(The following article was initially posted on CanDoBetter.net by Tigerquoll on 20090426. It has since been modified.)

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VicForests’ neo-colonial practice of logging old growth East Gippsland forests, justifies such culling by claiming compliance with Australia’s wood production Standard AS 4708-2007. But this standard is Mein Kampf for ecological genocide of East Gippsland Forests.
Have a read:  http://www.forestrystandard.org.au/files/Standards/4708.pdf  [Read the Standard]

Under this official Australian Standard that sees only the wood for the trees, it includes two criteria that serve to deliver propaganda spin respect for forest ecology.  One must recognise these criteria accompanying Criterion 4—Forest management shall maintain the productive capacity of forests.  Need I say more?

Forestry Propaganda Criterion #3 for instance, requires forest management to ‘protect and maintain the biological diversity of forests’.  Wonderful wholesome, noble and holistic rumblings about this one – but gullibles wake!  VicForests <em>Mein Kampf</em> hides the ‘ chainsaw-speak‘ in the detail:

* ‘Small-scale clearing is permitted up to a limit of 40 hectares on a single forest management unit’.  ‘Conservation of threatened (including vulnerable, rare or endangered) species and ecological communities requires the forest manager to minimise adverse impacts by ensuring he/she takes into account of known information and relevant specialist advice‘.  (Makes Fiji look like a democracy!)

Forestry Propaganda Criterion 5 requires forest management to maintain forest ecosystem health and vitality, yet is so vague as to allow forest ‘practices’ only to ensure that damage stays “within tolerable levels”.  Does this mean one tree per hectare can be left standing or may be two?

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Then there’s Clause 4.5.3:

‘Forest managers managing native forests shall use fire and other disturbance regimes to maintain and enhance forest ecosystem health where appropriate to the forest type or scale.’ [p.25]

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…that is, burn and disturb native forests at will, because we argue that doing so enhances forest ecosystem health.  Whoops! The wind picked up and the forest is gone; still we complied with AS 4708-2007!

Such contemptible logic would argue that a bushfire raging through a town can to it good, because eventually the town is rebuilt and the people eventually return, look at Narbethong!

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The Ferguson Tree – lest we forget

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“The tallest tree ever properly measured was a Eucalyptus tree and was 436 feet tall. It was measured by William Ferguson on the 21st of February in 1872. Alarmingly the crown was broken off when the tree was still 1 meter thick, leading to claims that it once was up to five-hundred feet tall in one point in its lifetime.”

The length was a staggering (if true) 133 metres (436 feet) with its crown (the tree’s top) broken off!! The stump’s diameter five feet off the ground was 5.5m (18 feet) and at its broken top its diameter was still 1 metre. It is estimated that had this tree actually still been intact it would have approached 152m (500 feet) in height. The surveyor also noted numerous fallen trees in the same area over 106m (350feet) in height.

It would have been a Mountain Ash or Eucalyptus regnans. Sorry, no photo available.  The legend remains only in text.

[Source:  ^http://jtpredwoods12345.blogspot.com/]

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‘VicForests accused of felling old-growth mountain ash’

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[Source: Adam Morton, 20100629, The Age newspaper, ^http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/vicforests-accused-of-felling-oldgrowth-mountain-ash-20100628-zf5o.html] .

‘The Victorian government’s forestry arm will face a legal challenge over claims it illegally logged old-growth forest and increased the risk to a threatened species.

Environmental groups accuse VicForests of felling dozens of pre-1900 ash eucalypts, breaching the Central Highlands Forest Management Plan.  An impending legal case will also claim the timber agency failed to protect habitats necessary for the survival of Victoria’s threatened faunal emblem, Leadbeater’s possum.

Ecologist Jacques Cop, from consultants Acacia Environmental Group, said a survey of just one coupe near Toolangi found 31 pre-1900 ash eucalypts had been logged. Five stumps were more three metres across.

”These are trees that are 200 or 300 years old,” he said.

Mr Cop said the area should also have been protected as a Leadbeater’s possum habitat as it met the threshold of having at least 12 hollowed trees within three hectares.  He said neither the state Department of Sustainability and Environment nor VicForests carried out ground surveys to check if ecological requirements were being met.  Sarah Rees, president of local group My Environment, said the situation was an emergency.

