Saltpetre

A thoughtful post - but a couple of points need to be made.

Your suggestion that the timber industry needs to demonstrate that it is trustworthy suggests you have been seduced by the decades of forest activism that has gone before. The industry's activities on public lands (which is where it mostly operates) are controlled and regulated by State Government forestry agencies. So, your lack of trust relates to them and their staff who are trained in forestry and environmental management and do not go to work each day to make a profit out of producing timber.

Your comment about Tasmania's bees is interesting, but I would contend that harvesting forests and then regenerating them to regrow as new forests would have little overall effect, particularly when it is recognised that 75% of Tassie's public forests are in land tenures or are of types that will not be logged.

You are also still inclined to include Australia as a 'minor part of a growing global problem' of deforestation, yet with regard to forestry, it plays no part because of the requirement to regenerate on both public and private lands. I think you will find there is already massive plantation expansion going on in places like Indonesia and China.

The other point I nwould make is that timber production has always played a substantial role in forest fire management by generating revenue to build and maintaining access into the forest, and fund protective activities such as fuel reduction burning, and assisting in bushfire control. The loss of these functions by needlessly closing a small natural resource industry, will ultimately have by far the most devasting effects on Australia's forest ecosystems.

MWPOYNTER, Thank you for your informative response.

I think you may well be right in that my dissatisfaction might well be more accurately directed at the various State Government forestry agencies, rather than at our timber industry. Hopefully foresight will prevail and this worthwhile industry may thrive productively and sustainably long into the future. There appears to be a common understanding that environment and habitat are important to all concerned, and as long as there is genuine cooperation it is fully feasible that all interests may be well served.

As a member of the NSW RFS, as a volunteer, I and my fellows appreciate the contribution of the timber industry to the provision of access fire trails to facilitate hazard reduction and fire control activities, and the contribution this then makes to the preservation of vulnerable forest habitats. I wish we had a little more cooperation in this regard from National Parks, who seem to have an unrealistic reluctance to pursue timely asset protection hazard reduction. We will just have to keep working on this.

The preservation of the bees is of particular concern because of the vital role they play in food production, and the key interest in their preservation is that only certain forests, and certain portions of those forests, are essential to survival of the bee industry. Hence, the interests of the bee-keepers have to be given the highest priority in the allocation of logging permits - because the bee industry is under threat worldwide from infection, viral attack and from the wide use of agricultural pesticides. It appears that this concern has not always been given the necessary priority by these various government agencies. Hence, the need for vigilance while there is still time to save this vital industry - potentially more vital than we may yet fully appreciate.