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The Forum > Article Comments > The Forests Agreement to end all forestry disagreement? > Comments

The Forests Agreement to end all forestry disagreement? : Comments

By Simon Grove, published 16/12/2010

We have been conditioned by the forestry vilification campaign to reject any notion that native forestry and conservation might be good bedfellows.

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It is great to see a forest conservation scientist standing up to argue for the sustainable management of our forests, but is it too late to save the economic, environmental and social benefits that come from our native forest industry?

These benefits have been eroded by the campaign by green politicians, lobby groups and by activist academics.

In the 2004 Federal Election academics including Professor Tim Bonyhady, Director, Australian Centre for Environmental Law, the Australian National University and Dr Peter McQuillan (UTAS) had an open letter to condemn Tasmania’s forest management and claim that the scientific processes of its Regional Forest Agreement had been “overwhelmed by political compromises”.

The current downturn in markets started in 2007 when Peter McQuillan and the Greens’ Peg Putt visited Japan at the invitation of the Rainforest Action Network to lobby the customers of the pulp and paper companies not to take Tasmanian woodchips by claiming the last of the State’s old growth forest was being destroyed.

The visit to Japan saw the release of brochure from Rainforest Action Network that included a ‘horror’ photo of forestry that was actually a picture of the Hydro Lake King William at low level.

Dr McQuillan was also a witness for Greens Senator Brown at his Federal Court case to save the Wielangta stag beetle. In the ultimate irony the only recorded death of the extremely rare and endangered beetle was when one was killed by McQuillan to provide evidence!

Professor Bonyhady, became part of the Independent review of the Commonwealth’s EPBC Act that found, in 2009, in relation to the Tasmanian RFA:
“As a consequence of the Tasmanian RFA, 79 per cent of old growth forest and 97 per cent of high quality wilderness is in reservation. This exceeds the global target of effective conservation of 10 per cent each of the world's ecological regions, set out under the Convention for Biological Diversity. These achievements, which often go overlooked or unremarked in debate, deserve greater public recognition.”

So hopefully we will hear more from forest scientists like Simon and less of the activist academic.
Posted by cinders, Friday, 17 December 2010 8:40:40 AM
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You are right in that we wish this debate could end, but only if the ending is based on facts, which this biased article is not. Hardly surprising, considering who the author works for, a supporter of Forestry Tasmania and their clear and burn mentality.

The suggestion the ENGOs "make up your own answers and then go fishing for “evidence” to support your case" is insulting. I am part of the community science project to collect data for assessing the carbon content of our forests, a subject strangely neglected in this article. The program is under the supervision of the ANU, so hardly fits the above ad hoc description. The need for carbon accounting is supported by the government's Renewable Energy Credits, possibly one of the reasons Gunns has forsaken their 600,000 hectares of native forests as they might not have been able to afford to pay the RECs required.

In Tasmania, most logging IS clear fell, so why shouldn't it be called that? We have the debate over fires because some are necessary burning to reduce the deadwood load, but others are regeneration burns which destroy much that would be of value, both to the craftwood industry and to native wildlife who would appreciate having somewhere to live, and are done to create plantations (which their employees have told me is Forestry Tasmania's idea of a nice healthy forest) as believe it or not, regeneration of the forest would still happen without that destruction!

FSC is the only accredited certification system because it is the only one overseen by an independent body. Nuf said!

This is a prettily crafted article, designed to appeal to those who do not know enough, and haven't the incentive to find out more. Certainly not honest, factual, or intended to promote the unity the author says is so desirable.
Posted by mudpuppy, Friday, 17 December 2010 8:44:47 AM
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Yeah, the clear felled disaster zones are just in my imagination and the biodiversity of what grows back in them exceeds what went before? A bad joke. Quality logs going into chippers or into windrows to be burned are also imaginary. They may have had permission, whether on public or private land. So what?

Not all forestry is practiced like that, thankfully, but don't tell me it doesn't exist - or isn't strongly defended by forest industry groups where it does. Unchallenged there wouldn't be any old growth forest off limits if elements of the industry had their way. Yes, old growth forest doesn't last forever but there won't be much forest reaching climax state unlogged as part of a natural succession to take it's place, not if the only form of management is management for the purpose of harvesting. It is not the same, not 'just as good' with 'more trees than before' - the 'more trees' being saplings.

Where's the big scrub forest with maturing red cedar or white beech? A few remnants are what's left, that are constantly in danger of rogues; a bit more remote and they'd be illegally stripped of the rarest and most valuable timber. I suppose I'll be told those practices don't exist either, despite personal and neighbours' experiences of "I don't believe the boundary is really where you say, get a surveyor, and they were just rubbish trees anyway, I've just done you a favour cutting them down" or dozer tracks on the bush block down to those big hoop pines - and the stumps are all that's left.