’31 pre-1900 ash eucalypts had been logged’

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“If this doesn’t stop we’re going to lose the last viable habitat for a range of different species, but Leadbeater’s possum carries the strongest case for legal protection“, she said.

The state government said it took the allegations “extremely seriously“.

Spokesman Michael Sinclair said VicForests would investigate the alleged breaches and report to the Department of Sustainability and Environment.  VicForests spokesman David Walsh said the agency carried out detail planning before harvesting to ensure it acted within the law and had offered to meet local residents to better understand their concerns.

“No old-growth forest is harvested by VicForests in Victoria’s central highlands region”, he said.

The legal case, being prepared on behalf of a group called the Flora and Fauna Research Collective, comes amid community concern about the scale of logging in the central highlands after the Black Saturday bushfires.

The Wilderness Society said that evidence supporting the latest claims showed illegal logging of native forests was rife under the state government’s watch.

A separate allegation of illegal logging at Brown Mountain, in east Gippsland, is the subject of a pending Supreme Court judgment.

“Premier Brumby must act now to end VicForests’ woodchip rampage in Victoria’s magnificent native forests“, said Wilderness Society spokesman Luke Chamberlain.

Sarah Rees at the base of an ancient mountain ash spared the chainsaw but killed during a clean-up fire near Toolangi.

She says the present situation is an emergency.

Photo: John Woudstra

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VicForests motto reads: “Victorian Timber: beautiful, natural, functional”

[SOURCE: http://www.vicforests.com.au/]

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..in lay terms, this means kill beautiful natural specimens – they make the finest woodchips for reliable REFLEX office paper.

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VICFORESTS: “VicForests employs over 140 staff across 10 Victorian sites located in Melbourne, Healesville and regional areas of Central Highlands and East Gippsland.

We have a variety of exciting career opportunities available – our Foresters specialise in tactical and operational planning, roading, harvesting and contract management, silviculture and native forest regeneration.

Other career paths include customer management, resource and business analysts, safety and risk, operational audit, forest scientists and product delivery.”

VICFORESTS:  “We also employ staff in non-forestry roles including IT, HR, communications, finance, administration and customer service. A significant proportion of our staff and contractors are also involved with fire-fighting efforts each year.

VicForests is focused on investing in its employees through training, development, and providing career opportunities.”

VICFORESTS:  “We look for dynamic people who have a strong desire to be part of an organisation that strives to achieve success through implementing excellent and innovative business and timber industry practices for our customers and stakeholders.

Contributing to the timber industry is something that VicForests and its staff are proud of.”

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[Source: ^http://vicforests.logic1.com.au/employment.htm, accessed 20110819]

Vicforests’ coup at Stoney Creek

East Gippsland 2009

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‘VicForests’ 2009 Annual Report reveals $5.1 million loss’

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‘VicForests’ 2009 Annual Report has once again revealed that the logging agency continues to waste taxpayer millions of dollars sending our forests to the woodchip mills.  The report shows that VicForests has posted a loss this year of $5.1 million.  This is on top of last year posting a tiny profit after receiving a $5 million lifeline from government, and a loss the previous year.

Woodchip train makes its way to Midways, Geelong (2009) for as little as $2.50 per tonne.

Photo: Wilderness Society Collection

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‘Whilst VicForests squanders Victorian taxpayer’s hard earned money, woodchipping and paper companies continue to post handsome profits.  Whilst we don’t yet know how much they will make for 2009, South East Fibre Exports, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japanese paper giant, Nippon Paper, last year made over $10 million profit.  They woodchipped approximately half a million tonnes of Victoria’s native forests, and this year paid as little as $2.50 per tonne for them.

Another giant company, Australian Paper, which makes Reflex papers, is VicForests’ largest single customer and was recently purchased for around $700 million by Nippon Paper.  The $5.1 million loss is on top of an extra $1.3 million handout for bushfire recovery and does not include the massive $29 million royalty that it has failed to hand over to the state government who, along with the Victorian public, own these forests.’

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[Source: ^http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/vicforests-2009-annual-report-reveals-5.1-million-loss]

A tombstone of the once impenetrable forest.

A Mountain Ash stump alongside an old forestry track in Balnook, Gippsland.

Note the notches cut in the trunk for standing planks to cut the tree down by axe!

