The classic image of the ‘Camp Fire’

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Australia’s tradition of the ‘Wood Fire’ is ecologically destructive

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During Australia’s winter months, many in older homes habitually yearn for the warmth and glow of a traditional Wood Fire, and so utilise their open fire places and wood heaters.  So habitually, upon the onset of winter people stock up on Firewood.  It is a cultural yearning for the nostalgia of the Wood Fire – warm, earthy, dancing flames, flickering, spark spitting, the woodsmoke – we’ve all been there, it is tantalising and it feels right because it is natural – the ancient campfire tradition across humanity.  In doing the Wood Fire ritual, we seek to rekindle our connection to Nature.

 

The warmth and glow of a traditional Open Fire

…but the demand is driving deforestation of Ironbark Forests

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In earlier times when a few hundred of us settled in a given forest region, few forest resources were taken and so the forests replenished and seemed to cope.  The forests were naturally resilient.

But as subsequent human hoards have invaded the land, and have bred and sprawled across the countryside in the hundreds of thousands, we have deforested entire forests in the process.  These forests haven’t coped with the devastation.  No forest could cope.

Australia’s native forests have been hacked, logged, burned and bulldozed into agrarian pasture to the horizon.  Australia’s original blanket vegetation cover has been reduced to sad islands barely able to support wildlife habitat and in many cases causing extinctions – locally, regionally and nationally.  All one needs do is a Google Earth search to appreciate the devastation on the natural landscape.

A legacy of forestry

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Humanity’s sheer numbers and the encouraged consumption rate of Australians risk exacerbating the deforestation.  Contemporary Australia is simply extending and perpetuating the old colonial exploitive mindset and a lifestyle reminiscent of 19th Century invading colonists.

 

The cultural heritage of the Wood Fire is necessarily contributing to this deforestation, particularly to Australia’s native Box-Ironbark Forests.

For Australians to continue to yearn for the glow, warmth and woodsmoke of the traditional Wood Fire now that we number in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and so the aggregate consumption of timber for firewood has simply become unsustainable.  Our native forests have become too small and disparate to sustain wildlife breeding.

The few shrinking native forests that our forebears and their frenzied clearing have left us, simply are disappearing.  Australia’s remnant native forests continue to be destroyed by us just to serve this selfish cultural yearning for earthy nostalgia of the Wood Fire.  The same applies to all woodheaters.

A classic wood fire in an old style open fireplace

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The Australian Wood Fire cultural imperative through winter has become a driver of forest extinctions.  There have become too many of us wanting tonnes of the forest to burn in our open fires and wood heaters, and too few forests left.

Australia’s firewood demand is driving deforestation.  There is estimated to be around 800,000 wood heaters and 700,000 open fire places in Australia (ANZECC, 2001).   There combined use is unsustainable and has got to stop!   We need to question this inherited and habitual Open Fire/Woodheater culture and the devastating impact it is causing to our native forests.

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“One of the hidden environmental issues affecting Australia’s woodlands, the collection of firewood, is starting to be revealed. CSIRO has prepared a report, Impact and Use of Firewood in Australia, pointing out alarming environmental problems.

 

For example, up to 6 million tonnes of fuelwood is consumed in Australia each year – double the amount of annual exports of eucalypt woodchips!”

[Source:  ‘Firewood Conference’ in Armidale, NSW, May 2001, ^http://dazed.org/npa/npj/200102/FebYourNPA.htm]

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Commercial Firewood is Forest ‘Eco-theft‘

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Firewood taken from a native forest for personal use is one thing.  The scale and severity of adverse impact upon forest ecology will vary according to the amount taken and the ecological sensitivity of the place it is taken from.  Few domestic takers of firewood will be qualified ecologists and so will have no or little comprehension or respect for such impacts.

A private firewood stack

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According to the CSIRO, up to 5.5 million tonnes of timber is harvested annually for Australian domestic firewood use. When industrial firewood use is included, the total amount rises 20% to between 6-7 million tonnes.  This weight is roughly double the amount of eucalypt currently exported annually from Australia as woodchips.  About half of all domestic firewood is collected by the consumer and 84% of domestic firewood is collected on private property.  [CSIRO, 2000]

Across Australia, access to State Forests is unfettered and the collecting of firewood for personal (domestic) consumption is an uncontrolled free-for-all, little improved from the exploitative mindset of Australia’s early and more ignorant colonists.

Australian colonial  ‘progress’

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Deforestation by firewood taking is perhaps not as broadscale and well known as the Conservation Movement’s exposure of state-sanctioned Industrial Logging by the likes of Australian state government departments:

• ‘VicForests‘    (Victoria)
• ‘Forests NSW‘    (New South Wales)
• ‘Forestry SA‘   (South Australia)
• ‘Forestry Tasmania‘    (Tasmania)
• ‘Forests and Wood‘    (Queensland)
• ‘Forests Products Commission‘   (West Australia)

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Or is it?

It is Australia’s Commercial Firewood Industry that contributes to the demise of Australia’s remnant native forests by its ‘death by a thousand cuts‘.    Commercial Firewood entails the direct taking of wood from Australia’s native forests for commercial sale and profit.  It is of a scale far greater than domestic forewood collecting, but where are the statistics kept and publicised by the Australian Government?

Just as demand for firewood drive supply, the artificial low economic cost of firewood encourages demand volume.  Since firewood is sold a low cost, it competes favourably with jalternatiuve sources of fuel, such as gas and electricity, for domestic heating.  Commercial firewood suppliers also deliberately appeal to the Wood Fire cultural image to encourage their firewood sales.  Suppliers and consusmers thus feed off each other at low cost and high volumes, and so more native forests lose out.

