MXPOYNTER

I have a background in landscape design and environmental studies. Equating bushfires with clear-felling is a nonsense. The environment is forever altered after a bushfire even though many plant species particularly eucalypts have evolved recovery methods - hence the sprouting of new leaves on tree-trunks (as in Marysville) or the evolution of the Mallee root where the tree can be burnt to the ground, the root-ball will regenerate.

There is no natural re-generation of a forest after it has been cleared. Even replanting can't replace the conditions necessary for all the dependent plant, insect and animal life. Logging completely disrupts a natural cycle that cannot be imitated by your "instant forest". There is no replacing a 100 or 400 year old forest. It is gone, forever. The biological diversity is gone forever. Which is why keeping untouched areas of forest is vital if we are to regain diversity in areas which have been cleared. 70 years probably sounds like a long time to you, but in environmental/geological terms it is nothing.

I think you're being disingenuous in relating to '39 regrowth Mark.

1/ By definition '39 regrowth predates industrial logging regimes. If there was a history of previous logging, it would have been hand cut and the logs snigged with bullock teams.

That is no comparison with a bulldozer that churns up feet or even meters of subsoil. What happens to soil stored seed? What happens when clay and acid sulphate soils are brought to the surface? What happens to organic matter at the surface?

Some of the coupes I've seen could only be the work of criminally insane cretins. It's a mystery how these clowns were let loose with anything more dangerous than a soft toy.

2/ Fire is a natural process. It is part of the ecology but these forests don't need holocaust style fires to regenerate. Hot fires might kill 100% but cooler fires may not kill many or even any older trees but will still activate seed in the soil.

Any perceived similarity between a bushfire and clearfell logging is pure confabulation.

Yes Mark, only around 9% of forest is set aside for timber production but that 9% is a moving feast. The industry doesn't want scrubby forests (like 3m mallee), they don't want the stuff they've already flogged (that hasn't, or isn't, regenerating like you'd want), they can't have the stuff in parks that was logged and then turned into parks, they don't want dry forests on rocky north facing slopes... etc etc etc.

The industry has very specific tastes. That's why about 97% of the logging in East Gippsland is focused on elevated wet forests right Mark? It's like a gold rush to plunder the last of the heritage forests but you don't have to worry about a RSPT, you only need to make sure the government keeps subsidising you with public money.

Mr Poynter, I quote,

Re: Old growth and selective harvesting rather than clearfelling:
Most of Tasmania's native forest logging does not involve old growth forest. Where it does, it generally involves old growth wet forest types which require full sunlight and an ash seedbed to regenerate. That is why clearfelling is used, rather than selective harvesting.

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So, Gondwanan temperate rainforest, old growth wet forest, very highly fire sensitive, needs full sunlight and an ash seedbed to regenerate. You make it sound like in a short rotattion it'll be exactly the same. If you know anything about ecology you know how many thousands of years at best it will take for forest of this type to regenerate back to it's former state.

There will always be a rift between old world foresters such as yourself and conservationists because you don't percieve value in the same way. To conservationists it's about it's potential to maintain biodiversity, a home for a wealth of flora and fauna and an uplifting experience to those that feel connection with the natural world. To foresters like yourself, it's a resource to be exploited.
That's why you can't understand how deeply offended and emotional people can get about the destruction of natural beauty and habitat.

I suspect Barnaby Drake said he wanted to head over to France as there as in most of the developed world, there is a greater respect for the natural world, even what's left of their long ravaged landscape. Tasmania has values lost 20,000 years ago in England for example. How can you then condone destroying elements of that just because some other place has done it? Do you not see how special Tasmania's natural places are, or care?

As for this clearfelling of old growth...soooo old school. This is 2010, get over it, the world has moved on. Tasmanians are custodians of rare and special beauty, work from that standpoint and the 2 camps shall meet.

cont

The thinnings operations are a debacle but that's another story as is the effect of knocking out these strategically situated wet forests that have acted as buffers against mega fires for millennia. Wait 'til climate change gets a hold of these tracts of regenerating forests (more like industry spec plantations really) and then we'll see what a mega fire really looks like. 2003 and 2007 were the entree.

Severin @ "There is no replacing a 100 or 400 year old forest. .... The biological diversity is gone forever"
With respect, this is a pretty ignorant comment and goes against decades of research, such as that at the Boola Boola State Forest in Gippsland. This compared regrowth forests stemming from 1930's timber harvesting with unlogged forests, and showed that the biodiversity of both was virtually identical.

Maaate @ "By definition '39 regrowth predates industrial logging regimes"
Not entirely, the logging at Boola Boola (see above) in the late 1930's was equivalent to today's operations in being highly intensive in consolifdated areas producing both sawlogs and pulp for APM Maryvale.

Maaate @ ".... it would have been hand cut and the logs snigged with bullock teams. That is no comparison with a bulldozer that churns up feet or even meters of subsoil"

Your knowledge is very dated. Bulldozers are rarely used now in favour of rubber-tyred skidders that have far less impact on soils. In Vic for the past 20-years a formal and enforcible Code of Practice prohibits logging at the wettest times of the year - it is rare to see soil mixing and rutting as you describe it.

It is a fallacy that old-style logging was better for the environment - there were few rules, so no stream reserves or restriction on timing of operations - it was probably common for snigging to occur along gully beds. Things that have been prohibited for decades.

Maaate @ "... but these forests don't need holocaust style fires to regenerate"
You have no idea .... wet E.regnans forests will only dry out sufficiently to burn under drought conditions and so will only burn in very hot, holocaust-type fires.

Maaate @ "Any perceived similarity between a bushfire and clearfell logging is pure confabulation"
What expertise do have to back this up?

Maate @ "Yes Mark, only around 9% of forest is set aside for timber production but that 9% is a moving feast"
Not true, it is set in legislation that defines and delineates parks and reserves from state forest

1/ I'm not familiar with Boola Boola so I don't know what methods they used at the time but, either way, it's not a example of the predominant methodology of the time. And besides, you wrote specifically of the Black Spur. If we're introducing random examples as general principles I'd like to cite some failed regeneration and extrapolate that all clearfelling regen fails. Keep your eye on the ball Mark.

2/ Are you telling me that there are no bulldozers currently operating in logging coupes Mark? Regardless of whether we're talking dozers or other types of logging machinery, when you've got up to 50 tons of machine, any debate about the disturbance caused by tracks or pneumatic tyres is moot. It's a pity I can't post photos because I'd like to show other readers what a joke your quibble is.

Also, I didn't offer any opinion on old fashioned forestry practices, I merely said there was no comparison between the effect of bullock teams and logging machinery. That said, I have seen some forest that was selectively logged in the distant past and the effect was barely discernible. The same can not be said of the regrowth from the post war industrial logging regimes. I've also seen the results of selective logging on private property and thought the forest was still in great nick.

3/ If E. regnans needs 'holocaust' style fires, why have I seen stands with at least three age classes? Doesn't a 'holocaust' style fire kill regnans? I would suggest the on ground evidence proves that regnans can regenerate with fires that are cool enough for older regnans to survive.