A retirement village in a national park sounds pretty good to me. Therefore a lot of Tasmanian locals actually support the Greens vision. As to those who don't I'd ask how long can you expect to keep chopping down 400 year old trees? The loggers essentially had the 20th century to switch from old growth to plantation yet they failed to see the writing on the wall.

The thinking behind a wood fired power station is flawed. For starters it relies on massive amounts of diesel to transport the wood waste. Ideally the ash should be spread back on the forest floor to conserve nutrients. If that generates a carbon credit under some strange reasoning there's really no point if it excuses more coal burning. Alternatively if the trees and litter simply fall to the ground the average amount of stored carbon is much higher.

Here's another point about old growth logging; tourists hate it. It's not only unsustainable but it harms other industries. The only future for forestry is growing plantation timber on former sheep paddocks.

I often wonder what Tasmania will be like once the logging stops, and all the logging and forestry industry disappear.

It must be great for the folks down there, who know that regardless of what happens, they have income from taxation from the rest of Australia to sustain them.

Of course, there will be all those wonderful new green jobs available, just around the corner, any minute now.

Hospitality industry, yes, a little, but most people want to go somewhere warmer not colder unless you're hardy bush-walker type. Do they really think that if logging is stopped, it will bring tourists?

It would be great to see Tasmania prosperous, but it just seems to be spiraling into a depressing place, obsessed with itself but unable to fund itself any longer.

A retirement home, sure, I can just see all the greenie eco types staying once the gravy train ends.

I grew up in the Mid North Coast of NSW where land grants were given for agriculture at the same time as the Timber industry were clear felling the areas. My father farmed there for several years as did my uncle nearby. If you return there today the whole area is dense rainforest that supports the hardwood timber and building industries. New growth forests absorbs huge amounts of CO2 and is totally sustainable.

Just 14 years ago I was involved on a private farm on John's River where 60 hectare of land was replanted to hardwood. Timber is a regrowth industry, hugging 400 year old trees is not sustainable, and is merely an attempt to destroy a local economic industry.

Using the dubious Q & A program from Tasmania as a “snap shot of what Tasmanians think” is really quite humorous.
The program is so preloaded with only questions that are “sound” being allowed and the audience is chosen for the reaction that is required by the ABC.
The next thing will be a demand that the results of the Audience reaction are used to define future policy.
Re the trial ling by FT of Biomass for power, well it is obvious to blind Freddy that once the idea is accepted, it will be open slather for any tree growing to be used for power generation as a “renewable energy source”
FT would be ecstatic with this and would cheerfully forget all about chipping and saw logs so they could concentrate on clear felling everything for this new source of income.
Sorry to be such a wet blanket Mark but the business as usual for the Forest is just not an option.
There is no, way that it can continue with now arrived peak oil limiting the economic operations of the present FT practice.
That is apart from the continuing and worsening GFC.

I wonder what the rest of Australia will be like after the big mining boom fades away?
It must be great for the folks who live in non-mining areas and cities, who know that regardless of what happens, they have income from the taxation of the miners to sustain them.
Of course all those wonderful new green jobs, providing food for the mainland where there will be very little water and less topsoil will be just around the corner.
Hospitality industry, yes a little but that will go for all of the rest of Australia after peak oil hits and the GFC squeezes harder.

Here's a bright idea- why don't you actually ask the locals what they want (referendum), instead of assuming that deep down what they want is what the Institute of Foresters of Australia wants?

hazza, for once, I totally agree .. and think the forestry thing in Tasmania, apart from timber for housing, is just a dumb idea.

It distracts from all other potential business and industry down there to the point no one want to invest.

Maybe if forestry goes, they WILL actually develop other industries, I mean, buggy whip manufacturers eventually moved on didn't they.

I wonder how great it will be after Australia turns against sectional enviro-interests who think they know best?
It must be comforting for the folks who live day to day lives, who know that regardless of what happens, there will always be people who know better than they do.
Those wonderful new green jobs supplied by market capitalism will provide the education to work out all manner of problems facing a small and prosperous population.
Unfortunately we'll have to cut a few adrift along the way.

Having a referendum would bring us to a genuine democracy would it not?
I don’t think the pollies and their hangers on would like that too much.
Buggy whips might be back in one day with peak oil.

So "logged forests regrow"?

Grow as timber, for further logging, as monoculture stands of boredom, or grow as fully complex and exciting places, full of what they used to be full of?

No, Mr Forestry Guy, I do not agree with your basic premise, so I cannot buy what you are spruiking.

The tone of this article is clear, and it is:
Tasmanians are right, Mainlanders are wrong.
Tasmanians are united in favour of native forest logging.
You Mainlanders don't know what a forest is... trust me, I've chopped down heaps of them.
As a forester with 30-plus years of experience, the author is part of the solution, and this solution is "more of the same".

The Tasmanian forestry industry stands alone as an example of an industry which has set its own rules for far too long, has permitted, even encouraged, demonising of its opponents and refused to work with them, and has held Tasmania back for decade after destructive decade.

At the very least, when OLO publishes such partisan matter, a contrasting contibution should appear in the same edition. Lift your game, OLO.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216583

taswegian, what utter drivel, many tourists love sustainable, selective, logging of old growth forests because they don't even know when they are in a national park that was logged in colonial times.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216584

rpg, some of them are day dreaming about a "green job" the international socialist/banksters told them they could have photographing the forest ocasionally to prove it is still there, sequestering carbon, so Pitt/Wall street can trade in "carbon default swaps" with billions of your dollars.