A commercial firewood stack

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The low or no cost availability of timber from State Forests Native timber means that the industry operates on an industrial scale taking vast quantities of timber, particularly from the preferred hardwood Box-Ironbark Forests and the like.  The Commerical Firewood Industry is encouraged by the Australian Government and by all state governments, which ignore the practice as if Australia’s natuve forests are unlimited, as if it had no adverse ecological impact upon the forest ecologies, as if it didn’t matter, as if there were no tomorrow.

Commercial Firewood Production

Norwegian Hakki-Pilke industrial machinery enables an industrial scale operation

[Source:  Mascus Australia, ^http://www.mascus.com.au/]

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Across Australia, each state government issues cheap permits for collecting firewood from State Forests.

This reflects:

1. A cultural disregard for the values of Australia’s disappearing forest ecologies up to Prime Ministerial and Cabinet level
2. The inadequacies of State laws to protect forest ecology
3. An antiquainted colonist mindset persisting throughout the dominating Liberal and Labor parties.

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The ecological impacts and the plethora of ecological advice and warnings about the destructive impacts of logging on forest ecology are being ignored.  Australia’s Commercial Firewood Industry fuels demand for cheap firewood and in the process exacerbates Australia’s deforestation.

Australia’s Firewood Industry is unsustainable and has got to be nationally controlled.   We need to challenge this exploitative industry and correct ignorant government policies.  We need to find alternatives to the Wood Fire to stem the devastation of Australia’s remaining native forests and to help prevent more wildlife extinctions.

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‘Forest Eco-theft’ involves the immoral taking of timber from a native forest, especially in large industrial quantities, for commercial gain and incurring no or little economic cost to the taker. The intended or actual use of the timber is irrelevent, but may include logs, firewood, craft timber, or woodchips. The greater the timber volume taken, the greater impact upon a forest and so the more serious the Eco-theft. 

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‘Eco-theft’ is only different to criminal theft because of the colonist exploitative mindset of current governments rejecting native forest having ecological value worthy of protection under the Crimes Act.

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An industrial scale Hakki-Pilke firewood processor from Norway

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Forest Eco-theft in an environment of dwindling forest habitat has become a key threatening process.  At the current rate of Forest Eco-theft, Australia’s native forests fueling our pleasure for earthy glows and hearth warmth, will be gone.

Firewood Logging simply destroys forest habitat and contributes to the demise and local extinctions of threatened and endangered wildlife.  Australia’s flora and fauna deaths and ultimate extinctions has become infamy – Australia currently has the worst record of mammalian extinctions on the planet, and the Firewood culture is contributing to it.

Many consumers of firewood either actively couldn’t care, or else passively turn an insular blind eye to the adverse ecological impacts of firewood harvesting.  Our Australian Government ignores the firewood deforestation problem, avoiding it for party political convenience – immorally, irresponsibly and unrepresentingly.

Just as Poaching Wildlife is immoral, so too is Forest Eco-theft.    Both these exploitative practices hark to colonial times and need to be banned.

Firewood Logging of State Forest near Taralga NSW in 2006.

(along the Goulbourn-Oberon Road, just west of the Blue Mountains)

“This is in the habitat of Diuris aequalis. Had a fair result after two visits to this site and three submissions to local Council. Department of Environment and Conservation have imposed rigid conditions on this business.”
[Source:  ‘Habitat – Protection or Destruction‘, 2006, by  Alan W Stephenson, Conservation Director, Australian Orchid Council Inc.
^http://www.orchidsaustralia.com/article_%20conservation_no3.htm]

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Why choose ‘Ironbark Firewood’ ?

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Why choose Ironbark Firewood ?  Why not choose an alternative sources of fuel for home heating?   Never thought to question the legitimacy of your fuel?

Here’s the justification by one firewood supplier as to why one should choose Ironbark Firewood:

1. ‘Long Burning. Harder to start but will burn 6 – 8 hours. These timbers are the slowest growing and the hardest of all hardwoods.’
2. ‘Very little ash. Clean out fire only once per season approximately.’
3. ‘Strong Burning. Cannot be put out even if the vent closed, unless water is used.’

A classic Ironbark ‘Open Fire’

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The most common type of firewood commerically sold and promoted in the eastern Australian states is Ironbark Firewood.   This is typically sourced from Box-Ironbark Forests  (native grassy woodlands).

According to the Firewood Association of Australia (FAA), Ironbark and Box are the preferred firewood in Queensland, while in Victoria, southern NSW and South Australia, River Red Gum is preferred.  Jarrah and Wandoo hardwood timbers are preferred in Western Australia, while in Tasmania, Brown Peppermint is considered the best firewood.

[Source: ^http://www.firewood.asn.au/faq.html]

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What the hell? 

Old Growth cut up for cheap firewood?

[Source: “Environmental vandals” cut down 100-year-old trees on land at East Maitland, 20180905, by Donna Sharpe, ^https://www.beaudeserttimes.com.au/story/5629093/chainsaw-massacre-environmental-vandals-cut-down-100-year-old-trees/]

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Sydney’s Firewood has been linked to ongoing Queensland land clearing, and in Queensland successive backward state governments have an ignoble reputation for land clearing like there’s no tomorrow.

