Gippsland and most are concentrated in the coastal forest.

DSE Manager of Biodiversity in East Gippsland, Dr Steve Henry, said that the current DSE fuel reduction fire strategy allows for large fires but burning on such a scale leaves few options for the protection of important ecological values.

“If there are some areas that contain specific environmental attributes that we want to protect, we could exclude them from fire with a bulldozer line. However that is expensive and often very destructive on most of these large burns. The main management technique used is the way in which the lighting pattern of the fire is done, sometimes that is not as effective as we would hope,” he said.

Mr Henry said that funding constraints have not permitted the DSE to conduct detailed ecological studies of the coastal forests, including the effect of fire on the environment.

A post-fire ecological survey is currently being conducted by the DSE in selected fuel reduction areas.

The Dinner Creek fire was just one of 48 fuel reduction burns planned by the DSE for the region during 2009-2010. Like other fuel reduction burns, the DSE must comply with the Victorian Code of Practice for Fire Management on Public Land.

The primary objective of the Code is to protect of life and property, while minimising negative impacts on natural and cultural values, and abiding by threatened species legislation, are also included.

The Code of Practice also states that the DSE must prepare a Fire Ecology Strategy that includes input from ecological experts and full consideration of all available scientific research.

If little ecological research exists, fuel reduction burning can be conducted under the rational that it may reduce the future risk of wildfire.

In the absence of scientific data, the DSE will continue to plan fuel reduction burns from computer desktops, utilising the ad hoc data collected as part of the Environmental Vegetation Class mapping projects of the late 1990s.

While political pressure continues to increase, the DSE fire policy will remain focused on protecting the community against the spectre of Black Saturday.’

Burn it in case it burns, because we don’t have the resources for wildfire suppression

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‘Climate change, fires and logging -the deadly combination for Victoria’s species’

[Source: Environment East Gippsland, ^http://www.eastgippsland.net.au/?q=node/446]

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‘Two hundred years ago the Sooty owl was abundant and fed on about 18 species of ground prey in Gippsland. Today they have only two or three to chose from. Other species are under similar pressure.

Many of our native animals have become sparser in numbers and their range has shrunk. Some, like the Southern Brown Bandicoot (Federally listed but not State listed), are now isolated in small “island” populations which are dangerously close to extinction mainly due to threats of fire and predation. Fires destroy understorey cover, making it easy for foxes and dogs to wipe out small populations of ground dwelling animals.

The 2003 fires and the recent December ’06 fires have destroyed the habitat and ground cover over about 2 million hectares of Victoria’s forested country. This has had a horrifying impact on ground mammals, birds and hollow dependent species.

Scientist and Quoll expert, Dr Chris Belcher, has calculated that this species’ Victorian numbers were reduced by 33 – 45% as a result of the ’03 fires. The December ’06 fires would have reduced this again to even more precarious numbers.

The isolated colony of Long Footed Potoroos discovered around Wonangatta (or Wongongara?) will most likely have been killed as a result of the recent fires.

The Helmeted Honeyeaters had five small and isolated populations left but the 1983 fires wiped out four of them. Yellingbo is still likely to burn and our faunal emblem will be extinct on this planet.

Bandicoots are very fire sensitive. There are small and vulnerable populations scattered in Gippsland. In 1994, fires burnt 97% of the Royal National Park and Bandicoots no longer survive in this area. The safety of thick ground cover does not return for years, meaning foxes and dogs heavily predate any survivors.

East Gippsland is the last stronghold for many of our rare and endangered fauna. It is a wetter environment and has much higher floristic diversity and therefore animals.

Climate change will now make fires more frequent and intense in SE Australia (CSIRO). Governments must adapt management of natural areas to account for this reality as it is for agriculture, water and energy.

The greatest pressure on Eastern Victorian species has been in the Critical Weight Range from 35 gms to 5 kg. Many ground dwelling animals are extremely susceptible to fire. Potoroos, Quolls, Bandicoots, native rodents (the rare New Holland Mouse, Smokey Mouse etc).

The predation rate after a fire is huge and patches of unburnt forest within the fire zones are absolutely essential to help populations survive predation, recover and disperse in time. These areas are critical to protect from further disturbance.

The recovery of species after a fire is now very different from 200 yrs ago. Populations are more isolated, salvage logging further destroys their chances, there is less diversity of prey species for the higher order predators like owls and quolls to turn to if gliders and possums are impacted by fires (or logging the hollow-rich forests).

Logging ecologically diverse forests favours the return of biologically poor tree communities such as silvertop and stringybark. The forests with mixed gum and box throughout can have 20-50 times higher animal densities. Significant vegetation changes due to massive landscape disturbance such as clearfelling, makes endangered species recovery from fire even more unlikely.

In the 1990s, East Gippsland supported seven times more threatened species than other areas in Victoria. This made the region seven times more important for our endangered species’ survival. Since the fires of 03 and 06, it is not unreasonable to suggest that East Gippsland is the last refuge and last chance for these species to survive extinction. Extinction can happen very quickly.

Species which are fairly general in their roosting, nesting and feeding needs can often survive (as they have in other areas of the state) but the many specialist species which rely on large areas of diverse and thick forest are highly likely to vanish forever.

This is why the hasty and unscientifically mapped areas of newly reserved forest require careful refinements. The needs of the state’s threatened species must be made the priority. Independent biologists and on-ground local knowledge (not VicForests) must be used to finalise the new reserve boundaries, with the long-term impact of the recent fires as a major guiding factor.

The Bracks Government suggested there be no net loss of resource as an adjunct to the mapped reserve areas. This is an impossible and irrational qualification as fires can take out large percent of the forest and therefore wood resources in one season. Commercial use of forest should be allocated only after biologically essential considerations have been adequately addressed.

Another point made in pre-election promises was to make sure the new areas are mapped and industry changes are resourced so as to adhere to the terms and spirit of the RFA. This then should see the government honour its long overdue commitment to carry out research into the impact of clearfelling on threatened species, to identify sustainability indicators, carry out five yearly reviews and ensure threatened species are protected. None have been honoured in the last 10 years!

The recent court ruling regarding the EPBC Act should also give the state government substantial opportunity to begin to alter protection measures for Federally listed species in East Gippsland.

The conscience of this government cannot put the very limited future of several sawmills ahead of a large number of entire species. Continued logging of intact original forests must not be the overriding priority. The ability for species to cope with the escalating impacts of climate change and fires from 2007 onwards has to now be put ahead of politics and union threats. These species survived well in Australia for over 40,000 years. The clearfell logging industry has been around for less than 40 years. Political priorities have an even shorter lifespan.’

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Tags: DSE, Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, fuel reduction program, habitat trees, hazard reduction, hollow trees, hollow-dependant fauna, Masked Owl, Powerful Owl, prescribed burning, Sooty Owl, State Arson, State Logging, VicForests, Victoria's old growth forests, Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment
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The Lala Swindle – ‘corruption-in-confidence’

Sunday, October 30th, 2011

The following article is a selected summary of relevant information sourced from the Tasmania Times (TT) online newspaper from articles and reader comments (October 2011) concerning the revelation that Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings unnecessarily paid $34.5 million of taxpayers money to industrial logger Gunns as compensation for it exiting native forestry.

Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings (2011- )

What will be her legacy ~ accountable and faithful to the people of Tasmania?

The Charge:

Previously secret communications between Gunns and Forestry Tasmania, obtained by the Liberals under Right to Information laws, blows a massive hole in (Tasmanian Labor Premier) Lara Giddings’ claim that she had no option but to pay Gunns’ $34.5 million in compensation for exiting native forestry. (NOTE: The $34.5 million = 23m for Gunns residual rights and $11.5m to settle the dispute with FT.)

A letter, dated 18 April 2011, from Gunns Chairman Chris Newman, to Forestry Tasmania Chairman Adrian Kloeden, reveals that Gunns not only wrote to Forestry Tasmania to formally terminate their native wood supply contracts (917 and 918) in April this year, they also offered to terminate the contracts on a “full release and indemnity basis.”

