Mark,
I've come to the conclusion that anti-forestry (including plantation) arguments are not based on environmental science but are based on morals or ethics. It's up there with other intractable issues such as abortion, the Middle East and rural/city conflict. As such, people believe what they want to believe; they accuse relevant experts as being in the pocket of big business and therefore having no credibility; and will believe anything that strengthens with their previously held beliefs. This is a tragedy.

Even this week, I heard on the news that Australia is facing a biodiversity crisis. Forestry was not mentioned at all in news reports of this issue. But State Governments still play the 'parks' card at every election rather than do something real for the environment, and ENGO's continue to play this game rather than campaign on real issues based on science. So not only do our governments let us down but the self-appointed environmental guardians are also failing us.

Theactions of activists of all stripes has certain similarities with those of the Bolsheviks - a tiny group that managed to take over Russia. If the science and statistics agree with their previously decided position, then its factual and well based and the scientists and statisticians concerned are heroes. If the science does not agree with that position, then its been funded by oil and chemical companies, and never mind what the public record actually says.
If the law is on their side it must be obeyed by everyone. If its not, then they have a moral obligation to break it.. The key point is their previously agreed position - justice, equity, common senes, or the overall good of the forest and/or the community does not enter into the issue at all.

Poor poor Gunns.
Done over by the mean old greenies.
More petulant losers who cant get over the fact that they were wrong and we were right.
Not to mention the hypocrisy of saying anyone bullies Gunns. They were the biggest bullies of all with their court cases and political shenanigans.

I applaud Gunns for seeing the light and stopping their rape of our native forests and will be looking out to patronise their products in the future to reward them.

Mikk

I think you will find that the Gunns 20 legal action was an attempt by the company to counter the very campaigns of misinformation and 'brand mailing' that this article is referring to.

MWPOYNTER

And if I remember rightly they failed in that too.
If they had a valid case of misinformation or blackmail then they would have won wouldn't they?

Their court cases were the same as this article. An attempted smear and confuse campaign.

Good on Gunns for turning their back on such underhand and illegitimate attempts to influence and hoodwink the public.

Mark, I checked that annual report from the wilderness society and they do boast about their harassment of that European pulp company and how they trashed Tasmania’s reputation. The report also shows the society got $15 million dollars in revenue most from tax payer subsidised donations.

This compares to only $3 million in fund raising they made in 2002, the year they started their campaign against Gunns. No wonder the former ACF Chief Executive Trisha Caswell, told the Business Review Weekly way back in January 1995."Forest issues are the best weapon to generate membership and donations, the Green movements' lifeblood".

A major funder of the Wilderness Society’s campaign against Gunns has been the Reichstein foundation that bankrolled the creation of “community" groups against the pulp mill to be sited in the Tamar Valley heavy industrial estate, despite being a charity created to support workers and their families in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

The ENGOS opposed this mill despite it being located far from Tasmania’s World Heritage area, having no impact on the 1.9 million ha of high quality wilderness and not using any pulp wood from ‘old growth forests’. A campaign of misinformation despite the CSIRO assessing that the mill would have no impact on air pollution, and one of the Wilderness Society’s own scientists verifying it would have no impact on the marine environment, the ENGOs and celebrity gardeners continue to shovel ‘manure’ on the modern elemental chlorine free pulp mill that will create downstream value adding using world’s best technology.

Talking of manure, the green's protesters are now dumping their own on police rescue; see http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/24/3020744.htm just as they did at Farmhouse Creek 25 years ago.

Clearly this outrageous action is almost as bad as the manure peddled by the Rainforest Action Network when they used an image of a hydro lake (page 25) at low level as an example of Gunns forest management in its 2007 brand mailing document released to unsuspecting Japan’s customers falsely entitled “The Truth Behind Tasmanian Forest Destruction And The Japanese Paper Industry"

Its time these ENGOs were exposed!