Landclearing in Queensland has become the major supplier of Sydney’s quality firewood.  Most of Sydney’s big firewood companies now rely on the Sunshine State for a significant proportion of ironbark and box logs – highly sought-after timbers because of their density. The National Parks Association says firewood from endangered Queensland woodlands is being used in homes across New South Wales.

Back in 2001, the National Parks Association of NSW called on the NSW Government to limit the State’s use of firewood following revelations that most of the wood sold by Sydney’s big firewood companies comes from clearing of Queenslands threatened Ironbark and Box woodlands.

Ironbark Woodland of Central Queensland

[Australia Natural Resource Atlas]

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At the time, Mr Charlie Spiteri, the owner of Betta Burn Firewood, one of the biggest suppliers in Sydney, refused to reveal how much firewood he supplies each year but estimates that the Sydney region, including Katoomba, consumes about 100,000 tonnes.

Commercial Firewood stockpile

(click photo to enlarge)

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Spiteri said about a third of his supply was sourced from Queensland, where the wood is worth between $40 and $50 a cubic metre. By the time the freight reaches Sydney, it is worth up to $125 and is being snapped up. “People are choosing ironbark and box and we have to go where the timber is,” Mr Spiteri said.

Other major sources of hardwoods for Betta Burn include the Pilliga State Forest in north-west NSW and private properties in the Nyngan area.

Executive officer at the National Parks Association (NSW), Mr Andrew Cox, said:

“Firewood collecting is the second largest threat to Australia’s temperate woodlands after land clearing. Now its being linked to landclearing!”   “We know little about the impacts of firewood collecting and governments have been slow to take an interest. Most firewood consumers are unaware of where their wood comes from or the huge impact it has on threatened animals, birds and reptiles.”

“The firewood industry is large, but mostly unknown”, said Andrew Cox, NPA Executive Officer. “About 1,500,000 tonnes of firewood are used by New South Wales each year, exceeding the State’s yearly combined production of sawlogs and woodchips.”

“Firewood collecting targets slow-growing ecosystems and some of their most important components. Eucalypt species such as ironbark, box and red gum are the most favoured firewood sources.”

“We need to move away from the need to ‘clean-up’ a forest or woodland and instead look at dead wood as an important ecological component – just as important as the living trees.”

“Its because we’re not properly managing the woodlands that a wave of bird extinctions is underway in central NSW. More than 20 woodland dependent birds are declining from their former range and may become extinct in NSW. “It’s not ecologically sound, it’s not sustainable and there are serious impacts on birds, on animals that depend on the hollows.”

But no-one knows for sure how much timber salvaged from the bulldozed woodlands of Queensland is making its way south of the border in convoys of semi-trailers. Firewood collection operates in a legal vacuum – especially on private land – and virtually no figures are kept for where wood is sourced or how it is collected.

[Source: ‘Sydney’s Firewood Linked to Queensland Land Clearing‘, by Andrew Cox, Executive Officer, National Parks Association of NSW, 20010428, ^http://dazed.org/npa/press/20010428firewood.htm]

A typical commercial firewood truck – 2 tonne?

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Since then, over a decade ago, what has changed?  Anything?  Nothing?  Has the problem gotten worse?

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83% of the original Box-Ironbark Forests have gone

 

Box Ironbark forest in central Victoria dominated by Red Ironbark   (Eucalyptus tricarpa)
[Source:  Ian Lunt’s Ecological Research Site, ^http://ianluntresearch.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/fire-and-rain-2-water-for-ironbarks/]

 

In Victoria, few forest and woodland ecosystems are as poorly represented in parks and reserves as the distinctive Box-Ironbark ecosystems of northern Victoria.

Since European settlement these forests and woodlands have been extensively cleared and fragmented for agriculture, urban development and gold mining, and cut for a variety of wood products. They once covered three million hectares of northern Victoria, but 83% of the original Box-Ironbark vegetation has now been cleared.

Original distribution of grassy woodlands across New South Wales

(Dominated by Box-Ironbark Forests)

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Not only have the forests and woodlands been mostly cleared, but what is left is highly modified from its original structure and is also very fragmented. These remaining forests and woodlands are mostly on public land and these areas are  ecologically important for a rich diversity of flora and fauna, many of which are rare or threatened.

Box-Ironbark forests and woodlands are highly accessible and the visitor is rewarded by a vibrant array of bird species, carpets of wildflowers in Spring, the rich aroma of eucalypt  nectar, and many sites of historical and cultural interest. Despite their apparent uniformity, these forests actually have great diversity with around 1 500 species of higher plants and over 250 vertebrate species recorded in the region; many are largely restricted to Box-Ironbark forests and woodlands.

Some 297 Box-Ironbark plant species and 53 animal species are now classified as extinct, threatened or near-threatened.  In addition, at least ten plant and animal species are known to have disappeared from the study area since the 1840s, and numerous others have become locally extinct. It is also clear and of great concern that many species, particularly birds, are known to be still declining.

Accordingly, a key feature of Box-Ironbark nature conservation is the promotion of ‘recovery’ for many species, rather than simply maintaining the status quo.  Many Australian animals are dependent upon large, old eucalypt trees which contain the hollows required for shelter and breeding. At least six of the threatened Box-Ironbark fauna species are strongly dependent upon these trees. The massive loss of large old trees over the last 150 years is strongly implicated in the decline of these species and perhaps many others. It is therefore recommended that as well as protecting existing large old trees, additional measures be taken to ensure that there will, over time, be more large old trees in the forests.