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Reflex Office Paper

‘Paperlinx’s giant Maryvale mill located in Victoria’s Central Highlands is the largest pulp and paper making complex in Australia, consuming 475,000 cubic metres of eucalyptus forest per annum (RFA, 1998).

‘In July 2006, the Maryvale Mill received Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Chain of Custody Certification for A4 Reflex products manufactured on its Number 3 and Number 5 Paper Machines. Paperlinx has been proudly promoting its environmental credentials ever since (as well as before).

Paperlinx is Australia’s only office paper producer. Its flagship product REFLEX copypaper is 100 per cent virgin native forest. Woodchips to make the paper are sourced from areas including rainforest, old growth forest, endangered species habitat and Melbourne’s largest water source, the Thompson Dam catchment area. Woodchips are also sourced from the Strzelecki Rainforest Reserve, an area that was promised protection by the state government due to its high conservation value.

These areas can be visited and viewed first hand, or determined by satelite image maps which show different forest types (such as rainforest as compared to woodlands) and where logging is occuring.  The fact that Paperlinx gained FSC accreditation has raised concerns amoung environment groups who have been campaigning for the protection of these areas for over a decade.

Reflex Recycled Paper

Paperlinx has recently released a brand of paper wrapped in green packaging labelled Recycled. Fifty percent of REFLEX Recycled paper is made from pre-consumer waste (printers’ offcuts), but no genuine post-consumer (eg kerbside collected) recycled papers. The other fifty percent is from the same virgin native forest as stated above.

According to The Wilderness Society Paperlinx has the resources and technology to make use of alternative sources such as plantations and recycled paper, but doesn’t do so as it receives state-owned native forest logs for a significantly lower cost than plantation logs.

Due to the lack of accurate information reaching the public, an alliance of Australia’s peak environment groups including The Wilderness Society, Environment Victoria, Friends of the Earth and the Australian Conservation Foundation released a flier in 2004 urging people to boycott REFLEX paper and listing alternatives.

THE ALTERNATIVE

There is no 100 per cent recycled office paper manufactured in Australia. Brands made overseas that are available in Australia include Evolve, Canon 100 and Fuji Xerox Recycled Supreme.’

[Source: ‘Reflex Office Paper‘, Greenwash .org ^http://www.greenwashreport.org/node/41 ]

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‘Always rely on Reflex to woodchip old growth‘

Scott Gentle from the Victorian Forest Contractors Association

questions the logic of the Yarra Ranges council’s decision to boycott Reflex paper products.

[Source: ^http://free-press-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/paper-ban-anger/]

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Further Reading:

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[1]  ‘Brown Mountain Rape’,  ^http://candobetter.net/node/1005

[2]  Ethical Paper,  ^http://www.ethicalpaper.com.au/

[3]  Save Sylvia Creek Toolangi, ^http://www.myenvironment.net.au/index.php/me/Community/SAVE-Sylvia-Creek-Toolangi

[4]  Brown Mountain – final court orders, ^http://www.eastgippsland.net.au/?q=campaigns/brown_mountain/whats_new

[5]  Reflex Office Paper, ^http://www.greenwashreport.org/node/41

[6]  Victorian Supreme Court Decision:  ‘Environment East Gippsland Inc v VicForests [2010] VSC 335 (11 August 2010)’, ^http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSC/2010/335.html

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– end of article –

Gippsland Giants

by John Stephens

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‘Do you know that possibly the biggest living thing in the world once lived in Gippsland and that its descendents still live here? No it’s not the blue whale, nor the giant kangaroo or the thylacine or even the black panther, it’s Eycalyptus regnans, the Victorian or Mountain Ash! These trees are the world’s tallest hardwoods and the tallest flowering plants.

The trees in the Tara Bulga Park are certainly imposing and of an impressive size, somewhere in the vicinity of sixty metres tall! You’ve seen Mountain Ash on drives or walks throughout the Strzelecki Ranges or the Baw Baw plateau. But I’m sorry to tell you, that you haven’t seen a real Mountain Ash and are most unlikely to ever see one. Of course I am talking about specimens that did exist before we “harvested” them. I don’t consider myself a “greenie” however I cannot be anything but amazed at the destructiveness of the human species.

During my “younger days” I spent many an enjoyable hour riding a motorcycle around the top end of Merriman and Traralgon Creeks. One of my greatest memories was seeing the stumps of some huge trees that had been logged, somewhere on the western side of the Merriman Creek headwaters, and imagining what they must have looked like in their original grandeur. I also came across the huge “historic” tree stumps at Mt Tassie and as many others have, I marvelled at their massive girth.