In part, the letter reads: “Gunns therefore wishes to terminate CoS 917 and 918…To the extent that FT requires formal notice, please treat this letter as notice of termination under clauses 3.3(b)(i) of Cos917 and 3.3(b)(ii) of CoS918.

“While Gunns remains ready, willing and able to perform its contractual obligations under CoS 917 and 918 during the notice period, we consider than an immediate separation would be in the interests of Gunns, FT and the Tasmanian forestry industry generally…“I therefore propose CoS 917 and 918 be terminated on a full release and indemnity basis in respect of any and all outstanding issues.”

Mr Newman also offered to help Forestry Tasmania gain access into the (immoral and greedy) Chinese Woodchip Market, including introducing FT to Gunns’ customers and also offered to hand over roading infrastructure to the value of $200 million over to Forestry Tasmania.

Asian appetite for woodchips cares squat about the forest source,

cares squat about the means.

Tasmanians understand: Asian corporate culture is single bottom line:

Personal ends justifying any eco-social means to maximise personal economic wealth!

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A Tasmanian Case to Answer:

Tasmania’s traditional Coat of Arms

‘Ubertas et Fidelitas’? …”fertility and faithfulness”

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The significance of this letter cannot be under-estimated. Under the hand of Gunns’ chairman, Gunns voluntarily wrote to Forestry Tasmania to terminate its contracts ‘immediately’ on the 18th of April 2011 requesting an ‘immediate separation’ which clearly would have extinguished the Premier’s so-called “residual rights”.

This is supported by the advice of Forestry Tasmania Managing Director Bob Gordon In a subsequent Ministerial Brief dated 10 May 2011 from to Bryan Green, where Mr Gordon informs the Minister that this offer to terminate on a “full release and indemnity basis” from Gunns would “extinguish” the need to negotiate in good faith new terms of agreement for supply, the so-called “residual rights” that Ms Giddings has claimed as the reason for the $34.5 million in compensation.

Given this correspondence, it appears inconceivable that Lara Giddings could have been advised by the Solicitor-General that the Government was obliged to pay Gunns to extinguish the contracts. Ms Giddings now has no option but to release the Solicitor-General’s advice on the matter.

Tasmania’s Resources Minister has played down correspondence between Gunns and Forestry Tasmania, which the Opposition says raises questions about Gunns’ right to government compensation for pulling out of state forests. The Opposition obtained a letter between Gunns and FT under Freedom of Information Laws, which shows Gunns offered to terminate its contracts. Liberal spokesman Peter Gutwein says it contradicts the Premier’s argument, that she had no choice but to pay Gunns.

“The Premier now has no leg to stand on,” he said.

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Community insights and informed analysis:

‘If all the above is genuine, and I can see no reason why it should not be, then the matter needs to be taken further. Much further. Lara and her “advisers” need to peruse all correspondence, memoranda and diary notes etc from Gunns in relation to their claim as to why there should be a payment to them by the taxpayers. Should there be a deliberate deception, or a deception by deliberate ommission that resulted in a serious financial advantage to Gunns then all avenues of recourse should be explored. If criminal charges are appropriate then so be it. It all would depend on the nature of the claims/submissions put forward by Gunns. There should also be cross referencing with any correspondence on the matter by Forest Tasmania. A formal investigation is surely warranted and the reason for the indecent haste in coughing up the taxpayer’s hard earned to Gunns and FT needs now to be justified.

Oh Lara. What a patsy you are. Your only contributions to the negotiations in this “complex” matter were to first publicly announce that “…we need Gunns..”, and secondly to publicly announce that you had $45 million in the “envelope” to resolve the “complex” matter. Brilliant. Just brilliant Lara.’
~ Len Fulton (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111003

Woodchip stockpile – same colour as the chainsawed ancient Myrtle above

‘Very interesting documents. Regardless of whether you support the pulp mill or not there is something extremely fishy about this payment to gunns and all australian taxpayers should be screaming for the tabling for scrutiny of all documentation regarding the justification of this payment. Just on these produced documents and the fact that gunns had already closed down x no. of mills dismissed employees and placed triabunna on an approx. 8 week closure at the time the payment of compensation was dubious let alone some $34mil for the remaining life of the contract/s. This has a bad smell about it – now this previously “keep quiet” info is out Mr Gutwein what are you going to do about it?’
~ Ian (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111003

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‘Liberal complacence has helped foster the culture that has allowed our government to use excuses like “commercial in confidence” to not keep the public informed. So while Peter Gutwein is bouncing up and down on this issue, will he actually do anything, or remain as noticeable as a fly on the backside of an elephant?
~ Salamander (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111003

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‘Very revealing letter. I’ve previously argued that, if required, the Government should be prepared to buy back Gunns timber rights. Now, it seems, there was no need to buy them back at all because they had already formally relinquished them. This sheds a very nasty light on the way the Government rushed to pay Gunns double the initial offer. It also brings up questions about the $25 million that FT were apparently owned and why the Government felt it necessary to settle this matter to “avoid expensive legal arguments”.
The expense argument always seemed spurious. When there’s $25 million in dispute, surely it’s worth thrashing the matter out in court? On the other hand, the trouble with courts is that all the facts are likely to come out. I bet the Greens are having some interesting discussions at the moment! On the one hand there’s nothing to be gained by pulling the pin on Lala, but on the other hand, how far can they afford to let their reputation be trashed before they’ll never be able to recover the ground lost?’
~ Steve (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111003

‘So Mr Gutwein, what are you going to do about it?

Are you quite rightly going to demand the return of all the ill-gotten monies from Gunns Ltd and Forestry Tasmania? Are you also going to demand FT collects monies owed by Gunns Ltd to them? Are you going to demand all the IGA (Julia Gillard’s Intergoverment Agreement) monies be shared amongst everyone except these two companies as was intended?’
~ Russell Langfield (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111003

‘This isn’t the first or the biggest apparent fraud Tasmania has seen – the land swap was far bigger and the pulp mill approval business was more blatant – but it’s still very unusual to see the LibLabs falling out on something like this. The Tas justice system was magnificent in snatching Bryan Green from disaster, but do they have they the moxie to save the government’s bacon here? I suspect that Tas Inc’s closets are too dank to support an explosion, but I hope I’m wrong.’

~ John Hayward (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111003

‘These damning documents show that the potential financial scam perpetrated upon the Australian and Tasmanian taxpayer is even worse than that stated by Peter Gutwein. Firstly, a further 10% GST has been added to the payments made to Gunns and FT increasing the amount paid in so-called settlement to $37.95M. On top of that, FT has effectively written off the $13.5M balance of the $25 million reputedly owed to it by Gunns under the ‘take or pay‘ provisions of its wood supply contracts bringing the total amount gifted by the taxpayer to at least $51.45 million.

Tasmanians must be told why, and on whose advice, was Gunns’ termination offer made on 18 April 2011 not accepted by FT and what part did the Premier and her Deputy play in this? What was the role of the Solicitor General and what were the circumstances that led to the Premier claiming the need for payment to extinguish Gunns’ “residual rights”?

What is the legal precedence and basis for the taxpayer settling a financial dispute between a private company and GBE over which the Minister has limited jurisdiction and no apparent financial control? The scale of this matter is beyond the scope of the feeble Integrity Commission and is so serious that it demands a full criminal investigation.

Finally, given that the release of this documentation has the potential to bring down the Government, the motives of the usually recalcitrant FT for being so forthcoming to the Shadow Minister for Forestry’s request are extremely suspect and demand that FT is put into administration pending the outcome of investigations.’
~ PB (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111003

‘As per Chris Newman, Gunns ….“I will not recount Gunns’ various complaints of defective performance and non-performance by FT ….” Why? Not consistent with Gunns previously pretending the woodchip driven industry was sustainable let alone ‘worlds best practice’! Can the public see a copy of those complaints? Surely they are not all ‘commercial in confidence’.