[Source: ‘Box-Ironbark Forests & Woodlands Investigation‘, (Environment Conservation Council, 2001), Executive Summary, by The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council, 2001, ^http://www.veac.vic.gov.au/documents/385-Executive-Summary.pdf]

 

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‘Why is Firewood so cheap?

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Ironbark is a preferred firewood in eastern Australia because it burns longer and hotter, so Australia’s native Ironbark forests continue to be logged for firewood.

Ironbark firewood stack, commercially cut and split ready for domestic delivery

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The Australian hardwood timber industry now mainly relies upon plantation timbers and sustainable forestry management practices.  Australian Ironbark Flooring retails at a premium price at typically over $80/m2 at 19mm thick.   If that square meter of flooring was stacked one metre high to achieve a cubic metre, the calculated retail price for a cubic metre would be (1000m/19mm = 50 layers of flooring roughly, making the retail price for a cubic metre of Ironbark flooring around $80 x 50 = $5600/m3!

Expensive Ironbark Flooring

Sourced from sustainable plantation timber, unaffordable to the Commercial Firewood Industry,

so firewood suppliers take the Ironbark out of State Forests instead.

[Source: Northern Rivers Timber, ^http://www.northernriverstimber.com.au/gallery.php]

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But commercial suppliers of firewood do not own plantation timber, nor do they buy their firewood from plantation timber growers.  They certainly do not pay $5,600/m3 for firewood.

Commercial firewood is generally sold at considerable profit at under $160/m3, reducing in price according to volume purchased.  Why would an commercial grower of plantation Ironbark hardwood sell the timber for firewood at $160/m3, when as flooring the typical market price is a factor of some 35 times greater at $5600/m3?

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Commercial Firewood taken from native forests means that the $160 selling price is nearly all profit!

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Australia’s commercial firewood instead is simply taken from Australia’s native hardwood forests.  It is simply taken from State Forests at no cost to the commercial operator, except for a pultry token permit fee.   That is why it is sold so cheaply.

This is why firewood remains a cheap affordable source for domestic household heating.  But the cost is artifically economic and excludes the ecological cost.

How is this not Forest Eco-Theft?   If the suppliers of Ironbark Firewood had to pay hardwood plantation owners a fair wholesale price for firewood, at such a high price their business model would be unviable.  Firewood suppliers only exist because their business model relies upon firewood theft from dwindling State Forests, which continues to go unpoliced and ignored by the Australian Government.

Industrial Firewood Industry

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Where do YOU get your FIREWOOD from?

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1. Where do you get your firewood from?
2. Is it legal or eco-stolen?
3. Is it accredited?
4. What is Australia’s Firewood Industry doing to protect Australia’s long exploited and dwindling Ironbark Forests from firewood theft by firewood suppliers?   
5. What is the Australian Government doing to prevent firewood theft from State Forests? 
6. What is the Australian Government doing to monitor and control Australia’s firewood industry?
7. Who in the Australian Government monitors the integrity and ecological protection of State Forests across New South Wales and indeed across Australia?
8. Where is the ongoing review and analysis into the ecological health of Box-Ironbark Forests (Grassy Woodlands) across New South Wales and Victoria?
9. Why are the statistics on firewood theft from State Forests not collected and publicised?
10. Who polices and penalises deforestation of State Forests?
11. How many people are caught and fined/gaoled for deforestation of State Forests
12. Isn’t it illegal to steal firewood from State Forests – living trees or deadwood?

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At the time of publication of this article, the New South Wales Government’s official website on Environment and specifically on Threatened Species reads:

“There has been a serious system failure on the threatened species website (www.threatenedspecies.nsw.gov.au) and it is no longer available”

[Source: ^http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedspecies/]

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Pile of Ironbark Firewood cut and split ready for domestic delivery

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In the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, the local newspaper advertises numerous suppliers of firewood, particularly at the onset of winter, and particularly promoting Ironbark Firewood as the premium product as follows:

Firewood suppliers advertising in the Blue Mountains Gazette, 20120516

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But from where do these firewood suppliers source their firewood?

Not one of the above advertisements provides any proud statement about sourcing their wood ecologically responsibly, nor about being ecologically accredited.  The default presumption thus is that none of these suppliers is environmentally responsible, nor accredited.  So don’t buy from any of them!

Is the advertised firewood sourced illegally from Australia’s disappearing Box-Ironbark Forests, and so exacerbating the deforestation problem?  How do we know it isn’t?

How simple is it for any common thief to buy a chainsaw, drive out to a patch of State Forest in a ute or in a truck or with a trailer in tow, then chainsaw several trees in a Box-Ironbark Forest, paying nothing for them, then flog the wood for personal profit?   Too easy!  Anyone can buy a chainsaw from a local garden tool supplier, even a kid.  There are no chainsaw laws in Australia.  It is treated like buying secateurs.   Bunnings sells cheap chainsaws brand-new for just $200!

So armed with a trailer and chainsaw, a common thief has a lucrative business, one ignored by the Australian Government.    With firewood retailing from $160/cubic metre, it is a nice little earner.  This exploitative immoral trade in Ironbark Forest ecology is negligently condoned by the Australian Government and state governments.

A native tree cut for firewood

(Blackheath Fire Brigade, Rural Fire Service, Blue Mountains, November 2011)

 

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‘Forest Eco-theft’ wiping out Ironbark Habitat

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Logs have life inside

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‘Collecting firewood is one of humankind’s oldest activities.  Australians enjoy the beauty and warmth of a wood fire, and in many regional areas wood fires are the only practical source of heating.