Now, I believe that well managed, sustainable harvesting of native forests should continue, it's scale limited by what is a limited resource with long regrowth times, with adequate reserves for biodiversity and wilderness. Taking ever smaller trees to beat those limits was always a mistake and it's the timber industry that's been doing that - and clear felling for woodchips; out of sight to the wider public it, the worst practices would go on unchecked.
Posted by Ken Fabos, Friday, 17 December 2010 9:35:21 AM
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Mudpuppy
Your post seems to epitomise what Simon is saying - that the young and idealistic have grown-up with ENGO anti-logging campaigns and have developed an ingrained belief that native forestry is 'evil' Clearly, you feel so strongly that something needs to be done about forests that you have joined an ENGO group (probably the Wilderness Society) which has formal policies to end the production of timber from our own forests.

As I understand it, ENGO's have instigated the "community science project to collect data for assessing the carbon content of our forests" as part of their over-riding campaign to end all native timber production.

The involvement of ANU is hardly surprising given its formal partnership with the Wilderness Society in the Wild Country Research Hub. You claim this gives the work credibility, but the close association of ANU with environmental activism and its role in producing discredited work with compromised peer review, such as the Green Carbon paper, has sadly diminished the objectivity of the ANU with regard to forests issues.

Your mention of Renewable Energy Credits as a reason for forsaking native forest timber production betrays your agenda. If RECs are applied across the board, there would be pressure to do much more (not less) Australian wood production given its very low carbon emissions compared to producing alternative materials such as steel, aluminium and concrete. But I suspect you see RECs being applied only to forests as a weapon to ensure their 'protection' which would be counter-productive to improving overall environmental outcomes.

You are wrong about clearfalling in Tas - the majority of timber harvesting is by some form of partial, or selective harvest. You voice all the standard misconceptions about Tas forestry, withouut acknowledging the key point that 75% of the public forests are already in some form of reserve and will not be logged, and that logged forests actually regrow.
Posted by MWPOYNTER, Friday, 17 December 2010 2:14:31 PM
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Ken Fabos
"Yeah, the clear felled disaster zones are just in my imagination and the biodiversity of what grows back in them exceeds what went before?"

Funnily enough the Tas wet euc forests where clearfelling and burning occurs, naturally regenerate after being decimated by severe bushfire. So, clearfelling and the subsequent forest regeneration approximate the natural process. Perhaps you should come down and have a look at the several million hectares of Victorian forest burnt by wildfire since 2003, before you dismiss the clearfell and burn practice.

" ..... but there won't be much forest reaching climax state unlogged as part of a natural succession to take it's place, not if the only form of management is management for the purpose of harvesting."

You are ignoring the reality that most of the forest in Tas and elsewhere is not to be logged. Just 26% of Tas public forest is being used on a cycle of harvest and regrowth, so there is 74% of forest which has the potential to reach the climax state.

"Where's the big scrub forest with maturing red cedar or white beech? A few remnants are what's left, that are constantly in danger of rogues; a bit more remote and they'd be illegally stripped of the rarest and most valuable timber ......"

I don't know too much about QLD and north NSW, but wasn't it land clearing for agriculture over a century ago which deciomated the species you refer to? It is erroneous to try to equate this with sustainable native forestry being practiced on a portion of public forest land in Tas in 2010.

"Now, I believe that well managed, sustainable harvesting of native forests should continue, it's scale limited by what is a limited resource with long regrowth times, with adequate reserves for biodiversity and wilderness"

You have obviously been badly influenced by the misrepresentations of Tasmanian native forestry if you don't appreciate that this is already the case. This epitomises what the article said about how most people have been influenced by misconceptions by ENGOs uncritically peddled through the media.
Posted by MWPOYNTER, Friday, 17 December 2010 3:41:09 PM
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Facts related to the management of public forests can be easily checked. Forestry Tasmanian publishes a sustainable forest management report and the independent Forest Practices Authority published its own annual report.

This is available at http://www.fpa.tas.gov.au/fileadmin/user_upload/PDFs/General/FPA_annual_report_2009-10.pdf and Table 1.3.2 shows the area covered by forest operations in native forests by harvest method, future land use and tenure.

For the public native forest, that is subject to these Statement of Principles, the breakdown of forest practices plans certified in 2009 -10 is
• Partial Harvest 7, 917 ha
• Clearfell followed by reseeding 4,451 ha
• clearfell and convert to eucalypt plantation 29 ha
• Clearfell and convert to pine plantation 0 ha
• Clear fell and convert to a non forest use 230 ha

This was a total of 12,627 ha of which 63% was not clear felled.

So much for the accuracy and credibility of claims that “most logging is clear fell”.
Even on private property that is excluded from this latest process less than 50% is clear felled.

Public native forest covers over 2.2 million ha of Tassie which 1.4 million is reserved and only 603,000 ha is planned for timber production. Much of this is vibrant regrowth resulting from harvest and regeneration based on the silviculture method determined by the forest scientist.

This silviculture is so good that the icon forests of the Styx and Florentine Valleys and the Tarkine have been subject to industrial harvesting for the last 70 years and the Styx was the birth place of the clearfell, burn and sew silviculture that was employed in only 4,451 ha of forest last year. Yet these icions are portrayed as pristine wilderness by most environmental lobby groups.
Posted by cinders, Friday, 17 December 2010 4:48:04 PM
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