“The reputation and marketability of Tasmanian native forest woodchip product is, and has always been directly affected by FT’s forestry management practices …” You forgot to add … and Gunns greedy easy street deal to woodchip bio diverse forests into oblivion. “FT was aware of the damage that its forestry practices were causing to the reputation of Tasmanian woodchip products …” Oh so FT’s forestry practices haven’t been a beautiful shining example afterall … I’m shocked at having been so deceived!! “Gunns therefore wishes to terminate CoS 917 and 918, noting our agreement that construction of the pulp mill did not commence by 30 November 2010.” You mean Gunns deliberately didn’t make a commencement of the mill to get out of the contract or used the companys own incompetence and failure to grab a government payout?

“Ünless a commercial resolution can be reached, I fear that these disputes will ultimately result in court proceedings.” Is that called holding the state to ransom … or bribery perhaps?

“I therefore propose that CoS 917 and 918 be terminated immediately on a full release and indemnity basis in respect of any and all outstanding issues.” So that’s what Gunns meant as per their ASX market update.

“3. Mutual release between the company and Forestry Tasmania from certain current and future claims arising out of those agreements.” “At the same time, FT will receive the benefit of a substantial infrastructure, worth in excess of $200 million, established by Gunns in anticipation of harvesting pulpwood from State Forests pursuant to CoS 917 and 918.” Is that where the touted $200 million figure for the so-called locking up of native forests originally came from? And you mean to say those native state forests being established, (albeit in reality little more than plantations) after wiping out the original diverse forests, weren’t actually being grown for future sawlogs, but indeed for nothing but pulpwood … thought so!

Bobby Gordon to embattled Bryan Green …. “It is unlikely the exchange of letters between Gunns and FT will become public.” … Why, something to hide perhaps? Obviously Labors Braddon office shredder mustn’t have been available.

“In the event that stakeholders become aware of the termination notice, Forestry Tasmania intends to release the following statement….” Is that called conspiring?

Let’s call it as it is, the $23 million for ‘residual rights’ and the Labor Gov gifting Gunns $11.5m to virtually pay itself via FT wasn’t to buy back HCV state native forests, it was hush money! Gunns are undoubtedly as successful as a trap door in a canoe. Gunns would be better off to start manufacturing butchers chopping blocks on wheels which they could pass around to their shareholders, directors, contractors, workers and political allies. Afterall, apparently they are attributing any future succusses on continuing to mobilize a self-serving carvery …

Citizens’ justice – doing away with privilege, the French way

[Source: http://www.toonpool.com/user/589/files/it_chops_383035.jpg]

Caught in an avalanche of their own making, Gunns have at least successfully pulped themselves …Gunns and Forestry Tasmania and indeed blokes like Bryan Green and the Tasmanian Labor Government have been treating the public like fools for far too long … just desserts is the same ridicule and contempt they have shown the state of Tasmania.’
~ Claire Gilmour (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111003

‘Other than the pyrotechnic display contained in this letter there are other incendiary devices. Such as the Gunns Chairman admitting that “construction of the pulp mill did not commence by 30 November 2010” That’s very different from the findings of EPA director Schaap. There is also a clear accusation that FT abused its monopoly position in the Tasmanian pulp wood market.’
~ Karl Stevens (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111003

‘Has Gutwein called the Federal Police? If not, why not?

His inference is that The Commonwealth, and the State of Tasmania has been defrauded and if so it is very difficult to see how the Premier and Prime Minister are not parties to the act. In the absense of that call to the police being made, Mr Gutwein is nothing but another useless mouth we are feeding for no discernable benefit. Time to piss, Peter, or get off the bloody pot.If you don’t, many of us will return to our default position which is that we are governed by a coalition of liblab with the greens used as a smoke screen.’

‘Your party’s voting record backs that view to the hilt.. On reflection I would go further: Either it is fraud and therefore conspiracy to commit fraud, or it is extortion. Either way, it has all the hallmarks of something the federal police should be investigating. Why the Feds? Aside from the obvious reason it is federal money involved. My bet is that Gutwein will do nothing substantial because the bottom line is the Libs are run by TasInc who want the mill built right or wrong by anyone because they can make a dollar out of it. They fund both wings of the liblab machine. Such is the nature of party representatives. They know what the voters want, but serve the party interests first because that is where their loyalty lies. You get what you vote for. That gaping hole in the mills risk profile has not and will not go away regardless of any of this. It just keeps getting larger.’
~ Simon Warriner (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111004

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‘Having also read all the FOI it is interesting to see that Gunns had already terminated the wood supply agreements and that after the 15th of October the agreements were finalised. Also the $200 million of roading and bridge assets that they told FT they would be giving them would have reverted to FT ownership after 45 days under the agreement anyway. It appears that the rush to give Gunns money was important because after the 25 th October there would have been no reason to pay them anything. The briefing docs to Bryan Green show that he was fully cognisant of the deal ending.’
~ Pete Godfrey (a Tasmanian commenting to TT) 20111004

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Subsequent revelations…

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‘No advice on $34.5m Gunns deal: Tony Burke’

[Source: Matthew Denholm, Tasmania correspondent, The Australian, 20111022, ^http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/no-advice-on-345m-gunns-deal-tony-burke/story-e6frg6nf-1226173569723]

Federal taxpayers paid $34.5 million to Gunns to extinguish its rights to log Tasmania’s native forests without Canberra first seeking advice on whether the payment was legally required. Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke told The Weekend Australian he had not sought legal advice on whether the payments were necessary to extinguish Gunns’ contractual rights.

“I didn’t seek any advice on that,” Mr Burke said. “Legal advice on that was sought by the Tasmanian government.”

The state Liberals claim the payment was not legally required because Gunns had already voluntarily handed back the contracts to harvest 210,000 cubic metres of sawlogs each year. Tasmania’s Labor-Green government, which brokered the payment to Gunns, is refusing to release its own legal advice on the issue. However, Premier Lara Giddings insists the advice backs its stance that the payment was needed to remove Gunns’ “residual rights” over the vital contracts.

Their surrender was key to the protection of 430,000 hectares of forests under the $276 million federal-state forest peace deal signed by (Prime Minister) Julia Gillard in August (2011). However, Gunns had said it was leaving native forest logging regardless and documents obtained by the Liberals under state right-to-information laws show that on April 18 the company gave “formal . . . notice of termination” of the contracts.

Despite this, on September 15 deeds signed by the Tasmanian government granted $23 million in funds provided by Canberra to Gunns and a further $11.5 million—also federally sourced—to Forestry Tasmania. Mr Burke said yesterday the money had been provided to the Tasmanian government to “facilitate” the peace deal, also known as the Intergovernmental Agreement on Forests. Late yesterday, federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig and Tasmanian Deputy Premier Bryan Green announced an additional$45 million voluntary exit package for Tasmanian forestry contractors. “This package will assist eligible contractor businesses to exit the native forest harvest, haulage and silvicultural contracting sectors,” he said.

Meanwhile, Forestry Tasmania continues in earnest its wholesale massacre and incineration

of Tasmanian Old Growth for woodchipping pittance

(Upper Florentine Forest old growth, photo taken 28th September 2011)

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‘Minister dodging questions on Forestry handout. Mill buyers. Gunns quizzed’

[by Kim Booth MP Greens Forestry spokesperson MR, 20111019, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/minister-dodging-questions-on-latest-forestry-handout/]

The Tasmanian Greens today said the Forestry Minister Bryan Green has failed to explain to the Tasmanian people why he approved another $1.1 million in public funding to prop up the failing forestry industry. Greens Forestry spokesman Kim Booth said there’s no credibility to the Minister’s claim that the industry could afford the transportation costs to Triabunna, but somehow could not afford to go the remaining 146 kilometres to Bell Bay without receiving public subsidisation.

“If the woodchipping industry is so unviable that it cannot even afford to pay the cost of transporting logs 146 kilometres, it is about time that the Minister realised that the industry is just not viable,” Mr Booth said.

“The Minister must first justify then explain why he thinks woodchippers of native forests should be paid with public funds and should take priority at a time when other areas are having to do it tough by cutting services.”

“As for the question of the supposed ‘log jam,’ the question must be asked why Forestry Tasmania is causing these trees to be cut down if the operators cannot even afford to transport them to the point of sale?”