Dead trees, often with hollows, make popular firewood as they are seasoned and burn well.  But firewood collection comes at a cost to the environment, the consequences of which may not be entirely understood for years.  Many firewood users are unaware of the ecological price of collecting dead trees and fallen logs.  Often they mistakenly think they are just keeping the forest or farm tidy.

Firewood harvesting has an effect on our native woodlands, and a variety of threatened species.  Dead standing and fallen timber provides crucial habitat for numerous species of animals and birds.  It is now recognised that the removal of this wood for firewood is contributing to a significant loss of wildlife, particularly in the woodlands of south-eastern Australia.  It is not just native animals that benefit from old wood left lying on the ground.  This debris is valuable shelter for stock too.  How many times have you found a newborn calf or lamb against an old log safe from the weather?

Habitat Tree of critical value to wildlife

…destroyed by Forestry NSW

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Not only does standing and fallen dead wood provide important habitat for animals and birds, it also plays an essential role in maintaining forest and woodland nutrient cycles.  Scientists from the CSIRO believe that dead wood is at least as important as living trees, fallen leaves and soil for the maintenance oif ecological processes sustaining biodiversity.’

[Source:  ‘Are you burning their homes to warm yours?‘, a brochure questioning the dependency on firewood), by The National Heritage Trust. The Natural Heritage Trust (the Trust) was set up by the Australian Government under the Natural Heritage Trust Act 1997 to help restore and conserve Australia’s environment and natural resources.  The Trust had three overarching objectives:  (1) Biodiversity Conservation, (2) Sustainable Use of Natural Resources, and (3) Community Capacity Building and Institutional Change.  The Natural Heritage Trust ceased on 30 June 2008. It has been replaced by Caring for our Country, but taking supplanting a natural heritage conservation philosophy with a more anthropocentric utilitarian ‘resource management’ philosopy, ^http://www.nrm.gov.au/]

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Cleaning up some messy dead timber –  through whose eyes?

Nature is naturally ‘messy’

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The Regent Honeyeater has become a ‘flagship species’ for conservation issues in the box-ironbark forest region of Victoria and New South Wales.

Regent Honeyeater (Anthochaera-phrygia)

Nationally listed as ‘Endangered‘. 

Listed as endangered in Queensland and New South Wales, while in Victoria it is listed as threatened.

[Source: ^http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Anthochaera-phrygia]

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Australia’s native Regent Honeyeater, was formerly more widely distributed in south-eastern mainland Australia from Rockhampton, Queensland to Adelaide, South Australia, but is now confined to Victoria and New South Wales, and is strongly associated with the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range.   Its natural habitat is eucalypt forests and woodlands, including Box-Ironbark Forests.

The Regent Honeyeater has been badly affected by land-clearing, with the clearance of the most fertile stands of nectar-producing trees and the poor health of many remnants, as well as competition for nectar from other honeyeaters, being the major problems.  Birds Australia is helping to conserve Regent Honeyeaters as part of its Woodland Birds for Biodiversity project.

[Source: Birds Australia, ^http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Anthochaera-phrygia, and further references: ‘Field guide to the birds of Australia, 6th Edition’, ‘The Honeyeaters and their Allies of Australia’]

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Leard State Forest Leadership

(New South Wales)

[Source:  ^http://www.kateausburn.com/2012/04/10/leard-state-forest-next-frontier-of-the-coal-industry/]

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Further Reading:

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[1]    ‘Box-Ironbark Forests & Woodlands Investigation‘, by The Environment Conservation Council, 2001) by The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council, Australia,^http://www.veac.vic.gov.au/investigation/box-ironbark-forests-woodlands-investigation-ecc-

‘This report contains the ECC’s recommendations for public land use in the Box-Ironbark area of northern Victoria, extending from Stawell to Wodonga. The recommendations incorporate those for parts of the LCC’s North Central, Murray Valley and adjoining areas.’    (>Read Report, PDF 6.6MB – large file may be slow to load)

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[2]    ‘National Approach to Firewood Collection and Use in Australia‘ , June 2001, Australian and New Zealand Environment Conservation Council (ANZECC), Australia,^http://www.environment.gov.au/land/publications/pubs/firewood-approach.pdf  (>Read Report , PDF 990kb)

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[3]  ‘Impact and Use of Firewood in Australia‘, by Don Driscoll, George Milkovits, David Freudenberger, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Australia,^http://www.environment.gov.au/land/publications/pubs/firewood-impacts.pdf,  (>Read Report, PDF 400kb)

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Some wee satire….

Dozer Rights

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We are built to do a job

We do that job well

We clear unwanted rubbish,

debris, obstacles, clear roads, bushes, pesky trees,

in some god forsaken places – people and their homes

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It’s not our fault we’re gaudy yellow

Can’t miss us that way!

We often work solo

in the middle of nowhere

And we go all day

We work hard!  ..努力加油  “loh lik gah yau!“

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But we’re persecuted

Many hate us

They don’t understand

It’s not our fault

We’re just following orders

It’s a dozers lot

We have rights too.

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A bulldozer flattens out coastal sand dunes to make way for Donald Trump’s golf course

Aberdeenshire, Scotland

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Dozer clearing the way

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Dozers in Rosella Waters, doing it for permaculture in the Atherton Rainforest

(The Permaculture Research Institute on the USA)

…they wouldn’t let us back home

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Smoko

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Dozers helping out for new housing in Brazil

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Dozers helping out in Sumatra for pulp wood

.Dozers helping out for Palm Oil

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Dozer respect for riparian habitat

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Dozers having a wee afternoon doze

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“Rachel was alone in front of the house as we were trying to get them to stop,” he said. “She waved for the bulldozer to stop and waved. She fell down and the bulldozer kept going. We yelled ‘stop, stop,’ and the bulldozer didn’t stop at all. It had completely run over her and then it reversed and ran back over her.”
-from Ha’aretz

^http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2003/03/17/15838231.php

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See, they just don’t understand

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Postcript:

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We added the Israeli human tragedy to this article afterwards.

