Mikester … a few thoughts on some of your recent comments

@ “On water, trees have root systems that are 15m long and penetrate deep into groundwater … which is totally different to … wheat or peas for farmers”.

Plantation trees rarely root that deeply nor often access groundwater aquifers. Site characteristics, such as the depth to rock or impermeable clays determines root depth - often not much deeper than a couple of metres.

Charging plantations for rainwater: Many ag crops also have high water usage - would they be charged as well? What about farmers growing trees or fruit growing enterprises based on trees or shrubs? What about private native forests managed for timber? You need to think this through.

@ “Roads and bridges are put in by Forestry Tasmania, maintenance is carried out by Councils who pay the expense from general revenues. The public pays for both.”

You are confused between Shire roads and forest roads on public land. As I said earlier, forest roads are used for a range of public purposes such as fire management. When used for timber production the industry pays a road levee, while timber royalties paid to the government help fund the maintenance of roads and bridges. Wake up.

@ “It seems that all you are doing is restating internal forestry industry propaganda, telling the world what you tell yourselves”

Well that’s a pretty weak response isn’t it.

@ “How do you explain all the forestry failures recently?”

Global financial crisis, rising Green political influence, and the poisoning of Tasmania’s traditional Japanese woodchip market. Why does the Victorian industry have no trouble selling native forest woodchips into the same markets?

“Too many forestry people ….. are convinced that all arguments against forestry must somehow be false, …”

Most of them are either false or hugely exaggerated eg. your article’s claim of overloaded log trucks or poisons in our water. Why can’t you accept that forestry people might actually know what’s going on in their own field of expertise? Wake up.

Continued .....

@ “Communities don't need to understand forestry to understand its impacts upon them any more than a pedestrian injured by a car needs to understand the car's workings to understand their injury”

That’s OK if they only outline their concerns. But once they actively campaign to force change that can affect the livelihoods of thousands of people, they assume a responsibility to act with integrity in arguing their case. This requires an understanding of forestry.

Pushing for change by repetitively regurgitating arguments despite their flaws being frequently pointed out by forestry authorities is deceitful, and anyone involved will have blood on their hands if Tasmania’s economic and environmental situation worsens as a result.

@ “If you want to get rid of forest 'waste', why not mulch it in Bartlett's food bowl. It's forestry that's hit the wall, not the community. Wake up”

This is the sort of response I was hoping for as it emphasises the importance of actually knowing something about what you are trying to change. Doing away with a woodchip industry that generates revenue from waste timber, and replacing it with a process such as mulching which, even if logistically possible, would cost a fortune, is hardly good economic management.

Yet economic viability is central to your arguments against the current forestry sector. To agitate for major change that would put people on welfare as well as introduce a massively expensive replacement process is about as economically irresponsible as it could get. Wake up.

I’m not naive enough to believe that the current situation won’t force some sort of change, but that it occurs won’t necessarily equate to it being right or even sensible.

Also, no change short of virtually dismantling the forestry sector will appease those disaffected by forestry simply because they have been fed such a grab-back of irrational and imagined ills - frequently and unquestioningly repeated by the likes of yourself - that they will only ever be satisfied by the complete cessation of native forestry and the bulldozing of plantations. How good would that be for Tasmania?

Well Mark, you have convinced me that it is wrong to express community concerns.

Confused about roads - there's me thinking that log trucks damaged Council roads just because the Council people say so, and just because we can see the damage. Stupid of me.

Fact is, the community is lucky to have you taking our money and our trees.

No matter the communities' concerns, forestry has the right to do pretty much what it likes while we pay whenever they need money.

We should just shut up and accept what you tell us. Why think for ourselves when we can just believe you?

Bankruptcy of so many 'sustainable' companies is clearly just a blip.

When it comes right down to it there can be no better use for trees than as fibre. You're not really clearfelling for chips, it's just a bit of waste used after processing real timbers. We've never been into the forests to see it happening, nor watched log trucks dump valuable myrtle, sassafras etc into the chipper - and even if we had we'd be wrong.

And of course you are totally right that mulching would be impossible. I mean, why try to use a resource when you can just burn it? As you say, that's more economic. What was I thinking?

Of course communities shouldn't have the right to campaign against the damage they imagine is being done to them by forestry. What should happen? Horsewhipping perhaps? Or just wipe out anyone who objects to forestry? Why wait?

The key that I'd missed but that is clear from your post is that forestry experts like you define what activities forestry should engage in, not communities. Like the Forest Practices Tribunal who judge public grievances against forestry and always find in favour of forestry (the illusion that this violates the age old principles of natural justice is another example of community unreasonableness), you are the appropriate judge of the validity of community arguments and complaints.

You tell us when we're wrong, when we 'repetitively regurgitate arguments' that are 'flawed'. Your word is enough.

OK

Mikester

You forgot to add that Mark regales us of these forestry factoids out of a sense of duty and altruism, never because he has vested interests.

;P

Mikester
Roads: You still don't acknowledge that Council roads were originally constructed to service agricultural areas, which they still do, as well as providing access to rural communities. If they are also used for timber production, as I've already earlier, the industry pays a levee to assist their routine upkeep.

Granted, there are times when log cartage does obvious damage which requires a level of repair exceeding routine maintenance. In my experience in such cases the industry is required to bring the road back to its pre-existing condition.

Community concerns: I have never denied that there are community concerns, but for every person that is disaffected due to some personal involvement with forestry (eg. live near a forest where some operation has occurred which they disagree with), there are probably 1,000 people who have no personal experience of forestry, but have been convinced to be disaffected by misinformation which grossly exaggerates threats or simply raises imagined threats - your article includes several of these. Is this a valid basis for major change in forestry or any industry for that matter?

@ "We should just shut up and accept what you tell us"

I am just providing an alternate view - but one informed by a 30-years of experience in forestry. Shouldn't this carry some credence?

Using the health system as an analogy, would you respect the views of disaffected patients more than the knowledge and experience of doctors and nurses who work in the system? I doubt it, yet somehow you regard forestry in a different light.

You assume that every grievance against forestry is valid and right. Some are, but clearly many arise because of unreal expectations of threat associated with the spread of misinformation, or are just ideological objections regardless of how activities are conducted.

In such cases, how can the industry mitigate concerns short of just walking away. If they reacted that way to every grievance they wouldn't survive - and this is clearly what many of its critics are striving for

Severin
Yes, I have a vested interest though being academically trained in forestry and then working in the forestry sector for around 30-years in government agencies, the private sector, and as a self-emplyed consultant. My informed contribution to the debate should be respected rather than dismissed just because I work in this field.

Perhaps you could show a bit of ticker and step out from behind your anonymity so we can assess your level of expertise and your pecuniary interest. Perhaps you are a paid environmental activist? Come-on, stop being a coward.