“Every other transport business in the state must survive on its own resources, and there’s no doubt that all the other struggling transport operators in Tasmania would love a handout. So why is the woodchipping industry treated so differently?”

“How many million dollars of public money will this Minister rob from the public purse and give to his industry darlings before he wakes up to the fact that public money if for public benefits like healthcare, not to prop up unviable private businesses.”

..The Tasmanian Government’s logo…’explore the possibilities’…at what cost?

A return to Tasmania’s traditional coat of arms would be very appropriate.

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Tasmanian Old Growth Eucalypt Forests destroyed by Forestry Tasmania and onsold to Ta Ann

http://www.huon.org/

Malaysian industrial logger ‘Ta Ann Tasmania‘ (Ta Ann) has overtaken the monolithic Gunns Ltd as the biggest baddest logger of Tasmanian native Eucalypt forests and is busy enticing new overseas markets to flog Tasmanian Eucalypt timber.

Ta Ann claims that it exports rotary peeled veneer manufactured only from regrowth and plantation Eucalypt logs supplied by Forestry Tasmania, boasting its logging operations and timber products as environmentally sustainable.

But the reality is that Ta Ann is sourcing timber from Tasmanian old growth forests, from world heritage value and high conservation value forests.

As many Tasmanians are well familiar, Tasmanian Government impune Forestry Tasmania has an internal cultural penchant do anything to log and flog Tasmanian forests to perpetuate its own survival. Tasmanian legislation allows it to log, slaughter and rule with impunity like a forestry Mugabi, Gaddafi or Pol Pot. Forestry Tasmania is accountable only unto itself.

In 2008, AusIndustry even awarded Ta Ann winner of the Emerging Exporter Award for building its new flooring ply market in Japan flogging Tasmanian Eucalypt forest timber, all on the presumption that Ta Ann’s chain-of-custody certification was assured and legitimate. But was it and is it?

Tasmania’s big business biased history has shown that the promise of lots of local jobs by alluring big business causes dizzy evangelism by naive high school politicians, which then abandon ethics and Tasmanian community pride for the promise of the big buck. Traditional Tasmanian timber asset and its passionate local craftsmanship have been repeatedly betrayed by short-termism party politicians to cheap asian woodchipping mentality.

The latest Tas-rapist is ‘Ta Ann’ owned by exploitative unscrupulous Malaysian logger mogul Abdul Hamed Sepawi. He treats Sarawak indigenous locals like scum, so why would he feel any different to Tasmanians? – be it old growth forests, timber workers, their families, Tasmania’s economy or rural society?

Indigenous Sarawak of Borneo seeing their forests go to Abdul’s Malaysian industrial loggers

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Abdul is into logging Tasmanian forests for his own empire. Those Tasmanians participating in Ta Ann operations are not only feeding an asian mogul’s personal wealth, they are selling Tasmania’s unique forest assets, accepting pittance pay, and watching the asian mogul smile.

Malaysian’s Logger Mogul… Greedy Abdul

One day Tasmanians working in forestry will acknowledge that the radial feral greenies are not their adversaries but indeed more Tasmanian patriotic than their asian logging employers and Tasmanian Labor’s soul-selling politicians.

It is time Tasmania’s skilled woodcraftsmen had their say over the unethical, self-perpetuating and uncontrolled smiling eco-rapists of Forestry Tasmania and its exploitative asian logging moguls.

Smiles of the asian woodchipper and Tasmanian soul seller

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Based on the claim of ‘forestry certification’ legitimacy, Ta Ann has been locally encourage to build its second timber mill at rural Smithton in north-west Tasmania to supply emerging flooring ply/veneer markets in Malaysia, Japan and China.

[Source: ^http://www.exportawards.gov.au/Resources/Case-Studies/Ta-Ann-Tasmania/default.aspx]

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However, Tasmania’s forest campaigners Jenny Weber and Peg Putt have exposed Ta Ann Tasmania’s timber source to some of their customers in Japan, in alliance with Japanese forest campaign organisation JATAN. Meetings have been held with flooring manufacturer Panasonic Electric Works and Japan’s largest house building companies, Sekisui House and Daiwa House.

Huon Valley Environment Centre’s Jenny Weber with International Forests and Climate campaigner and former leader of the Tasmanian Greens Peg Putt, also met with Japanese and international NGO’s who are focused on forest protection, whilst visiting Japan. A media conference was held in Tokyo.

‘Huon Valley Environment Centre released a report in October that exposes Ta Ann has sourced timber in Tasmania from world heritage value, old growth and high conservation value forests. Ta Ann and their Japanese partner claim that their timber from Tasmania is only sourced from plantations and regrowth forests. Our message to the customers of Ta Ann was that the source of the company’s timber has been misrepresented,’ Huon Valley Environment Centre’s Jenny Weber said.

Companies such as Panasonic Electric Works, Sekisui House and Daiwa House have set goals to procure environmentally friendly timber, whose production does not contribute to large scale logging, nor harm biodiversity or the climate.

‘Informing these companies about the ecologically destructive logging practices in Tasmania and the reality that Ta Ann is sourcing timber from old growth, world heritage value and high conservation value forests was a shock to the companies who believe the timber source is environmentally friendly, who had been misled and in some cases thought that Ta Ann’s veneer was plantation grown,’ Jenny Weber said.

‘Even worse Ta Ann is standing in the way of full protection of 572,000 hectares identified for reservation in the Intergovernmental Agreement on Tasmania’s forests, and this company is implicated in environmental and human rights abuses in Sarawak. It was important to inform Japanese customers of the potential reputational damage involved in their relationship with Ta Ann,’ Peg Putt said.

‘Ta Ann in Tasmania is now going to be a focus of our campaign, following our successful collaboration with Australia NGO’s over the woodchip trade between Tasmania and Japan. I have visited forests in Tasmania that have been logged for Ta Ann in Tasmania, and witnessed the forest destruction on many occasions,’ said Akira Harada of JATAN.

[Source: ‘Tasmania’s forest campaign goes global – Ta Ann Exposed to Customers in Japan, 20111015, Huon Valley Environment Centre, Tasmania]

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Forestry Tasmania Coupe HA045E was Eucalypt old growth

Ta Ann received timber from this coupe, which therefore annuls its ‘Sustainable Timber’ Certification

Read the Huon Valley Environment Centre’s 2011 Report: ^http://bit.ly/mRlUbs

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The Huon Valley Environment Centre’s 2011 Report needs to be investigated by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) Australia with the support of the Australian Government, because the report calls into question the credibility of Australia’s timber exports having a certification chain-of-custody. If the Huon Valley Environment Centre’s report is true, and there is no doubt that it isn’t, then Ta Ann’s business model is relying upon a fraud, meaning its entire market risks unraveling, along with the 120 or so Tasmanian timber jobs it supposedly supports.

FSC certification and labeling is supposed to guarantee to end consumers that such timber products and materials have been harvested, processed and manufactured in a sustainable fashion – complying with sound forest management standards and principals. The FSC label is the gold standard in forest management and sustainable wood products.

FSC products are denoted by the FSC label. The right to use this label on a product means that a company must comply with all of the FSC requirements for management and operations. The requirements set forth by the FSC are based on 10 principles and 56 criteria.

The principles that guide FSC certification are as follows:

Principle 1. Compliance with all applicable laws and international treaties
Principle 2. Demonstrated and uncontested, clearly defined, long–term land tenure and use rights
Principle 3. Recognition and respect of indigenous peoples’ rights
Principle 4. Maintenance or enhancement of long-term social and economic well-being of forest workers and local communities and respect of worker’s rights in compliance with International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions
Principle 5. Equitable use and sharing of benefits derived from the forest
Principle 6. Reduction of environmental impact of logging activities and maintenance of the ecological functions and integrity of the forest
Principle 7. Appropriate and continuously updated management plan
Principle 8. Appropriate monitoring and assessment activities to assess the condition of the forest, management activities and their social and environmental impacts
Principle 9. Maintenance of High Conservation Value Forests (HCVFs) defined as environmental and social values that are considered to be of outstanding significance or critical importance
Principle 10. In addition to compliance with all of the above, plantations must contribute to reduce the pressures on and promote the restoration and conservation of natural forests.
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FSC Chain of Custody Certification

Chain of custody (CoC) certification allows manufacturers who process and trade in timber and other non-timber forest materials to trace and account for the FSC certified wood in their products. Companies with FSC CoC certification can label products with the FSC label if they comply with the standards.

