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!

I'm Tasmanian, and I'm not a fan of Gunns. Nor am I a fan of Wilderness Society ferals.

A pox on both their houses.

Does MPoynter really believe, with hand on heart, that Gunns has never been involved in unethical dealings, bullying and misinformation? Or placing undue pressure on governments, or of supplying false figures to reduce the perception of environmental impact?

I am sure there are parties on both sides of the logging/forestry divide that have not always acted with integrity but when looking at the self-interest aspect the greater good is not achieved by the continual logging of old growth forests and a knee-jerk denial reaction of foresters everytime they are called to account for negative impacts of their activity.

To suggest the deception and vested interests are all on the part of the environmentalists lacks substance.

Too right Mikk
"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?"
Oh no, you see it was because of the activist judges!
Anyway, your point (which should really be the conclusion to this debate) will be casually ignored by many- especially the type who will randomly throw out 'claims of misinformation' without specifying an example of the accusations in their slurs, when I think a court ruling is rather more valid assessment than those of a lobbyist or admirer.

Pelican, too right also;
Too many people are blinded by an irrational hatred towards whiny greenies, but would they actually endorse logging just to spite them?
I sincerely hope Australians are more intelligent than that to see the bigger picture. Personally I'd rather the 'greenies' won this one and the local area was spared the mill than to let it continue just to make them feel bad. The opposite attitude to me is "a useful idiot".
But I do confess I am a gigantic advocate of the rights of the NIMBY instead of the rights of an industrial raw-materials processing business who make a less than positive impact on their unwilling neighbors (let alone the logging- for, of all things, pulp).

King Hazza

The major point made by the article is that public perceptions of the Tasmanian forests issue has been founded primarily on misinformation, particularly in the far away mainland capital cities where a largely one-sided view is promolgated in the media. Your response - particularly your apparent linking of the forests issue with the planned pulp mill - simply proves the varacity of this point.

Yes, Gunns are involved in both, but the Tasmanian forests issue is seperate to the pulp mill issue simply because the mill was never going to use wood from 'old growth' forests, and was only planned to initially use some wood from native regrowth forests for several years until such time as sufficient plantations matured to be able to fully supply all the mills'requirements. With the delay in the mill being constructed, it was announced probably a year ago that, if built, the mill would be 100% fed by plantation timbers from day one. Yet, even today this truth is simply ignored or unknown amongst the vast majority of the populace.

Pelican

"Does MPoynter really believe, with hand on heart, that Gunns has never been involved in unethical dealings, bullying and misinformation? Or placing undue pressure on governments, or of supplying false figures to reduce the perception of environmental impact?"

You may or may not be right - but how would we who are not privy to the machinations of the relationship between Gunns and state governments actually know. The answer is that we don't know, yet the ENGOs continue to make such unsubstantiated assertions and they are blindly accepted by the majority who have strong opinions on forestry matters.

On the other hand, it is beyond question that ENGOs have been unethical in this 'debate'. One only has to look at an ENGO website or printed forest campaign materials to see a myriad of examples where they have either lied or misrepresented the true situation to strengthen community sentiment against forestry.

Your reference to "the continual logging of old growth forests" is to me, an example of someone accepting the ENGO view without question. It suggests no understanding on the limits that apply to this activity - namely, there is no old growth logging in QLD, NSW, WA; in Victoria almost all 'old-growth' forest will not be logged, in Tasmania 80-90% won't be logged.

Your assertion that foresters who try to correct misconceptions about logging are engaged in 'knee jerk denial' only serves to further illustrate the point of the article which is that forestry and foresters have been demonised by misinformation.

Mikk

Your comment: "If they (Gunns) had a valid case of misinformation or blackmail then they would have won (the Gunns 20 legal action)wouldn't they?"

That's a pretty simplistic view given that Gunns didn't actually lose the court case. Instead, they simply abandoned it in January 2010 citing a realisation that carrying it through to its end would be a lengthy and expensive process that they wished to avoid, presumably as much as anything because they were already hurting due to the GFC.

By then, Gunns had already settled with all but 4 of the original 20 defendents, some of which just involved a simple apology for their behavior in villifying Gunns. In at least one case, the apologee continued to bag the company.

There is general acknowledgement that Gunns and their lawyers handled the case badly with poorly worded statements of claim, and by attempting to package too many claims into the one legal action.

However, the wash-up of the case is in no way a vindication of the defendants being right. It is undeniable that they were engaged in campaigns against the company, but the case probably shows how difficult and expensive it is to quantify the affect of this on a company's bottom line. Ironically, the later collapse of the company's Japanese woodchip market may have been easier to link to environmental activism, but we'll never know now.