We were shocked and consider this event of 2003 murderously barbaric, and so not to be forgotten to history.

We include it to convey a message of comparison to readers that the unacceptable horror inflicted by humans on non-humans is comparable to the unacceptable horror humans continue to inflict upon themselves.

When one reflects about ‘humanity’ one considers the status well below ‘ecology’.  Such distinguishing sadistic human motives are not part of non-human ecology.

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What is CRIME?

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Clearly current definitions of crime – its prevention, policing and presecution are inadequate…human and non-human.

It is when the human injustice hits home, that when compared with non-human injustice one starts to realise that injustice should not be selective.

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Read About the ‘International Solidarity Movement‘

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^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Solidarity_Movement

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 Cathcart State Forest (NSW) being logged in 2011

[Source: Australian Forests and Climate Alliance ^http://forestsandclimate.net/newsouthwales]

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Most of Australia’s native vegetation cover, over 75% of that predating the 1788 Colonial Invasion, has been ‘cleared’ – a euphemism for deforested, logged, destroyed, killed.

Today, as one travels around Australia and sees vasts areas of unproductive, degraded, denuded and abandoned farmlands – one questions why destroy more fragile environment?  Yet the exploitative bastards are still hell bent on killing more native forest and bushland, even though they can’t properly manage the ‘already ‘cleared’ lands they’ve got.  It is a short sighted insatiability, harking to a 19th Century ‘old blighty’ mindset of taming the land.  It is deluded thinking that just because the native vegetation is green and looks fertile that it can be replaced for pasture and cropping and that new cleared land will be any different to that already cleared.

The Liberal-Labor governments and their rural National mates haven’t given a toss throughout the entire 20th Century and still couldn’t give a toss.

 Recent land clearing in the Daly River catchment area

Northern Territory, Australia.

Photo: Environment Centre NT

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Moree region New South Wales – mainly deforested

Visit Google Earth and zoom into any area of NSW and see that most of it has been deforested

(click image to enlarge)

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Still across Australia in 2011, thousands of hectares of native forests continue to be deforested – albeit for farming, logging and development, or just bizarre bushfire abandonment.  Not only is this occurring on private land, but in State Forests, which most people think are protected.  Native forests on land are being cleared branded by State governments as ‘State Forests’ are simply not protected.

The native trees, flora and fauna are not protected from logging, bushfire, State-sanctioned arson (aka ‘hazard reduction‘), State napalming (aka indiscriminate ‘hazard reduction‘), indiscriminate State aerial poisoning with 1080, wildlife poaching, 4WD hooning, trail bike hooning, or even backpacker murdering.  The watercourses (and the interconnected groundwater aquifers), that flow through State Forests are not protected from fishing, stormwater run-off, mine tailing contamination, farm pesticide and herbicide, industrial pollution.

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Helicopter Aerial Incendiary

Over Bindarri National Park, 20km south-west of Coffs Harbour, New South Wales

Yes, even our National Parks and Wildlife Service sets indiscriminate fires to National Parks!

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For the likes of taxpayer funded government industrial loggers ‘State Forest’ is a euphemism ‘for not logged yet‘.  This applies to the likes of Forestry Tasmania, VicForests, Forests NSW, Forestry SA (spot the naming trend), as well as the more aptly Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, and likewise the Forest Products Commission of Western Australia.

It seems that doesn’t matter whether there is proof that there is an endangered and protected species such as the Long-Footed Potoroo in the Cann Valley State Forest or Drummer State Forest in Victoria, or protected Koalas in the Murrah/Mumbulla State Forests of New South Wales, or three identified endangered species, the wedge-tailed eagle, the swift parrot and the wielangta stag beetle in Tasmania’s Wielangta State Forests, the Liberal-Labor governments of those States turn a blind eye to deforestation.

It is only when self-funded local communities take the respective government logger to the Supreme Court and win that logging stops momentarily, such as in the recent Victorian Supreme Court case Environment East Gippsland Inc v VicForests [2010] VSC 335.   In 2006, the Victorian State Government committed to increasing the conservation parks and reserves within the broader Brown Mountain area.  Disregarding its elected master and ignoring any concerns for the ecological Precautionary Principle, State industrial logger VicForests, got stuck in with its mechanical clearfelling of old growth forests in the Brown Mountain area.

Not-for profit group Environment East Gippsland (EEG) self-funded and obtained numerous studies of the area indicated the presence of important threatened and rare species.  EEG requested the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Gavin Jennings, to make an interim conservation order to conserve critical habitat of the endangered Long-footed Potoroo, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Sooty Owl, Powerful Owl and Orbost Spiny Crayfish at Brown Mountain.  Even then, the Minister for Environment and Climate Chang did not grant a conservation order, but instead increased the conservation area surrounding Brown Mountain.    It took the overriding legal authority of the Supreme Court to stop the Victorian Government and its delinquent logger trashing protected old growth habitat.