[Source: ^http://www.green3dhome.com/GoGreen/FSCCertificationandLabeling.aspx]

Gardening guru Peter Cundall prepared to be arrested for Tasmanian Principle

to defend Tasmania’s Forests and Tasmania’s democracy protesting against a pulp mill.

(19 Nov 2009)

Watch on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVRhUtJBjxc

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If the Huon Valley Environment Centre’s report is true then it would mean that Forestry Tasmania is complicit in Sustainable Timber Certification fraud and it would make Australia’s Emerging Exporter Award a joke.

Australia’s Emerging Exporter Award is a national Australian programme jointly run by The Australian Trade Commission (Austrade) and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), which recognises and honours exporters who have achieved sustainable export growth through innovation and commitment. It celebrates and highlights the valuable contribution that exporters make to Australia’s economy, and encourages other companies to engage in international business. The programme objectives even states that it is to ‘promote Australia’s leading exporters to the same status and public recognition as sporting and entertainment heroes’. So Ta Ann is up there with Donald Bradman?

But Ta Ann Tasmania is a Malaysian multinational corporation and all profit go to overseas to its Malaysian logging mogul, Abdul Hamed Sepawi. Ta Ann, has not only been destroying rainforests in Sarawak but has been invited to pillage Tasmanian old growth Eucalypt forests by yours truly, Forestry Tasmania. So how can this venture be beneficial for Australia except for the so-called ‘export revenue’ making government export performance look good on paper?

‘Ta Ann is the biggest hardwood timber company in the world in terms of market capitalization. It has been able to achieve this through its close ties with the corrupt Chief Minister of Sarawak, Abdul Taib, whose vast wealth and power has been amassed through the strategic distribution of timber concessions. Taib is also finance minister and planning and resource management minister.

Earlier this month (March 2011) , the European NGO “Bruno Manser Fonds” (founded by the Swiss activist of Bruno Manser who lived in the jungle with the Penan from 1984 to 1990 and shared their struggle before mysteriously disappearing in Sarawak in 2000) released a blacklist of 49 companies in 8 countries (10 of them based in Australia) and is urging anti-corruption and anti-money laundering authorities in these countries to investigate any improprieties.

This is being reported in the Malaysian press as follows: “According to Malaysia’s Democratic Action Party (DAP), Taib has failed to account for a staggering 4.8 billion Malaysian ringgits (1.58 billion US dollars) of Sarawak state funds over the past three years alone. In 2007, the Tokyo tax authorities uncovered a massive corruption scheme that involved the payment of kickbacks to the Taib family. In return, nine Japanese shipping companies had received export licences to carry logs to Japan, Sarawak’s largest timber export market.” . And so on.

Ta Ann Holding’s chairman is Taib’s cousin, Abdul Hamed Sepawi. In 2008, Forbes listed Sepawi as the 30th richest man in Malaysia. Ta Ann holds 408,366 hectares of timber concessions, including the Raplex and Pasin timber concessions, which were previously controlled by Taib. They are also heavily engaged in the establishment of industrial tree plantations and oil palm plantations on Native Customary Land In Malaysia.

As Tasmania’s main newspaper, The Mercury reported on Sat Nov 8 2008 p11: “Ta Ann was lured to Tasmania by the cheap timber price offered by Forestry Tasmania. Ta Ann chairman Datuk Hamed Sepawi told Tasmanian media in 2006 that hardwood from this state was cheaper than wood from Malaysian and Indonesian forests…. Ta Ann’s deal with the State Government locked in the price it would pay for the timber at the 2006 level for the next 15 years.”

Ta Ann has a wood supply contract for 265,000 m3 a year. It is estimated that Ta Ann is paying approximately US$50 per cubic meter for these logs at a fixed price and then selling the product for US$387 per cubic meter.’

[Source: The Southern Forests Convergence: Conservation in Tasmania’ by John Seed, <Living Green Magazine, ^http://www.livinggreenmag.com/archives/climate_nature/southern_forests.html]

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The Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened are Tasmanian grassroots conservation organisations committed to ending logging in Tasmania’s old-growth forests.

“Our organisations are committed to continuing the campaign to call for the immediate protection of all native forests in Tasmania, including a moratorium on the globally significant high-conservation-value forests and a swift transition out of native forest logging in Tasmania.” ~ Jenny Weber
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Three protests were held around Hobart yesterday (26th March 2011) as part of the 10-day vigil by the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened groups to stop logging in old-growth forests.

Four protesters were arrested outside the Ta Ann Hobart office yesterday morning during a sit-in demonstration against Ta Ann’s alleged illegal activity in Sarawak.

[Source: ‘Police anger over protest‘, by Brian Ward, Hobart Mercury, 20110326, ^http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2011/03/26/217591_tasmania-news.html]

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Tasmanian protests ongoing to save Tasmanian Forests

Ta Ann’s mill at Smithton

This morning, grassroots forest groups the Huon Valley Environment Centre, Still Wild Still Threatened and Code Green have taken action at the Ta Ann veneer mill in Smithton. Twelve conservationists entered the site at 6am and two activists are locked on to machinery, halting operations. The protestors are displaying a banner reading ‘Ta Ann terminating Tasmanian forests‘.

Ta Ann’s mill carved into the forests in Tasmania’s Huon Valley

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This action takes place in response to Ta Ann’s role in blocking a solution for Tasmania’s forests. Grassroots environment groups are raising concerns over yesterday’s Intergovernmental Agreement on forest.

“We are aware of Ta Ann’s shocking environmental and human rights practices in Sarawak and we are raising the question to the State and Federal government – why is this exploitative Malaysian company allowed to continue destroying our forests and threaten Tasmania’s chance to move forward to a sustainable industry?” said Code Green spokesperson, Joanna Pinkiewicz.

“Yesterday’s agreement guarantees Ta Ann’s contract until at least 2027.

This Malaysian logging giant has a deplorable record in (Indonesia’s) Sarawak and are now entrenching large scale clear felling of native forests in Tasmania”

~ Huon Valley Environment Centre spokesperson Jenny Weber.

“The intergovernmental Agreement leaves open over 140,000 hectares of identified high conservation value forest to potential logging. Contracts with companies such as Ta Ann could jeopardise the future protection of high conservation value forests, with further reductions to the reserve area still on the table” said Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson Miranda Gibson.

“While we look forward to seeing high conservation value forests protected, the real hurdles are yet to come. This agreement is a first step that has not yet guaranteed formal protection of these forests, that is long overdue” said Ms Weber.

[Source: ‘Ta Ann Mill Shut Down‘, 201108122, ^http://hornbillunleashed.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/22368/]

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Tasmania’s Weld Valley – being logged by Ta Ann

(Photo by Rob Blakers)

http://www.water-sos.org/rob-blakers4.html

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Human Plea

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Tags: 572000 hectares, Abdul Hamed Sepawi, Chain of Custody certification, Daiwa, eco-rapists, Emerging Exporter Award, Forestry Stewardship Council, Forestry Tasmania, FSC International, Huon Valley Environment Centre, Intergovernmental Agreement, JATAN, log and flog Tasmanian Rorests, old growth forest, Panasonic Electric Works, Peter Cundall, Sarawak, Sekisui, Ta Ann Tasmania
Posted in Kalimantan (ID), Tasmania (AU), Threats from Deforestation, Threats to Wild Tasmania | 1 Comment »

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The Stihl Saw Nutter of Tasmanian Forests

Friday, October 21st, 2011

Stihl Concrete Saw

Stihl Saw Nutter – contracted with Forestry Tasmania, October 2008

(Click photo above to play video in YouTube, turn up your PC volume)

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Stihl President – Fred Whyte

(Billings Gazette)

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In September 2010, Fred J. Whyte, president of STIHL Inc., was elected chairman of the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute (OPEI) during the association’s 58th annual meeting in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho.