"With regard to its native forest operations, Gunns has never acted illegally or corruptly."

Ha ha ha, that's very funny, but are you serious? This is the same company that bribed a Tasmanian Gov't minister, employed a former Premier (no chance of undue political influence in tiny little Tasmania now is there?), is exempt (along with FT) from FOI legislation, claims it is harvesting sawlogs when in fact everything possible is woodchipped and walked away from the RPDC claiming approval delays were costing it $10million a month. Legislation approving the pulp mill and exempting it from the normal planning approval process was then passed by then Premier Paul Lennon - the same Premier who had Gunns renovate his own home. Three years later there is no progres on the pulp mill but you don't hear Gunns bleating that they are losing $10million a month. This is the same company on whose behalf the Tasmanian Gov't have resumed land along the Tamar Valley Hwy for a 'road expansion' that not only is never going to happen but does follow the route of Gunns' privately owned pulp mill water supply pipeline across PRIVATELY OWNED land which Gunns as another private entity would not normally be able to compulsorily acquire. I could go on and on - the list of corrupt and environmentally disastrous practices by Gunns and their Gov't facilitator Forestry Tasmania are long and known to everyone except (it seems) the author.

Australia, and believe or not, Tasmania, are democratic societies. Moaning that Gov't and Industry (or in this case just industry) should just tell the members of that society to bugger off and accept the Industry's "science" is arrogant in the extreme and demonstrates a profound ignorance by the author of the needs of a mature and functioning democracy. If the people want forests to be left alone 'worth virtually nothing' then that is their choice and their RIGHT. I suspect 'science' will soon enough be available to show these forests are 'worth' far more as functioning forests than as dirty piles of privately owned and taxpayer subsidised woodchips.

'The visual and moral imagery of "saving" beautiful forests from the grim - albeit temporary - devastation of logging...'

There is nothing temporary about the destruction of habitat, mass posioning of native wildlife through the use of 1080 and species extinction that are the products of Tasmanian clearfell woodchipping. Not to mention massive carbon emissions. The spectacle of thousands of log trucks annually plying public roads in Tasmania, the piles of woodchips on wharves in Burnie, Triabunna and elsewhere, the denuded hillsides, the distorting of priorities and the corruption of pulitical life caused by the dominance of logging in Tasmania have trashed the tourism and brand appeal of Tasmania and the morale of its people.

Paulie

You have illustrated the truth of the article's central theme that campaigns against Tasmanian native forestry, including Gunns, have been driven by misinformation.

Like an earlier poster, you have linked Gunns planned plantations-fed pulp mill to its native forest operations, when they are two different issues. Native forests are not going to be used in the pulp mill. Your misconception about this illustrates the success of anti-mill campaigns.

The following is a list of your other misconceptions about Tasmanian native forestry:

"mass posioning of native wildlife" - 1080 was rarely ever used in native forest regeneration - you are confusing this with plantations

"species extinction that are the products of Tasmanian clearfell woodchipping" - There is no evidence of any species extinctions in Australia due to forestry. Clearfelling produces both sawn timber and woodchips.

"Not to mention massive carbon emissions" - Carbon emissions are recouped in subsequent regeneration, and the carbon in the wood products remains stored for variable periods. Also, wood products save infinitely greater carbon emissions where they reduce demand for steel, concrete and aluminium and plastic.

"the denuded hillsides" - Where? You are confusing forestry with land claering for agriculture.

"the distorting of priorities and the corruption of pulitical life caused by the dominance of logging in Tasmania have trashed the tourism and brand appeal of Tasmania and the morale of its people" - I would contend that with respect to native forestry this is due to over-the-top opposition driven by ENGOs who deliberately disregard its scale and extent. Around 75% of Tasmanian public forest won't be used for timber production. When this is recognised, it makes a mockery of unsubstantiated claims about the supposed effect of forestry on democracy and tourism.

The article is not necessarily saying that people should agree with all aspects of Tasmanian native forestry, but is making the point that if people are intent on opposing it let them do so on truthful grounds. If the truth had been known from the start, far more people would be comfortable with Tasmanian native forestry than is currently the case.

'Like an earlier poster, you have linked Gunns planned plantations-fed pulp mill to its native forest operations, when they are two different issues.'

How convenient. Who says they are two different issues? It's the same company with the same corrupt practices facilitated by the same incompetent and compromised Forestry Tasmania isn't it? Gunns has worked ferociously over the last 14 years to destroy as much high conservation old growth forest and replace it with plantations. Does that now mean that these same plantations are now environmentally friendly and sustainable?