Victorian Labor Minister for Environment (etc), 2007-2010

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In March 2010, Forests NSW began controversial logging operations in the Mumbulla State Forest, south of Bermagui on the state’s far south coast.  Despite being criticised, after a recent survey identified the forest as a key colony for the region’s remaining koala population, Forests NSW Regional Manager Ian Barnes says the logging must go ahead across 240 hectares of the forest, in order to satisfy a supply agreement with the timber industry.

Deforestation is all about lining ones pockets out of ecological wanton exploitation

It’s a ‘wam bam thank you mam’ approach no different to what the Vikings did to the British in the eight Century.

Colonial Australians and their descendants are doing the same to Australian ecology in the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries.

 

Mr Barnes says the logging will not affect the koala habitat.  “We’ve taken quite some effort to avoid any possible conflict there,” he says.  “As anybody who reads the recent report will know, the koalas have been found in the eastern side of the forest, and our logging is planned for the western part, as far away as we can get from the koalas.”

Despite assurances, anti-logging campaigners have organised a vigil in the forest in an attempt to stop the logging. Conservationist Prue Acton says the activity will devastate the koala population.

“Why risk the only healthy koala colony left in the far south coast. For what? “ she said.  “95% of what is going to be logged is going to end up at the Eden woodchip mill, be shipped to Japan for cheap copy-paper. What a disgrace.”

The Greens MP Lee Rhiannon says the Premier should put the protection of koalas ahead of the interests of logging companies.  “The New South Wales Government has refused to end logging in the south east native forest but they should step in and stop the destruction of the koala habitat,” she said.

[Source: ‘Logging begins near key koala habitat‘, ABC, 20100330, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/30/2859615.htm?site=southeastnsw]

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‘Loggers are clearing bushland at rising rate‘

[Source:  ‘Loggers are clearing bushland at rising rate’, by Ben Cubby, Sydney Morning Herald, 20111221, ^http://www.theherald.com.au/news/national/national/general/loggers-are-clearing-bushland-at-rising-rate/2399764.aspx?storypage=0]

The amount of bushland being cleared by logging in NSW soared last year to the highest level since state-wide records began in 1988.  An area equivalent to 138,400 football fields was cleared for crops, forestry or infrastructure, says a government report.

The Office of Environment and Heritage said the rise in logging was probably cancelled out by regrowth, leading to no net loss of trees, though its most recent survey took place in 2008, before the land clearing spike. It said the reasons for the logging increase were unclear.

”[The] most likely factors relate to market demand and favourable climatic conditions and [they] can be expected to fluctuate over time,” a department spokesman said. ”It is also possible that recent changes in forestry methods are more readily detectable by satellite monitoring.”

Environment groups said the annual vegetation report was evidence that logging companies were operating in an unrestrained manner.

Bushfires remain the biggest destroyer of forests in the state, leading to a net loss of 48,300 hectares in 2010, the report said.

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But logging activities now come a close second, accounting for the removal of 42,700 hectares of trees in 2010. This is up from 31,000 hectares the previous year, and an average of about 21,000 hectares a year since 1988.

About 21,200 hectares of bushland was cleared in 2010 to make new areas for crops and grazing, while 5300 hectares were cut down to make way for roads, factories and housing.

”The NSW government is currently conducting a review of native vegetation controls,” said the chief executive of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, Pepe Clarke. ”They should take this report as a warning – what is required are stronger land- clearing laws that do more to protect the environment, not weaker ones.”

The Wilderness Society said the government had ”failed in its promises to restrain land clearing, resulting in rapid and accelerating degradation of wildlife habitat and water catchments.”

The most recent State of the Environment report found that there had been no net loss of ”woody cover” across NSW between 2003 and 2008.

”This is because, although clearing has occurred over that period, there has also been an equivalent amount of regrowth including government sponsored environmental and forestry planting programs conducted by private landholders and state forests, within crown forests areas,” the department said.

”Notwithstanding no net loss over the whole state, some regions have experienced net declines in woody cover.”

The report uses the international definition of ”woody cover”, which includes land at least 20% covered by the crowns of trees higher than 2 metres, a description which would include relatively open country.

The introduction of a satellite monitoring system for land clearing last year appears to have increased the level of prosecution for illegal land clearing on private property. On crown lands, the number of prosecutions has increased threefold, from a low base, since 2007.

In 2010, the government received 471 reports of suspected illegal land clearing.

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‘Landowners sent satellite images identifying land clearing‘

[Source: ‘Landowners sent satellite images identifying land-clearing’, NSW Department of Environment (etc), Media release: 14 May 2010, ^http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/media/DecMedia10051404.htm]

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NSW Department of Environment Climate Change and Water (DECCW) today began a high tech education campaign to encourage compliance with native vegetation laws by sending letters to landholders including before and after satellite pictures identifying land clearing.

DECCW Director-General Lisa Corbyn said the letters were part of an ongoing education program to encourage compliance with the laws and inform landowners of the proper channels available to them if they want to clear native vegetation.

“We’ve been using satellite technology for some time to identify changes in vegetation cover that may warrant further investigation,” Ms Corbyn said.

“Now we are also using the technology as an education tool. From today, advisory letters will be sent to landowners including before and after satellite pictures showing that vegetation has been cleared on their land.”

Ms Corbyn said the letters aim to inform to the landowner that the satellite imagery has picked up that vegetation had been cleared and highlight the proper channels available to them under the legislation to allow clearing of native vegetation, such as property vegetation plans.

The letters support other tools used by DECCW to encourage compliance with the legislation, including strategic investigations, prosecutions, penalty notices, stop work orders, remedial directions, warning and advisory letters.

The letter also alerts landowners to incentive funding available to restore and protect native vegetation on their properties.