“I am honored to again represent STIHL and the outdoor power equipment industry as chairman of the OPEI board,” said Whyte.

“In this next year, we hope to accomplish a lot, especially in the realm of educating the public on the safe and efficient use of outdoor power equipment. We are seeing gains in the market, which should be welcome news to all OPEI members. Let’s hope we return to our market prosperity with new sustainable programs and products that will lead us into the next generation.”

[Source: Stihl USA, ^http://www.stihlusa.com/pressrelease/september10_FJWOPEI_corporate.aspx]

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Two years prior (2006) …’Defending Tasmania’s ancient forest’

[Source: Tasmanian Times, 20061106, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/article/defending-tasmanias-ancient-forest/ ]

‘This week has marked a new chapter in the defence of Tasmania’s ancient forests with 17 arrests in the Weld Valley, Southern Tasmania.The arrests occured whilst community members were trying to prevent an access road that will allow the chainsaws into majestic ancient forests.The Weld Valley has now become one of the largest resistance campaigns for Tasmania’s forests in the last decade. Community outrage at this senseless devastation is challenging the Tasmanian and Australian governments to give these wilderness forests the protection they deserve.

For more than a year, forest defenders built and lived in a beautiful conservation haven that worked to hold the chainsaws and bulldozers at bay. Camp Weld, had a full size replica Pirate ship (the Weld Ark), a bush cabin and the entire infrastructure needed to provide shelter and support to friends of the forest. The camp had a village style atmosphere and was open to all comers who wanted to help the forests in their plight. Camp Weld members faced not only the hostility of the weather, the driving rain, winter dark and snow but also the very real hostility and threats from logging industry supporters.

‘Through the year, Camp Weld faced gun shots, car burnings and physical threats from loggers coming directly into camp.’

All this was greeted with the strength and commitment of non-violent action and this peaceful response is a testament to the bravery and beauty of the people who lived there.

On Wed 15th November 2006, more than 60 Police raided the camp with one immediate arrest and a lone tree-sitter escaping to her lofty perch.Everyone else was ordered to leave or face arrest under a new media and public exclusion zone placed around a 10 kilometre radius of this state owned forest. For the next 6 days a set of rolling actions began and continue, flowing from the anger at the loss of such a direct action icon and the coming loss of these wondrous forests. People climbed tree-sits, stood in front of machines and some forest defenders locked theselves on to machinery. These actions occurred day after day as the arrest tally climbed to the present 17.

For 5 days, the lone tree sitter ‘Pixie’ sat in her high platform watching the events unfold..

Two other forest defenders spent nights in jail as Police used legal tactics to try and prevent the arrestees from returning to the forests. The Tasmanian government has funded this operation to secure access for Gunns Ltd, providing large numbers of police, security, a 24 hour mobile operations base and satellite communications equipment, all to ensure that the bulldozers get into the forest. Yet despite these obstacles people continue to challenge the destruction in a peaceful and defiant manner.

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Classic non-violent style

On two separate occasions, a community walk in was staged to defy the archaic exclusion zone created on public land. The first walk in had 40 people, the second over 100. These were great days for the forests as smiling people walked past security and police, in classic non-violent style. The strength in numbers meant that the police were unable to implement the exclusion zone procedures, which involves individually approaching each person in the zone. The veil over this hideous environmental crime had been lifted.This type of protest has occurred because of the continued failure of the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) and the subsequent Community Forest Agreement, which were set up under the pretence to solve the forest debate in Tasmania. In fact, things in the forest have gotten worse, roads continue to be cut into high conservation value forests and logging is planned for many high conservation value forests and wilderness areas across the state. A downturn in the woodchip market has not deterred the world largest hardwood woodchipper, Gunns Ltd from continuing their devastation of the island’s wildlife and trees. Their aggressive response to criticism is to sue conservationists and environmental groups with a blanket multi-million dollar civil case.This almost billion dollar company and its $65million man, John Gay, have a strangle hold on the states politicians and its old growth forests.

The Weld Valley is a shining example of places ignored by the chainsaw mandate of the RFA; it is an ancient forested valley of towering trees, moss filled rainforest gullies, snow-capped mountains, wide plains, crystal clear streams and wild Weld river. The original Tasmanians wandered this valley some 20,000 years ago evidence of their lives still remain in the national park protected ‘Bone Cave’ in the upper Weld. The potential for more sites or caves remains unexplored in much of the logging slated lower Weld Valley. While some 80% is protected in the South West World Heritage Area, the remaining forests suffer a very different fate to those separated by the imaginary protection line.

These remaining forests of the lower Weld Valley have been recognized by local and international environmental groups, the United Nations and even Tasmania’s Parks and Wildlife as having equal conservation status to the rest of the valley. Viewed as a single wilderness area, the Weld Valley is a unique landform which has a rare combination of outstanding biological, geological and cultural features naturally linked by continuous forest to the World Heritage Area.
Direct action has always been an area of last resort for conservationist. Brave and often reluctant heroes staff this front line with sometimes little more than their own bodies. Placing lives on hold and committing all for the forests. Basing actions on non-violent principles, that has served people and social movements like Gandhi, the Suffragettes, the Civil Rights struggle and our own Franklin River campaign. As long as companies like Gunns Ltd are allowed, by governments, to ignore community concern and run rampant through our ancient forests with chainsaws and bulldozers then there will always be people willing to stand in their defence.’
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[Adam Burling is a founding member of the Huon Valley Environment Centre, a part time advisor to Senator Bob Brown and a Gunns 20 defendant.]

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Tags: activists, Camp Weld, Caterpillar, Community Forest Agreement, Direct action, forester violence, Forestry Tasmania, Fred Whyte, Logging, Martin Bryant, old growth forest, Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, stihl chainsawing old-growth, STIHL Inc., Stihl President, Stihl Saw, Stihl Saw Nutter, Stihl woodchipping old growth, Tasmanian Police, Weld Valley, William Adams, World Heritage Area, www.stihlusa.com
Posted in Tasmania (AU), Threats from Deforestation, Threats to Wild Tasmania | No Comments »

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Forest holocaust beyond loggers’ locked gates

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

If you go down into the woods today you’re sure in for a big surprise…but in Tasmania’s South-West it ain’t no teddy bear’s picnic.

One has to first get past the many infamous locked gates. Forestry Tasmania (aka the State-sanctioned corporate logger) is sure to have locked its steel gates for very good reason – Forestry Tasmania doesn’t want the public to know the truth about what it is doing to Tasmania’s remaining wild forests.

Forestry Tasmania’s locked gate on the public road to the top of Mount Tim Shea

(Suspiciously this public access road was deemed unfit for public travel coincidentally around the same time as Forestry Tasmania opened its ‘Adventure Hub’ in Maydena,

and equally coincidentally one of the hills they charge people for a ride to the top from reads ‘Adventure Hub’).

(Photo by Alan Lesheim)

Rugged Mount Tim Shea, South-West Tasmania

Photo by Forestry Tasmania

^http://www.forestrytas.com.au/topics/2008/06/maydena-adventure-hub-opportunities

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Locked Gate on Five Road in the Upper Florentine
(connects to Cook’s Track which enters the Gordon River Road short of Camp Flozza)

(Photo by Alan Lesheim)

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Forestry Tasmania has hundreds of these padlocked gates throughout Tasmania’s wild forests.

The Wilderness Society’s spokesperson Amanda Sully said “Forestry Tasmania have a locked boom gate over the Huon Valley Wilderness and are refusing entry. This is just one of hundreds of gates on forestry roads in Tasmania.

“It’s very clear who is locking up the forests. People are sick and tired of seeing log truck after log truck coming from the clear felling behind these padlocked gates.

These are publicly-owned forests.

Forestry Tasmania is supposed to manage them for the benefit of all Tasmanians, not just the loggers” Ms Sully concluded.