The Ada Tree near Powelltown, which is estimated to have existed for over three hundred years, is possibly the largest remaining specimen in Victoria. It has been preserved and is estimated to stand at about 76 metres, although it was significantly taller. The crown has been blown away either in a storm or struck by lightning, meaning the tree may have reached a height in the vicinity of 120 metres. Another giant, The Big Tree, in the Cumberland Tall Trees Reserve is 82 metres tall, but was 92 metres before a storm destroyed the top in 1959. What stuns me, is that if I imagine one of these trees to be the imposing Eucalyptus obliqua in the top corner of my block and it fell along the fence line, it would stretch the full 83 metres of the block!

I understand that to our pioneers the supply of forest, trees and timber seemed endless and they had a need to provide land for agriculture and development. However I do not understand their need to destroy everything that they saw as a challenge. Why did they have to destroy the Centennial Exhibition Tree that had stood in the Menzies Creek forest for hundreds of years until its demise in 1888? It was measured at over 122 metres after being felled and was reassembled for display at the exhibition in Melbourne. Surely it would have been better to take parties to visit the living tree in its natural surrounds and glory.

Part of an article written by Paul Edwards cleverly conveys what most of us feel about these giants – “When a tree gets old and tumbles, it becomes a noble thing — a fallen tree — but when it is cut down it turns into a log”. The best way to measure a tree is of course to do so when it has been cut down. This is essentially what happened to another giant at Thorpdale. It was felled in the1880s, measured by the surveyor G Cornthwaite, and found to have been 114.3 metres tall. I believe all that remains to signify the existence of this giant is a sign on the roadside indicating where it once stood, definitely far less impressive than the tree itself.

Some of these old trees must have been even more impressive. A 66 metre tall tree in Sassafras Gully in the Dandenongs and known as “The Baron” had a girth of 14.5 metres. The Bulga Stump, which was destroyed in the 1939 bushfires, famous for its huge girth of 34 metres! The Furmstons or Mueller Tree near Mt Monda was only 60 metres high when it fell in 1998 although it was estimated to be well over 100 metres when it was first discovered in the late nineteenth century. Another giant was a hollow stump in the Tarra Bulga area that had a roof and was used as a stable. The hollow Wonga Stump near Yarram was used as a church and a school until it was destroyed by fire in 1898.

The tallest known existing tree in the world is now a Californian Redwood (Sequoia semprivirens) found in the Humbolt Redwood State Park. It is 112.7 metres in height but is “small” compared to the tallest ever recorded, an American Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) which was known to be 122 metres, equal to our Centennial Tree. However do these trees really compare to our own? A tree at Mt Baw Baw measured in 1889 by surveyor G W Robinson was reported to be 143 metres in height.

In 1872 the Victorian Government surveyor, William Ferguson, reported finding a fallen tree in the Healesville area that was 133 metres long. The top had been broken off in the fall and most of the crown burnt in a fire. Where it was broken the tree was approximately one metre in diameter and was estimated therefore to have been 152 metres tall!

Were there bigger specimens or are there still giants in the Gippsland forests? Maybe there was a tree of such dimensions that if in my imagination it fell the length of my block it would also complete the side boundary of the property behind mine.

[Source:  ^http://home.vicnet.net.au/~apslvg/gippslandGiants.html]

Title of this article is derived from two well known sayings:

1. ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do.’      Source:  The Bible:  ‘And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.’
   [© English Standard Version, Luke (23:34) 2001)].  These are supposedly Jesus’ words from the cross, asking forgiveness for those who put him to death. More widely, of course, the plea was for all humanity. [Rare historic photos of these magnificent trees are all that allow us to remember what once was.  The saying is quite apt to old-growth trees, though I have removed the ‘Father, forgive them‘ clause.]
2. ‘Lest we forget‘ Source:  Rudyard Kipling’s poem of 1897, ‘Recessional’, which he composed on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The poem, on the one hand, expresses pride in the British Empire, but, on the other, expresses an underlying sadness that the Empire might go the way of all previous empires.  [Again, quite apt to old-growth trees.]

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‘God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle line—
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard—
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard.
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Amen.

 

 

 

 

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