'Carbon emissions are recouped in subsequent regeneration'. Oh how simple. What about the massive 'regeneration burns' is that carbon recouped too? These forests will take hundreds of years to 'regenerate' if ever. I don't see too much evidence of huon pine, celery top etc regeneration personally, just like the great kauri forests in NZ and Qld, the red cedars etc have NEVER recovered. There isn't a clear felled forest anywhere in the world which has recovered from clearfell woodchipping, except as a narrow economic resource.

MWPOYNTER, your central argument that Gunns has never acted corruptly or illegally is demonstrably false as the public record attests. Stop repeating your self-serving narrow 'truth' mantra and address the issue

Question- why did such a 'lie' about Gunns not intending to log native forests not get through the court? (which ignores that natural forests would still need to be cleared to make way for the regen forests)
Also, there have been plenty of truthful grounds that locals and people who used the nearby area simply didn't want it as a potential personal detriment.
And this, just as Paulie says, is a perfectly valid ground for preventing this plant from being constructed if we are supposed to be a democracy.

Oh puhleese!

The foresters, whistling while they toil to save our economy (by selling our trees as wood chips), while evil environment groups go behind their backs to drag this promising industry down.

Forestry is the virgin maiden (a billion dollar a year heavily subsidised industry) that is overcome by greasy ferals. International bankers so easily duped and hypnotised by young Aussie environmentalists that they ignore the windfall profits available if they would just loan out a couple billion dollars for 20 years (to a company already in debt for nearly a billion).

What fools they all must be to not trust the likes of Michael Aird, Bryan Green, Paul Lennon, Robin Gray and John Gay. What idiots not to appreciate how Forestry Tasmania cares for the land and the people. What dolts to fail to see the vast profits that eluded Great Southern, FEA, TimberCorp and Gunns.

It takes someone of Mr Poynter’s insight to realise that the bankruptcies, the social odium, the smoking scenery, the rejection by banks all over the world plus the anger of thousands of fleeced MIS investors; these are all the result of outside forces.

What fools we are not to see that forestry is the innocent victim and played no role whatsoever in its own demise.

Paulie and King Hazza

The pulp mill is a separate issue from native forests because it will only use plantation timbers. The article is about native forests, so constant references to the pulp mill are off-topic.

Paulie
“Gunns has worked ferociously over the last 14 years to destroy as much high conservation old growth forest and replace it with plantations”

In the public land estate - which is what the article refers to - Gunns and other companies have harvested ‘old growth’, mature and regrowth native forest and Forestry Tasmania has regenerated most back to native forest. FT has converted some to sawlog plantations, but most gets regenerated as native forest, not as plantation.

“What about the massive 'regeneration burns' is that carbon recouped too?” Yes.

“There isn't a clear felled forest anywhere in the world which has recovered from clearfell woodchipping, except as a narrow economic resource”

What about the million hectares of forest killed in just a few days by 1939 bushfires. They regenerated in the same way as after logging and are now 70-years old. Most are contained in parks and reserves –fire is the threat to them becoming future old growth. Styx valley has magnificent advanced regrowth stemming from intensive harvesting in the late 1930s and 40s.

“MWPOYNTER, your central argument that Gunns has never acted corruptly or illegally is demonstrably false as the public record attests”

I am not necessarily defending Gunns, but the article was talking specifically about native forest operations, not the pulp mill. I agree the public record is full of conjecture about Gunns behavior from people or groups opposing the pulp mill – does that mean it is right?

“I don't see too much evidence of huon pine, celery top etc regeneration personally, just like the great kauri forests in NZ and Qld, the red cedars etc have NEVER recovered”

Red Cedar and Kauri forests were primarily lost to permanent forest clearing for farmland, and Huon Pine was largely lost under hydro-electric dams. Their demise can hardly be blamed on forestry.

The Mikester

It seems that the mere mention of the 'Gunns' word spurs prominent pulp mill opponents into action even when the mill is not part of a discussion about Gunns decision to exit native forests.

The financial failings of the MIS plantations industry is also irrelevant to this discussion.

Yes, banks and financial institutions rejected Gunns and the GFC played a part, but the point is that this was far more likely when the company's reputation has been so demonised by decades of misrepresentation of their activities.

With regard to native forests, there is no doubt that the company's activities and Tasmanian forestry in general have been badly misrepresented to the broader community, as well as investors and company stakeholders. You only have to read some of the previous posts to this article to see that forestry stands wrongly accused of all kinds of impacts due to concerted campaigns of misinformation.

This has occurred over a long period and has specifically targeted Gunns and Tasmania. Eventually Japanese customers rejected Tasmanian woodchip exports, while during the same period exports of the same product from NSW and Victoria were virtually unaffected.