[Source: ‘Forestry Tasmania – Locking up our forests‘, ^http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/19980924_mr

Forestry Locked Gate on Blue Road, northern section of the Upper Florentine Valley

(Photo by Alan Lesheim)

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Author Anna Krien was on a quest for the truth described in her revealing expose book of 2010 into what’s stihl happening in Tasmania’s wild forests:

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‘Most people travelling through Tasmania will never know of the long-running hide-and-seek taking place in the labyrinth of logging roads beyond the bitumen.

Sightseers walk among 300-year-old trees, some of them 90 metres tall, in the Styx Big Tree Reserve, chainsaws can be heard in the distance.

The road into this attraction is lined with stage sets of wilderness.

At the rise of a hill, just before the nose of the car tilts downwards, passengers might glimpse a balding peak, a fleeting insight into the world behind the verge.’

~

[Source: ‘Into the Woods: The Battle for Tasmania’s Forests‘, 2010 by Anna Krien pp.25-26, published by Black Inc. ^http://www.blackincbooks.com/books/woods, includes video interviews].

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So, this Editor, half way through the book, last month flew down to Hobart, hired a car and retraced the author’s journey into Tasmania’s South-West …

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Driving west along the old Hydro Electrical Commission’s (HEC) Gordon River (Access) Road,

through Forestry’s logging town of ‘Westerway’

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Noticeably, when driving out of Hobart I passed clearly wealthy residential suburbs, yet driving along the Gordon River Road these few isolated hamlets are not wealthy. Their construction mostly seems temporary like mining companies would construct while the mine delivers. The highway through the hamlets of Westerway, Fitzgerald and Maydena seems only for forest access, not for community.

I parked the car and walked through Maydena.

There is only the odd person out and about. The place seems impoverished – one small primary school, a notable lack of shops, lack of amenities, and little sign of any vibrant community.

It’s as if the profits from logging have driven right through the guts of these local villages and on to big corporations eastward.

Past the National Park Hotel

where Tasmania’s champion wood-chopper ‘Big Dave’ holds pride of place above the pub’s fire place.

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Driving through Forestry’s old logging town of ‘Fitzgerald’

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Driving through the old logging town of ‘Maydena’

– a closed so-called ‘Adventure Hub’ on the left, yet its diesel bowser (circled) open for Forestry Tasmania vehicles and observed in used by Editor 20110928.

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Reminiscent of Australia’s 1850s Gold Rush, Tasmanian folk would have been lured west by Forestry to the promise of bountiful tall timber delivering reliable logging income and the promise of building personal wealth.

But along the Gordon River Road there is a stark absence of Forestry wealth. Instead it seems Forestry has abandoned these Gordon River Road communities.

What Forestry has done is to sell out Tasmania’s traditional woodcraft industry for short term profit from flogging quality Tasmanian hardwood as cheap asian woodchips, destroying Tasmania’s forests timber communities in the process. Then Gunns got greedy and Tasmania’s timber reputation has deteriorated thereafter.

Now Forestry Tasmania are clearfelling and selling out Tasmania’s rare forests to the asians direct, to the likes of Ta Ann. Forestry Tasmania is no more than a corporate pimp of Tasmanian rare forest heritage.

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“The road into this attraction is lined with stage sets of wilderness.”

Driving further west along the HEC Gordon River Road

– bulldozed in 1964 through 64km of pristine wilderness forest by the Hydro Electric Commission, and

funded by the then Menzies federal government at a cost of £2.5 million (likely twenty times that in today’s terms – i.e. $50 million.

Gordon River Road – signposted logging country

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“At the rise of a hill, just before the nose of the car tilts downwards, passengers might glimpse a balding peak”

The balding peak of Forestry Tasmania’s cable logging…’a fleeting insight into the world behind the verge’.

(Photo by editor 20110928 while on Gordon River Road heading west)

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An entire hill of wild Tasmanian forest savagely cabled logged bare by Forestry Tasmania

Tourists can now see this from Gordon River Road.

(Photo by editor 20110928. Click photo to enlarge.)

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Beyond the lock gates lies the ecological holocaust

(Photo by editor 20110928. Click photo to enlarge.)

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Styx Valley Holocaust

(Photo by Rob Blakers)

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Tasmania’ s Styx Holocaust

September 2011 (Photo by Alan Lesheim)

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Forestry Tasmania’s Killing Fields

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Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge Killing Fields

(Human mass murder comparable to Tasmania’s mass forest murder

– both crimes consistently against life)

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Google Maps (September 2011) satellite view of the forest rape by Forestry Tasmania

Camp Flozza’s symbolic goddess of the ancient Florentine Forest

~ eco-raped by Forestry Tasmania in its January 2009 raid

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And they wonder why the people protest and are prepared to be arrested?

(Photo of forest defender being arrested at Forestry Tasmania’s police raid on Camp Flozza,

Upper Florentine Valley, 13th January 2009)

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Styx Valley Holocaust by Forestry Tasmania, September 2011

(Photo of editor 20110928. Click photo to enlarge.)

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Forestry Tasmania padlocks gates 10 kilometres from clearfell around a protected Wedge-tailed Eagle nest

[Source: ‘Loggers breach eagle nest protection laws again‘, Bob Brown, 20090827, ^http://bob-brown.greensmps.org.au/category/issues/environment/forestry/wielangta]

‘In the breeding season, a clear felling operation in Tasmania’s wild Upper Huon Valley has breached guidelines by smashing down forests next to an endangered Tasmania’s Wedge-tailed eagles’ nest. The Tasmanian Wedge-tailed eagle, with wingspan up to 3 metres, are one of the Earth’s 6 largest eagle species.

“After repeated controversies about woodchip operations burning or destroying eagle nests and causing failure of nesting because of bulldozers and chainsaws operations near nests, this failure of protection in the Huon is inexcusable. It makes a mockery of logging industry propaganda,” said Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown.

“The Ministers for Forestry and Environment who are responsible for Australia’s rare and endangered species don’t know, and don’t act in any helpful way.”

“It is as if the Howard Government never left office. These ministers have washed their hands of their role in the Wedge-tailed eagles’ fate. Logging laws in Tasmania state that a minimum of 10 hectares be left around an eagle’s nest,” said Senator Brown.

Forestry Tasmania has erected locked gates 10 kilometres from the nest logging site preventing public or media inspection.’

Footage of the logged area and nest available here (on YouTube):

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Meanwhile Forestry Tasmania on its ‘Adventure Forests‘ website promotes its ‘Top of the World Tour‘ from Maydena…

…’Go wild where eagles soar…Make the escape to the Eagle’s Eyrie on a Top of the World Tour.You’ll experience all the fun of the Railtrack Rider as you travel into the heart of the forest to explore long-abandoned bush heritage, before emerging to an alpine wonderland and an eagle’s eye view over the Tasmanian wilderness. There’s plenty of time for indulgence as well, with an individually-prepared gourmet lunchbox and fine regional wines enjoyed in the fireside comfort of the Eagles Eyrie.’

^http://adventureforests.com.au/maydena

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‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes

but having new eyes’

~ Marcel Proust, French novelist

Tags: Anna Krien, Cable Logging, Camp Flozza, deforestation, Fitzgerald, Florentine Valley Holocaust, Forestry Holocaust, Forestry Locked Gates, Forestry Tasmania, Gordon River Road, having new eyes, Into the Woods, Maydena, Maydena Adventure Hub, Mount Tim Shea, National Park hotel, Styx Big Tree Reserve, Styx Forest, Styx Valley, Styx Valley Holocaust, Ta Ann, Tasmania, Tasmania's Ancient Forests, Tasmania's South West, Tasmania's Wild Forests, Upper Florentine Forest, Wedge-tailed Eagle, Westerway, wild forests
Posted in Eagles, Tasmania (AU), Threats from Deforestation, Threats to Wild Tasmania | No Comments »

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Opera House – a desperate cry for forests

Monday, October 10th, 2011

Last Saturday, forest activists scaled Sydney’s Opera House and unfurled a huge banner reading:

‘No Harvey No! Stop selling Aussie forest destruction’!

