As a boy I was told similar stories about the poor bear-cub or rabbit who died because I wouldn't eat my soup.

How much did the government pay you, David, directly or otherwise, for placing this story on OLO with the intent of making us all feel guilty, thus justify the government's existence and coercive actions?

Sometimes, to find real value, we need to cut through the mindless utilitarianism that plagues the modern mind. David Leigh's account of a single majestic tree does this eloquently.

The responses are interesting too. Cinders and Mark Poynter remind me of two yapping lapdogs prancing around the carcass of a giant vanquished by their master. There's something perverse and repulsive in these antics. When a dignified silence is called for, perhaps some recognition of a great natural resilience and beauty, they regale us with asinine whining.

The last time I engaged with my old sparring partner Mark, on his misleading use of statistics relating to forests, and the farcical proposition that clearfelling forest sequesters carbon, he did a runner.

Check it out... http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/use-up-to-date-research/show_comments

The author should be aware that not all trees live indefinitely in the absence of man. Many fall over time for natural reasons, viz. blown over by gales, struck by lightning, crowded out by other trees, tree rot, vermin attack, etc

Mark, the term “High Conservation Old Growth Forest was, as you so rightly point out, invented by environmentalists. That was out of sheer frustration from the forest industry changing the rules to suit themselves. “Old Growth, as now defined in Tasmania, is forest that has had some re-growth in the past 100 or so years. Even if a lighting strike has caused enough damage to create re-growth it is no longer defined as old growth. In the protected Tarkine Wilderness area, there were no Eucalypt species, just Myrtle as a canopy and Blackwood, Sass-A-Fras and leatherwood as an under story plus forest floor vegetation. According to the Tasmanian forest industry, if a forest has more than 6% Eucalypt it is also no longer “Old Growth” or ancient forest. I did note, when I last visited the Tarkine, huge areas of old growth forest being clear-felled and converted to Eucalypt. One wonders how long it will be before the 6% mark is reached and it becomes open slather in the Tarkine, especially as Mr Burke has now given the green light for mining in the area.
There are so many changes to the rules, where Tasmanian forestry is concerned that environmentalists have to keep inventing new terms, in order to save the forests from the greedy destruction. Most Tasmanians, myself included, do not have a problem with logging of native forests. It is the scale and sheer waste of the Tasmanian operations that sickens environmentalists. In a typical logging coupe, around 96% of all trees clear-felled end up at the wood chipper and only 4% are used as saw logs. It is true that some of the smaller and less attractive logs go to china, because the Chinese have managed to find a way of using them for solid wood products (that does not say much for Tasmanian ingenuity).

maate

If coming to a conclusion that it is pointless to continue engaging with someone such as yourself who argues irrationally and deceptively, is dismissive of facts and relies on conspiracy theories, as well as being borderline abusive, .... then I suppose I am guilty as charged of doing 'a runner' as you put it. Some of us have better things to do, and it is time-consuming to do the factual homework for the likes of you, only for it to be simply ignored.

All that people such as Cinders and myself are trying to do is put forth a little perspective in regard to often outrageously errant claims such as the central implication of David Leigh's article that logging is destroying the Blue Tier's forests. Clearly this can't be true if 80 - 90% are already reserved and will not be logged. If David had researched the subject properly and included all the facts, we would have no need to comment.

Rather than pristine forest the area around the Blue Tier particularly Lottah, is hardly undisturbed as this historical photo demonstrates: http://catalogue.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/item/?subject=Lottah&i=9&id=PH30-1-1883

What MWPoynter is referring to is the statement from the IPCC which is easy to find and quote:
“In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.”

It seems nonsense to continue to quote or publish poorly researched articles from the Tasmanian times. When such a publication is clearly conflicted by the green groups opposition to the pulp mill despite it saving over a million tonnes of Greenhouse gas and meeting the Independent expert group detailed assessment that it’s treated waste water will have NO adverse environmental impact on Bass Strait. One of these experts used to be a key member of the Wilderness society’s wild country Science Panel.

The other half of the green movement want to trade their support for the pulp mill for locking up another 600,000 ha of native forests to expand the 1.4 million ha forest reserve that exists today including the best bits of the Blue Tier.

They are now supporting plantations despite only recently supporting the ABC's flawed Australian Story that claimed plantations near the Blue Tier were poisoning the water at nearby St Helens.