So radical conservationists give environmentalism a bad name and clear felling woodchippers give foresters a bad name. The uncompromising views of both sides deserve criticism. People like the author may have been consistent rational voices but the worst of the timber industry - that has been engaged in asset stripping for a long time - seems, to the public, to be unscrutinised by anyone but the radical greens.

Not all blame should be placed upon uncompromising and ill-informed radical greens; the industry itself has allowed and encouraged big industrial clear felling and made it clear they oppose any kind of restrictions on the basis of environmental impacts or sustainability of their practices.

The stupid three mines uranium policy has had one good effect. It meant that there was more uranium still in the ground to dig up, & sell, now that more rational policies prevail. Prices are better too.

What do you reckon? Will it be 10 20 or 50 years before we start cutting down these Forrests to feed out cooking fires.

When I was a kid, my family went out to an acquaintance's property, once a month, where he was clearing 500 acres for grazing. We would load a trailer load of timber for the stove, & the wood heater. I still have some of the muscles developed chopping up those logs into stuff to feed the stove.

If the greenies get their way, & get coal out of our power stations, even they will be gathering wood. Boy, wouldn't "I like to see that".

Nah! just as they went to water about dams, when lack of the stuff threatened their comfortable life, they will do the same with coal & electricity. We'll have to wait until we can't afford to import wood, for sense to prevail. By then, much of the standing timber will be useless for lumber, due to age.

Simon
Congratulations for writing one of the best articles on this topic.

Ken Fabos
".... but the worst of the timber industry - that has been engaged in asset stripping for a long time....."

Please explain. With regards to public native forests, the timber industry operates in legislated portions under regulations administered by state government agencies which decide where they operate, how much wood they take, and how they log. Not sure how they can assett strip under these circumstances.

".... the industry itself has allowed and encouraged big industrial clear felling and made it clear they oppose any kind of restrictions on the basis of environmental impacts or sustainability of their practices."

Sadly, this is straight out of the ENGO anti-forestry song-book. As per above, with regard to native forests on public land (which is where the ENGO campaigns are focussed) it is state government agencies (not the industry) who determine how forests are logged in accordance with silvicultural characterics which determine how best to regenerate them.

The industry operates under regulations such as Codes of Practice designed and administered by foresters specifically to minimise environmental impacts and ensure sustainability. I've yet to see the timber industry oppose this regulation.

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It's revealing what attitudes an article like this brings out of the woodwork. The article did point the finger at the environmental NGOs, and so one would expect to see some reactionary anti-forestry diatribe in response. But being down on environmental extremism isn't the same as being in favour of forestry extremism, which is what appears to drive some of the responses. It's a myth, for instance (in most cases at least), that logging a forest is 'good for the forest's nature'. But it's a truth that native forest management (meaning not just the act of logging but the whole set of management and policy systems in place around this) is not nearly as bad for its nature as the environmentalists make out; and - importantly - helps offset the societal need to get our wood products (from firewood to veneer, via toilet paper and construction timber) from elsewhere at higher ecological cost, as well as offsetting the use of resource- and energy-intensive alternatives such as concrete and steel. Of course, if society globally didn't place such demands on the planet's resources, we might not be having this debate. The article demonstrates just how 'grey' an area this is - not the black-and-white that extremists of either persuasion believe.