“We have come to the centre of Sydney to send a clear message to Harvey Norman that profiting from the destruction of our spectacular forests is absolutely unacceptable’ said Ula Majewski, spokesperson for The Last Stand.”

‘Our internationally iconic Aussie forests are still being destroyed by industrial logging operations. We are taking peaceful action from the top of another great Aussie icon to tell Harvey Norman that selling Aussie forest destruction is no way to do business’ said Miranda Gibson, currently perched atop the Opera House..

~ The Last Stand Inc.
^http://www.thelaststand.org.au

[Source: ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/forest-activists-scale-the-sydney-opera-house/]

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Why do forest activists scale the Sydney Opera House to protest their message?

They personally risk their lives, are arrested, put in gaol; and in these days of corporate background checks, are denied corporate employment for the rest of their lives.

How many of our readers realise the seriousness of these young people and their moral custodial commitment to fighting for the protestion of Australia’s remaining and irreplaceable ancient forest ecosystems? Australia’s youth represent and prepared to be incarcerated to protect Australia’s natural heritage. These protesters in generations to come, when the economic bigotry has died, will be venerated as Australian diggers defending what is uniquely Australian.

While the mainstream media are more interested in a commercial football match in Auckland that comes around and goes around, the vicious industrial lumberjacks in Forestry Tasmania, Forestry Victoria, and Forestry New South Wales (or whatever their rebranded name) are daily decimating vast hectares of Australia’s wild native forests. This State-sanctioned ecological massacre of old growth forests is the core reason why Australia has been internationally degraded with a backward reputation for recording the highest rates of wildlife extinction in the 21st Century. Australia is down their in ecological degradation with Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Mozambique.

Why do forest activists scale the Sydney Opera House to protest their message?

Well, start to appreciate the grassroots struggle that has for years been unreported by the mainstream media…

‘Conservationist halt roading operations in the iconic Styx valley’

Tasmania’s ancient Styx Forest slaughtered for Malaysian woodchips,

continuing to be subject to Forestry Tasmania holocaust

– utter clearfell followed by blanketed incineration so that the old forest is obliterated forever

– just like what the Nazi’s did to the Jews – out of sight out of mind, until the war was over.

(Photo by editor 20110928, free in public domain, click to enlarge and then click to enlarge again)

‘Today twelve conservationists have halted a new roading operation in the Styx Valley as part of a ten week campaign to highlight the urgent need for Tasmania’s high conservation value forests to be protected. The recently started roading operation leads to Coupe SX038D and is within a high conservation value area proposed for formal reserve. One protester is in a tree sit, which is attached to roading machinery, preventing any operations from continuing for the day.

“The fact that a new road is currently being pushed into high conservation value forest in a area that should have been under moratorium weeks ago, is a clear indication that Forestry Tasmania are not taking appropriate action to reschedule coupes and implement the moratorium” said Miranda Gibson, spokesperson from Still Wild Still Threatened.

“How can the Tasmanian community have faith in Forestry Tasmania when they have not only failed to meet the moratorium deadline, but are now blatantly disregarding government directive to reschedule coupes? If Forestry Tasmania were serious about implementing the moratorium, they certainly would not be wasting taxpayers money investing in brand new roads to access iconic forests that have been earmarked for protection.” said Ms Gibson.’

[Source: Still Wild Still Threatened, 20110412, ^http://www.stillwildstillthreatened.org/main-categories/current-news]

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Maranda Gibson, defender of Tasmania’s forest heritage

One of the arrested protesters on the Opera House last Saturday

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Prepared to be arrested for Tasmanian principle

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Styx Valley

Tasmania’s remaining wild forests..disappearing by

…LARGE TRUCKS USING ROAD 24 HRS DAILY

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Legal Sequel: ‘Opera House abseilers fined $200’

[Source: Sydney Morning Herald, 20111109, ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/opera-house-abseilers-fined-200-20111109-1n6vv.html]

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‘Three activists who scaled the Opera House, unfurling a banner bagging a retail giant, have been fined in a Sydney court. Miranda Gibson, 30, and Roseanne Phillips, 22, scaled the landmark on October 8 and abseiled from the western side of its western sail.
They unfurled a 10 by 12-metre yellow banner stating:

“No Harvey No! Stop selling Aussie forest destruction”

Scott Mackenzie, 37, also climbed to the top of the building carrying the banner on his back, but remained on the peak. They each pleaded guilty, in Downing Centre Local Court today, to a count of trespassing. Magistrate Janet Wahlquist fined them $200 each, plus court costs.
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Outside court, Gibson, from the protest group The Last Stand, said the protesters had achieved their goal.

“We took action to bring the plight of our great and iconic native forests to another great Australian icon in the heart of Sydney, and to send a clear message to Harvey Norman that profiting from Aussie forest destruction is no way to do business in this day and age,”

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Fined $200 in NSW to dare to protest against destruction of Tasmania’s ancient native forests

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The Last Stand has singled out Harvey Norman after a year-long investigation into its timber usage which, the protesters say, was contributing to the destruction of native forests.

They claim to have tracked timber from native forests in Australia through its shipment to China for processing into furniture, and then to its final sale in Australia through Harvey Norman stores.The store has previously said it was being unfairly targeted and did its best to source timber from sustainable sources.’

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When will Gerry Harvey come clean on his personal profiting from native forests?

GO…search your morals Gerry Harvey!

Tasmanian Devil

(Photo by Matthew Stewart, Flickr).

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Tags: a desperate cry, EKO Wood, forest network, Forestry Holocaust, Forestry Tasmania, Gerry Harvey, Go Harvey Norman, Go search your morals Gerry Harvey, Harvey Norman, Harvey Norman Flooring, Naturally Australian, No Harvey No, Still Wild Still Threatened, Stop selling Aussie forest destruction, Styx Valley, Sydney Opera House, The Last Stand
Posted in Tasmania (AU), Threats from Deforestation, Threats to Wild Tasmania | No Comments »

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Archive for the ‘Threats from Deforestation’ Category

Blind-eyed cataclysm of ‘Catamaran’ forests

State Slaughter

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Forestry Tasmania’s supposed ‘Sustainability Charter’:

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Gotcha Forestry Tasmania!

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Above is forestry reality, while the following is forestry greenwash…

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Forestry Tasmania: ‘Vision’

Forestry Tasmania: ‘Mission’

Forestry Tasmania: ‘Corporate Objectives’

FT Values:

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And the forestry reality…‘Forestry Tasmania posts $12 million loss’

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Editor:

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Ed: And so today Bob’s logging thugs have been caught on camera logging Catamaran old growth.

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Logging Tasmania like there’s no tomorrow

‘The axe had never sounded’…

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IGA Clause 25 states:

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IGA Clause 26 states:

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Analysis:

There are copious hundreds of hectares of Tasmanian forest area available outside the 572, 000 hectares of ENGO-nominated High Conservation Value forest area.

Both Governments, by sitting on their hands as forests in the Informal Reserves are logged, are in breach of the spirit of the Agreement.

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2009: ‘Woodchip stockpile in Tasmania a ‘health risk’

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Recherche Bay – a brief background

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1993: ‘Campaign over Recherche Bay scores win’

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Further Reading:

‘State Arson’, ‘State Logging’ wiping out owls

‘the Powerful Owl is significantly prone to future threats which are likely to result in extinction, and very rare in terms of abundance or distribution.’

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‘Impact of Bushfire on Sooty Owls and Powerful Owls’

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‘How owl populations adapt or respond to fire is largely unknown’

‘Victoria has experienced three catastrophic fire events in the past 7 years, and combined with prescribed burning, approximately three million hectares have been burnt in this time.‘

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The ‘Bushfire Fighting Principle’ corrupted by blinkered economic rationalism

To put out bushfires!

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Victorian Government Policy of Bushfire Lighting

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‘DSE holds fire management workshop in Bendigo’

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Yet at the same time DSE points out that… ‘biodiversity is in decline‘

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State aware but doesn’t care

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