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The Forum > Article Comments > ABC Fact Check Unit loses its way in the Tasmanian wilderness > Comments

ABC Fact Check Unit loses its way in the Tasmanian wilderness : Comments

By Mark Poynter, published 3/4/2014

Downplaying the principal source of forestry knowledge and selective use of 'experts' fans perceptions of the ABC's Green-Left agenda.

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Mark Poynter is wanting us to believe his new rule has always been the rule; wanting us to believe that it has always been about wilderness; it hasn’t.

The Australian Government 2014 submission to the World Heritage Committee seeking delisting claims as its core justification for delisting “ to remove a number of areas in the extension approved by the Committee in June 2013 that contain pine [80 sq.metres] and eucalypt plantations [10 ha] and previously logged forest [circa 7,600 ha or circa 10%]”. No claim was made that it was proposed to be delisted because it was not wilderness.

Mark then blasts the ABC Fact Check for not recognising “that this was about wilderness values”. Inventive new rule, but not true; it was never about wilderness nor was it claimed in the 2013 nomination to be about ‘wilderness’.

As I am sure you know full well, wilderness is not a test used for deciding World Heritage; for natural heritage there are four clear assessment Criteria in the Operational Guidelines - (vii) to (x) - and …….no mention of wilderness. The 2013 additions were readily demonstrated to make important contributions to the Integrity of the Outstanding Universal Values of the World Heritage Area that previously met all four criteria.

I repeat, it is not about wilderness; it is about a whole range of natural attributes and values, including karst, caves, glacial landforms, threatened species, outstanding natural beauty but especially about the tall eucalypt forests - the grandest form of temperate tall eucalypt rainforest in the world. Removal of all of these features from the World Heritage Area, as proposed, will definitely impact on the Integrity of the Outstanding Universal Values of the Area. That is the issue; not some invented new rule about wilderness.

Therefore your claim that “it doesn't meet the definition of 'wilderness' and is quite understandably regarded as an inappropriate addition to a Wilderness World Heritage Area property” is a misrepresentation. You are again mistakenly - or deliberately - introducing your own invalid rule, equating ‘wilderness’ with ‘World Heritage’. Mark, another kite that doesn’t fly.
Posted by HADRIAN, Thursday, 3 April 2014 11:57:16 PM
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Hadrian

The forests in question are part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area - that's its official name. It therefore virtually goes without saying that proposing to delist forests from this area because they are not appropriate infers that they don't have the requisite wilderness values. Or are you saying that non-wilderness areas are appropriate within a Wilderness WHA?

From memory, the Labor Govt who created the 170,000 ha extension to the TWWHA last year didn't mention the 'wilderness' word either in their nomination submission. I presume that was so as not to invite scrutiny of areas that were clearly lacking in such values that are now within the 72,000 ha that the new Coalition Govt wants to delist.

If as you say, last year's extension was especially about reserving tall eucalypt forests, it is curious as to why the UNESCO/IUCN Reactive Monitoring Unit (which was invited to assess these areas in 2008 by local environmental groups) decided there was no need to add these forests to the then TWWHA because it was a multiple use landscape of undisturbed forest mixed with regrowth from past harvesting, and that the tall old forest types that it contained were already well represented in the existing 1.4 million hectares TWWHA, and other Tasmanian national parks and reserves.

In addition, I'm led to believe that even the Tasmanian Greens in their 2010 forests policy didn't include many of these areas now proposed for delisting in their plans for new forest reservations. So, why are they now so desirable? It couldn't be because reserving them puts another nail into the coffin of the Tasmanian timber industry, could it?
Posted by MWPOYNTER, Friday, 4 April 2014 1:40:39 PM
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For an area to be part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area it first has to be wilderness. Yet the 'Independent' Brendan Mackey stated in his Government published report: "The definition of wilderness was adopted as defined for RFA. However, a suitable data set was not available to analyses the current distribution of forest wilderness in order to validate the ENGO claims."

"The only spatial layer of wilderness available was that produced for the RFA which dates from around 1998. By definition, wilderness quality changes as the result of the impacts of roading, industrial logging, and land conversion."

"Therefore, an important remaining task is to update the RFA wilderness layer with recent information about land use and related impacts."

No update has yet to be done,so it's wilderness value was ignored by the 'Independent experts', the failed Green ALP government and by the IUCN, and World Heritage Committee.

Yet wilderness quality was available and assessed using an Index developed one of Mackey's co-founders of the Wilderness Society's Scientific panel. This index rates wilderness on four attributes adding to a score of 20: 12 out of 20 is considered high quality of national value, 10 out of 20 or less in not. The map at http://soer.justice.tas.gov.au/2003/image/465/index.php shows that for most of the 170,000 ha extension in 2013, the wilderness quality was 10 or less.
For a map of the massive 2013 extension and the minor modification to the boundary proposed for 2014 see http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/f99dbb51-03c2-4eb2-a66e-87c4044117b4/files/twwha-2014-proposal-map4.pdf
Posted by cinders, Friday, 4 April 2014 7:38:03 PM
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I suppose the only alternative is to get your "facts" from self-appointed experts such as Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones or to continue with your News (Limited).

Submissions from people with vested interests can be no more reliable than those who generalise.
Posted by rache, Saturday, 5 April 2014 6:54:31 AM
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Rache

I think what should happen is that the ABC Fact Check Unit should get facts from all sources and set them out for its readers to decide. It should not come up with its own 'verdict' because this is where it gets into trouble by following its organisational agenda, which, when it comes to environmental and natural resource use issues, indisputably slants to the Green-Left.

As for vested interests (and I wouldn't say that AB or AJ fit this catagory) - if the facts they contribute are indeed factual, why should they be derided. It is a curious thing in Australia that people who work everyday with environmental issues associated with resource use industries are seen by some as being invalidated from the public debate. Invariably, because they work so closely with these issues they know far more about them than arms-length environmental activists who are often basing their opposition on purely ideological grounds and don't even know the most fundamental things about what they are opposing.

It is curious too, that ENGOs, whose whole reason for being is based on opposing resource use industries, are somehow regarded as 'independent' when they are in many cases large business corporations whose ongoing funding is reliant on promoting eco-catastrophe scenarios even where they don't exist.
Posted by MWPOYNTER, Saturday, 5 April 2014 8:48:43 AM
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Mark Poynter highlights the problem with the ABC. As a government body, presumably they were to exist for the benefit of all Australians, but apparently not. They are unelected, unrepresentative, self-serving, self-regulagating, and answerable only to themselves; an elitist, untouchable monolith. How else can we describe a self proclaimed "Fact Check Unit" without such arrogance? Is this even serious?

While the ABC continues to give free broadcasts of the footy and cricket, they can be perceived as being "for the people". Here they can easily build goodwill amongst the man-in-the-street, enough for them to survive. But find yourself on the wrong side of one of their ideological strongholds and you'll see there's no comeback. There's no avenue for redress. It's no longer cricket. They own the bat and the ball, and they'll bat for as long as they like.
Posted by Dan S de Merengue, Saturday, 5 April 2014 9:09:06 AM
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