Maaate
@ "If we're introducing random examples as general principles I'd like to cite some failed regeneration and extrapolate that all clearfelling regen fails"

So you would prefer it if there were no examples - obviously its easier for you to keep arguing a point if there aren't examples. Sorry about that.

@ "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"

No its not actually - have you ever seen the difference?

@ "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"

So, you implied that old fashioned forestry was better - that sounds like an opinion to me.

@ " I have seen some forest that was selectively logged in the distant past and the effect was barely discernible"

Very good, but as I said earlier, you can't easily regenerate the most productive wet forest types unless you clearfell, burn and sow.
You can thin them in their regrowth stage though, where there is no requirement for regeneration because you are retaining a good stocking of trees on site. This is different to selectively logging mature forest - if trees won't regenerate in the gaps they will regenerate to scrub and you eventually have a degraded forest as the retained old trees gradually die - unless of course, a fire comes along at some stage and stimulates a new regrowth event.

@ "If E. regnans needs 'holocaust' style fires, why have I seen stands with at least three age classes?"

Where are these stands?

MWPOYNTER

>> This is different to selectively logging mature forest - if trees won't regenerate in the gaps they will regenerate to scrub and you eventually have a degraded forest as the retained old trees gradually die - unless of course, a fire comes along at some stage and stimulates a new regrowth event. <<

Over what time frame? Natural clearings occur when mature trees fall, the infiltration of scrub into those zones are a part of forest evolution, unless the process is altered by fire. Selective logging emulates that procedure, although the difference is that nutrients that would normally return to the eco-system are not replaced. Therefore it takes longer for forest to recover from selective logging than for natural tree fall.

However, to use your statement above as an excuse to clear fell is simply absurd. There is no bio-diversity left to regenerate the forest. There is also the issue of time - you argue as if forests can re-establish themselves within a few decades - they don't. Forests require far longer than your life-span - you have no understanding of ecology, a victim no doubt, of your industry's propaganda.

There is no justification for clear-felling and selective logging requires careful tending of the area from which the trees were taken, from monitoring the recovery of the loss of the tree through to restoring the damage done by logging trucks.

That the majority of clear-felled trees wind up as wood chips, when other fast growing crops, such as bamboo and hemp can provide equivalent products, is heinous.

As humans learn more and technology creates new industries, old industries either adapt or fail. Clear-felling is old technology, our environment cannot sustain it. Either move into forest management or move on out of the forests altogether.

PS

I, unlike you, have refrained from casting personal insults. I have also demonstrated that I am far from ignorant as you claim. Insulting one's opponent indicates that you are losing this debate when all you can do is resort to ad hominems.

I couldn't post this yesterday as I'd reached my quota of comments at OO:

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

The old "appeal to authority" fallacious argument. Is that your best shot? If you need to question my expertise it tells me you're out of puff. Anyone who has walked through a bushfire burnt forest and a coupe after logging and regen burn can see the difference.

5/ *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*

The corollary of your argument is that 91% of public forest is in reserves. Is that correct Mark?

What about the "Special Management Zones" in multiple use forest, are areas in these zones permanently protected from logging? Or can that protection be removed with the stroke of pen?

The area with at least 3 age classes of E.regnans is at Cambarville. I haven't been there recently but seeing as it is at the eastern flank of the 2009 fires it may have been relatively unscathed. I wouldn't be surprised if it soon has four generations of Mountain Ash in the one stand.

This industry obsession with trying to tie E. regnans regeneration to extreme fire events is solely about creating a false impression in the public mind. If people believe this lie they will be more inclined to accept clearfelling as a legitimate forestry technique. The whole myth is nothing more than propaganda generated to rationalise the commercial expedience of a grotesquely destructive logging practice.

More important is that it is doubtful that any eucalypt species found in wet forests actually need extreme fire events to regenerate at all. Again I know of many sites where different aged specimens of the one species are found together which unequivocally disproves the deceitful inference that forests need to be apocalyptically clearfelled and incinerated to regenerate.

Perhaps we need a picture book to get over the ridiculous claims that forests do not regenerate after clear felling.
Why not go to the United Nations FAO site http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/ae542e/ae542e08.htm#bm08.3 where you can scroll down and see the forest renewed after harvest in the Picton in southern Tasmania.

Why not read some of the story on the site for an independent view on forest management in Tasmania.

If you like facts and figures about how the well the forest regenerates after logging, then why not study the list of high conservation value coupes supplied to the FSC. The list and maps supplied by the conservation movement includes 45,000 ha of forest that has been clear felled, burned and regenerated in the past 30 years, see http://www.forestrytas.com.au/branchline/branchline-june-10-2010/facts-on-the-table

Or why not have a look at Styx or Florentine Valley allocated for timber harvesting in the 1930s to the 1990’s to feed the pulp mill at Boyer or the one third of the Tarkine that was managed as feedstock for the Burnie Pulp mill for the same period.

This evidence shows that forests are renewed after harvest, and that harvesting does not destroy their environmental values, clearly the productive forest of Tasmania is living proof that the best place to grow renewable wood products that we use every day is in a forest using science to build upon nature’s success.

Perhaps Mark is right to suggest we need to get out from behind the computer, and go and visit these forests to see the long term minimal impact to biological diversity of harvesting.

Of course be aware of false images that are claimed to be forestry, like the one used by Get Up to harass the banks, it turns out that was a photo shopped image of the exposed bank of Lake King William, a hydro lake, when at a summer low levels.

Maaate

Yes, 91% of Victoria's forests are reserved either formally in national, state or regional parks and other conservation reserves, informally in State Forest Special Protection Zones and Special Management Zones, in operational management reseves such as streamside buffers in accordance with the Code of Practice, or are effectively reserved by being steep, rocky, inaccessible, or unsuitable in terms of species or growth.

Most of these can't be changed by the stroke of a pen - the only one that could is Special Management Reserves which theoretically under some circumstances can be partially used, but aren't as far as I'm aware. In any event, can you see any politician making that pen stroke in the prevailing political climate? I don't think so.

" If you need to question my expertise it tells me you're out of puff"

You, still didn't answer my question. Your funny ideas about fire and ecology suggest your opinions are based on homespun anecdotes and observations, which is OK, but they are hardly deserving of the self-righteous authority with which you convey them, particualrly given that they are largely at odds with decades of research stretching back to the early 1960s Thesis by Ron Grose into the regeneration of ash eucalypts.

You are right though - I am out of puff and have better things to do than sit behind my computer endlessly trying to respond to your theories - you obvously aren't going to believe me when you know you are right.

If you are really interested in this, why don't you contact VicForests and ask if one of their foresters can take you around and explain what is going on.

Cinders and Mark - it doesn't matter what you tell Tweedle dee (Maaate) and Tweedle Dum (Severin) - they have a closed mind. Maaate reckons he has got dirt on his boots and walked in the bush and can read a forest just like a professional forester and tell us what is so "obvious" - I love these armchair experts on the ecology of forests - their ignorance is such a joy to read. They look at a forest (most sitting in the car seat) and think it has been the same for ages and is pristine etc etc. Just like those millions of hectares of "pristine" forests in northern NSW that were converted to National Parks - no recognition of the past logging that created these beuatiful "pristine" forests.

I have a question of Maaaate and Severin - if logging is as bad as you 2 suggest, can you please name just one animal or plant that has become extinct from logging practices? I am not after a species that is hypothetically or supposedly on the brink of extinction due to a rapacious logging industry, but rather an unqualified and known species extinct due to logging. Nor am I interested in a rant on how logging destroys and changes the structure of forests and the animals suffer terribly etc etc. I just want one known species extinct from logging.