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The Forum > Article Comments > Academic freedom under attack from foresters institute > Comments

Academic freedom under attack from foresters institute : Comments

By Roland Browne, published 23/4/2010

Alarm bells ring for request to silence critics in relation to the governance of the Tasmanian forestry.

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Mark – You appear to infer that the letter written by Tasmania’s academics was unprecedented therefore, it seems that you are out of touch with reality.

In 1995, New Scientist reported on outspoken American ecologist and academic, Paul Ehrlich, who caused a furore in Australia by claiming that the work of the country's ecologists was being censored and suppressed.

"Every time I come out here I am taken aside by my ecological colleagues and told that they can't get the word out because they are under threat," Ehrlich told a forum in Sydney. A foreword he wrote for a book on Australia's biodiversity had been censored by a government department. The original foreword, he said, "was critical of censorship.“

Last year, Adelaide Now daily paper reported on fifteen academics and doctors including a Nobel Prize-winner and two Australians of the year, who warned of the "mind-blowing risk" of the Olympic Dam expansion.

The outspoken Union of Concerned Scientists has ten eminent academics on their board.

It’s ironic that you question the integrity of courageous academics when you would have us believe that the pesticides you use in forestry are stringently regulated.

The majority of these pesticides are so hazardous that they are not available to the public. The quack APVMA has allowed your industry to spray millions of litres of lethal toxins from the skies, dumping hazardous solutions over communities and the landscape where they drift into ‘prohibited’ areas including rivers and waterways with impunity.

Yet only yesterday in Santiago, three pollutant companies were shut down for allowing dust to drift over one community and for polluting only one river.

Free and frank intellectual inquiry has always been under assault by dodgy legislative acts and by the chilling effect of secrecy and intimidation in industry and governments. Australia's ignominious environmental history lays testament to that.

It is society’s last hope that courageous academics in all disciplines, continue as educators to promote public debate, particularly on the industrial carnage which prevails, hence the degraded state of Australia’s biodiversity and consequently, the serious issue of economic blowouts in areas of public health.
Posted by Protagoras, Friday, 30 April 2010 1:47:34 PM
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I am sure that these ecologists are under threat. I would hazard a guess that in most cases it has to do with libel. (apparently it is illegal to publish falsehoods) and the effort required to actually check the content of what they print has limited their freedom of speech.

The letters printed by these academics are more carefully thought out, and simply express an opinion, using flowery non specific language such as mind blowing, especially since these academics have no experience whatsoever in the field, and could not mount a serious challenge in court.

Also appending your name to a populist attack on big bad industry has the political and personal risk of a Sunday afternoon drive and requires no spine whatsoever. (Similar to Rudd's new tax on tobacco)
Posted by Democritus, Friday, 30 April 2010 3:30:32 PM
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I actually live on Planet Earth Bernie - feet firmly on the ground, which reminds me of your penchant to defend rogue industries which are far from perfect.

During your reign as an MP in the Richard Court government, your party saw fit to advance the sum of $100,000 of taxpayers’ money to a hazardous waste operator, one Jeffrey Claflin, who remained free from prosecution but who had breached every regulation in the book.

One week after your party lost office, WA residents witnessed a massive chemical fire at the hazardous waste plant, allegedly the largest in Australia’s history.

The hazardous waste operator kept the hundred grand and the taxpayer forked out millions of dollars to no avail in trying to halt the underground plume of hazardous waste which is now threatening the Helena River, a major tributary to the Swan.

Apart from the proprietor’s failure to keep an inventory, and apart from all the other hazardous compounds on site, Mr Claflin advised the Bellevue Fire Parliamentary Enquiry that there were 300,000 litres of white spirits, paint thinners, paints and 'mixed liquids' and 30,000 litres of the very hazardous perchloroethylene which all went up in the smoke of the bonfire. Only the Gods would know of the environmental fate of these dangerous gases.

That's the reality Bernie but thank you for permitting me to reminisce on yet another government failure to protect human health and the environment and also for reminding me how our parliamentary vaudevillians and registered government lobbyists continue dancing to the tunes of industry.
Posted by Protagoras, Friday, 30 April 2010 3:50:09 PM
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Protagorus
You are intent on shifting this discussion way off topic. Yes, there are financial links between universities and both industries and environmental groups (ie. The Wilderness Society and the ANU Fenner School).

Indeed, the timber industry contributes to academic research into forestry and wood products at the University of Tasmania. However, the big difference is that scientists working on these programs have never engaged in political activism by publishing ópen letters'calling for eg. increased logging of forests or indeed other matters that may be outside their area of expertise. If they ever did they would be open to the same criticism levelled at the UTAS academics who acted prior to the recent Tas election.

Your comments re forest audits are focussed on one incident in which a few trees were mistakenly taken from an adjacent area due to a boundary issue. It shouldn't have happened but lets get some perspective here - Victoria has 8 million ha of native forest - all current and future timber production is limited to ãbout 9% of this area - so 91% is never to be logged again. In any one year less than 0.1% of the total area is logged and regenerated. Timber production is an insignificant environmental issue.

The major agrichemicals used in plantation forestry are RoundUp and a range of others such as Simazine, which can be bought at the local hardware. Hardly as dangerous as you are portraying, but undoubtedly you will beg to differ.
Posted by MWPOYNTER, Friday, 30 April 2010 4:17:36 PM
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Protagoras - have a look at the Parliamentary Committee report (dominated by ALP members, by the way) into the Bellevue fire. It made no adverse findings against any politician or government. What it doesn't say is that it's people like you who ultimately are the cause of government inaction on important issues because you nit-pick over relatively unimportant issues while ignoring the elephants in the room.
Here we are trying to debate the issue of inappropriate academic involvement in the political process and the best you can do is run off on tangents.
Posted by Bernie Masters, Friday, 30 April 2010 4:59:40 PM
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Bernie – I am of the view that the political persuasions of any government are only relevant to their performance therefore, dumbing down the catastrophic environmental, economic and health impacts of the Bellevue chemical fire is despicable given the Liberal Party were in charge.

“The major agrichemicals used in plantation forestry are RoundUp and a range of others such as Simazine, which can be bought at the local hardware. Hardly as dangerous as you are portraying, but undoubtedly you will beg to differ.”

Mark – It is not I who begs to differ on your misinformation but the Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation, therefore I shall accept your apology in anticipation.

Pesticides include: “Amitrole, Atrazine, Chopyralid, Fluroxypr, Glyphosate, Haloxyfop, Hexazinone, Metosulam, Metsulfuron methyl, Simazine, Sulfometuron methyl, Triclopyr" (FWPRDC)

“Of the 13 most used active ingredients used by the plantation forestry industry, 5 are available for unrestricted purchase from hardware stores and supermarkets.” (FWPRDC)

I’m sorry that the FWPRDC has unwittingly dirtied things up for you Mark, however, this is a prime example of why the public urgently requires the assistance of Australia’s academics who are proficient in research techniques and are privy to additional and important information, while on the other hand, we Joe Citizens continue to be duped by corrupt, industry aligned governments and are forcefed corporate spin, peddled by rogue industries.
Posted by Protagoras, Friday, 30 April 2010 6:44:40 PM
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