The Native Vegetation Act was introduced in 2003 to bring an end to broadscale land-clearing in NSW. Since then, more than 400,000 hectares of native vegetation has been conserved or rehabilitated on private land through property vegetation plans (PVPs) and 1.6 million hectares has been managed for thinning and invasive native scrub management.

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Over 60 % of the native vegetation in NSW has been cleared, thinned or substantially disturbed.

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The impacts of native vegetation clearing have included the extinction of 77 plant and animal species, soil erosion, increased dryland salinity and a decline in water quality.’

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2003:   ‘Clearing rate in NSW 116,000 to 216,000 hectares per year: NSW Govt report’

[Source: ‘Clearing rate in NSW 116,000 to 216,000 hectares per year: NSW Govt report’, by Stephanie Peatling, Environment Reporter, Sydney Morning Herald, 20031117, ^http://www.sydneyalternativemedia.com/id64.html]

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The equivalent of up to 200,000 football fields may be illegally stripped of native trees and grass each year in NSW, figures suggest.

The first estimates on the extent of the clearings, which the Department of Natural Resources field staff prepared for the Government’s vegetation taskforce, suggest the figure could be as high as 100,000 hectares a year.  The figures show between 150,000 hectares and 560,000 hectares were illegally cleared between 1997 and 2002.

The advice is the first official guess at NSW’s illegal clearance levels. The highest rates are in the Barwon, Central West and Far West regions where much of NSW’s remaining native vegetation is located.

The figures have shocked environmentalists, who stress the urgency of making changes to the state’s natural resource management system, which Parliament is debating this week.
A Wilderness Society campaigner, Francesca Andreoni, said: “The new system needs to be fair to everyone, particularly farmers doing the right thing.

“The shocking extent of illegal clearing confirms the urgent need for the Government to implement its decision to end broadscale clearing.”

Figures recording the rate of illegal land clearing each year are almost impossible to compile because it so hard to charge people who breach native vegetation laws. There is also a complicated system of exemptions which allow people to clear land for purposes such as maintaining fire access trails.

Monitoring illegal clearing is potentially dangerous for departmental compliance officers. After reports of illegal clearing earlier this year on a property near Nyngan, in the state’s west, department officers were prevented from entering the property by an angry crowd of up to 150 people.

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When the amount of land illegally cleared is added to land that is legally approved for clearance, the department estimates between 700,000 hectares and 1.3 million hectares of land were cleared between 1997 and 2002.

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The figures suggest clearing was faster than the Department of Natural Resources’ previously admitted figure of about 60,000 hectares a year. That figure would give NSW the second-highest clearing rate in the country behind Queensland.

Debate on the Government’s package to overhaul native vegetation laws, based on an election promise to end broad-scale clearing, will take place this week. Last month the Premier, Bob Carr, announced a $406 million deal between farmers and environmentalists to end broad-scale clearing.

Most of the money is expected to go towards such things as tree planting and fencing waterways to help counter salinity and erosion. But local authorities may also compensate farmers for not clearing land.  Clearing will still be allowed where it is deemed environmentally necessary.

Under the new system, natural resource management is being overhauled. Thirteen catchment management authorities will replace 19 catchment management boards, 20 regional vegetation committees and 33 water management committees.

Scientists often name land clearing as one of Australia’s most urgent environmental concerns. It contributes to soil salinity, loss of biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions because carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere when the cleared timber is disposed of, usually through burning.

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‘Green groups attack logging growth’

[Source: ‘Green groups attack logging growth’, by David Bancroft, My Daily News, 20111229, ^http://www.mydailynews.com.au/story/2011/12/29/green-groups-attack-logging-growth/]

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Environment groups have banded together to criticise the level of logging occurring in New South Wales.  The Nature Conservation Council, The Wilderness Society, National Parks Association, the Northern Inland Council for the Environment and the North Coast Environment Council have issued a joint warning that iconic and endangered species are being threatened by land clearing.

Illegal deforestation for fire wood, near Taralga, on the western edge of the Blue Mountains

Source: ^http://www.orchidsaustralia.com/article_%20conservation_no3.htm

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In a joint press release, the groups said the NSW annual report on native vegetation released by the Office of Environment and Heritage (Ed. yet another money wasting name change) this month showed 2009/10 was the “worst year on record for clearing of native bushland”.

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The Wilderness Society campaigns manager Belinda Fairbrother said the report showed that in 2009/10 an area equating to 138,400 football fields was cleared for crops, forestry or infrastructure.

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“This is higher than any other year since records commenced in 1988 and shows the NSW Government has failed in its promises to restrain land clearing, resulting in rapid and accelerating degradation of wildlife habitat and water catchments,” she said.

North Coast Environment Council president Susie Russell said the report made a sad end to the International Year of Forests.

“The area cleared for forestry in 2009/10 was almost five times greater than it was in 1988/89,” she said.

“It reveals a massive increase in the rate and intensity of logging in NSW, which will be causing untold damage to the extraordinary high diversity forests of north-east NSW.”

Nature Conservation Council chief executive officer Pepe Clarke said land clearing was recognised as the single greatest threat to wildlife in Australia.

“It causes the death of birds and animals, the extinction of species, leads to the poisoning of soils from salinity and makes a major contribution to global warming,” he said.

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The Liberal-Labor Party ‘Island Vision’ for Australia’s State Forests

‘The Hill’ (Penrose State Forest, NSW) 2007, drawing by James King
^http://www.jamesking.com.au/drawings.html

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