The issue is not so much Gunns departure from native forests as the opportunity this has presented to permanantly and substantially reduce Australia's native timber harvest - surely a madness given the far worse environmental implications of importing more timbers from the Third World and encouraging greater use of steel, concrete, etc.

But these regrowth forests would first require the clearing of an existing forest space to use. Hence the old growth accusation is perfectly valid.

And that's only the (old) forest preservation side of the reasons why people opposed it.

King Hazza
As I said earlier, the community has every right to disagree with forestry activities such as the logging of 'old growth' forests. However, thus far, this disagreement has been driven by misrepresentation, particularly of its scale and extent.

Understandably the community strongly supports closing the timber industry when it is repeatedly told or given the impression that Tasmania will lose its old growth forests to woodchipping. However, the communnity would be far more comfortable with the timber industry if it was widely appreciated that 80-90% of Tasmanian old growth forest is reserved and will never be logged, and that the logging that does take place produces high quality sawn timber as well as woodchips.

That may be a relief for the broader community, though the local community deserves the right to still be unhappy about it- even if that means they simply use the space within the general area.

MWPoynter

Did you create the title for your article?:

"Gunns capitulates to misinformation and bullying"

Kind of like saying "Murdoch's Newscorp capitulates to misinformation and bullying"

Projection?

Much.

When I stop laughing I may post a few FACTS about Gunns.

Severin

Good question: The title that I recommended was "Gunns capitulates to misinformation and corporate bullying"

The omission of the word 'corporate' from the published headline is important, as the article is only discussing the company's decision to exit native forests and the forcing of the company's direction in that context. I may try and get it reinstated now that you have pointed this out to me.

By all means post a few FACTS about Gunns, but perhaps you should read the article first before you go off-topic down the pulp mill path. Talk about the Gunns 20 court case perhaps, but remember that this was an attempt (admittedly poorly handled) to bring to account those wilfully engaged in spreading misinformation and damaging the company's reputation and bottom line.

There is much in the history of Gunns Ltd that will not bode well for their futures.
With a huge reliance upon Forestry Tasmania for logs for all its purposes, inc wood-chips, a lot of questionable actions were taking place.
There are now mighty inroads going into the Tarkine Forest area, this is via Forestry Tasmania harvesting Old Growth Forests, (or whatever new term is in vogue to describe this type of Ancient Wonderland Forest.
In my having revelled in the magnificent splendour of the Tarkine some 2 years ago, it can no longer be seen in that same wonderful light.
Yes there are still Logged products coming from this area and yes it to largely feed Gunns chip mills until the completed transition time is upon them.

A major concern to all this logging for Gunns, is that this is still carried out by this State's Forestry Arm of Forestry Tasmania, so they to must share in the ongoing displeasure as aimed at Gunns, for they are ever demanding to send off to Gunns all that of whatever remnants of Native Forest they still harvest, to send these logs off to Gunns at this current time, always to the beat of the Gunns drum.

Yet another example of the misinformation campaign against Tasmania’s forest sector is in the previous comment referring to an area known as the Tarkine that was added to the interim list of the National estate in 1992.

The National estate listed area is between the Arthur and Pieman rivers and extends from the coast to virtually the Murchison Highway and surrounds Tasmania’s largest open cut iron ore mine at Savage River. About one third of the area was granted as a forest concession to be the feedstock to Burnie’s pulp mill in 1926.

Because of the Regional Forest Agreement’s national estate assessment the area (now stated by the Commonwealth as 332,000 ha) was added to the Register of the National Estate (RNE) in 2002.

In addition to the existing Arthur Pieman Conservation Area, Savage River NP and other existing reserves were created by the RFA. The Savage River NP holds Australia’s largest contiguous area of temperate rainforest. The 2004 Federal election forest deal added more reserves totalling 73,512 hectares, resulting in formal reservation of about 308,000 hectares.

The RFA provided for continued timber harvesting for sawlog, special species and pulp wood outside these reserves that cover 87% of the National Estate area.

Areas outside this reserve system do not contain the same high conservation values. Most of these areas continue to be managed for timber production, as they have done for over a century, with over 40 small sawmills in the area by 1930.

Yet despite forestry and mining activity there is a proposal to expand the area by 35% to 447,606 ha, an area now emergency listed on the National Heritage list due to a tourist road proposed by the State Government. This ‘new’ 131 km tourist road has since been dropped by the green labour State Cabinet but was to have sealed existing forestry roads and bridge infrastructure, some additional access roads for tourist facilities, and new linking road of only 5.4 km.

The 308,000 ha of reserves ensures the “magnificent splendour’ of the Tarkine is not threatened by either tourist of ‘logging’ roads.