These idiots have obviously never heard of satelites doing it by remote control. The only green jobs will be in China making the "Big Screen" solar panels & wind turbines we will be importing.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216585

Philo, correct, try telling an econazi that, in one ear & straight out the other.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216588
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216591

sarnian, selective logging is quite sustainable forever, even after peak oil, our agriculural industries could produce enough biofuel to run a few chain saws.

After GFC#2 & the quarries running out of rocks to sell, our economy will look like that of Greece, forever, that is what the RED/green, international socialist/banksters are planing for.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216602

KH, maybe but only after the sheeple have been fed ALL sides of the story, instead of just the econazi spinganda weasel words.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216606

Amicus, why does ANYBODY have to shut down ANY industry, if it is sustainable &/or not damaging anything?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216611

Cheryl, i am sure the econazis could do a lot of manual labour planting trees with hand tools at contract rates.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216614

johnbennets, spoken like a true econazi, do you even know what "selective logging" is? have you ever heard of free speech? your right to debate the article? regardless of who wrote it? what bias it allegedly has?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiCRZLr9oRw many MEN have not "given up" on a job in their decendent's future.

Of course the forest grows back.

Of the 572,000 ha of forest claimed to be of high conservation value over 40,000 ha is from timber harvesting since the early 1960’s when clearfell burn and sow silviculture was introduced to ensure regeneration of Wet eucalypt forests.

The forests demanded by the Greens to be placed in National Parks and described by the Prime Minister as ancient and iconic include forest that has already been harvested before that date. The greenies used to claim industrial forestry destroyed; now claim that it creates HCV forests.

Have a close look at the Styx valley in a video at http://www.forestrytas.com.au/topics/2011/05/a-job-well-done that shows a forest coupe that was clearfelled and then regenerated to supply the pulp and paper mill at Boyer and is now identified as High Conservation Value.

The first map of high conservation value forest released in 2010 a included a coupe in the Picton Valley, that had been photographed and used in a postcard campaign to demand forest lockups in the 1990s. Compare the image at http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/ae542e/ae542e18.jpg , a coupe harvested in 1989 and subject to regeneration burning, to the image in 2003
and http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/ae542e/ae542e1a.jpg

Now forest and timber workers have to rely on the independent verifier appointed by the Prime minister. When he was National director the Wilderness Society, Jonathan West was quoted as stating:
“The Wilderness society knows what it wants and there will be no second grabs for more if it gets it. Leave untouched the National estate [forests]..., there will be total peace.
West said the area represented only 10 per cent of the forests available to logging”

Tasmania only has 2.2 million ha of public forests so 10% is 220,000 ha, will the greens hand back most of the 1.4 million ha already reserved?

formersnag, is it sustainable?

Well forest is, but the politics is not, and eventually the noisy minority will make life so miserable for everyone else, that you might as well let them have the win.

We have already seen that a minority party like the greens can make life miserable for the majority.

The eco types in Tasmania have declared they will not stop till the industry is defeated, they are not going to live and let live, it is who they are are .. they are anti loggers, it is their identity.

Is it worth fighting for what is essentially the woodchip industry, on principle .. so that a few can have a career and an income?

Is it going to take some deaths to change this? These people are fanatical, and regardless of the law, they are never jailed or held to account for what they do, so in effect, there is no law to stop them defying the forestry industry.

Do we really need the money?

Stop the industry, let the foresters go elsewhere in Australia, or have the government just pay them out for the rest of their lives with the salary they are on now with CPI increases.

The ALP seem able to spray money around like confetti, after all, it is only taxpayer's money and there's more if you are prepared to dig into other people's wallets, futures and savings.

To me this is like the Israeli/Palestinian thing, no solution short of something radical .. the only available radical thing, is to give up the forestry work .. I hate giving in to bully's, and the eco types are bully's, but what's the price to the rest of us, to the rest of the Tasmanian community if we continue this way.

Tasmanians have shown they don't want to stop the eco types, they voted back the Labor government who formed a coalition with the Greens, exactly what they said they would not do .. so maybe they deserve what they get, no industry and no future except a welfare state for the majority.

Here's an idea. Let's have a referendum on whether Tasmania should be funded by the rest of Australia while it deliberately reduces it's contribution to Australia's GDP and increases, disproportionately, it's reliance on Federal Government Funding.

Regrowth forest will never produce the giant swamp gums that tourists love. Take a look at the happy snaps of Tasmania embedded in Google Earth. You don't see people standing in front of plantation trees. Even if regrowth was stopped humans may never again see 100m tall flowering trees with the current warming trend. The burnoffs even 40 years ago removed a lot of the soil carbon which could take centuries to re-accumulate. Those really big trees are in places like the Styx, Weld and Florentine Valleys, outside the park area. I have some equally good suggestions for mainlanders
1) bulldoze Sydney Opera House and replace it with a block of flats
2) build a chairlift up the side of Uluru.

Some here obviously don't get the idea of sustainability. When WA iron ore and Queensland coal has been dug up and converted back to rust and atmospheric CO2 what can they flog next? Those States are living off their natural capital not the interest. Not too many years from now sustainable Tassie might have to bail them out.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216627

Amicus, Au contraire, why not keep fighting the econazis? The Maoists will not stop until every industry other than "quarrying for China" is dead.

In QLD when Krudd is the last man standing, he will join the DLP &/or Bob Katter's Australian party. By then every sheeple will know that the entire RED/green, getup, GAYLP/alp, Socialist Alliance are Closet Communists. Their combined vote will drop below 10% & unelectability.

My personal prediction for the most likely outcome, is that before that happens those few moderates or NON communists left in the party will wake up, cross the floor & support minority LNP governments in all states, territories & federally before electoral armageddon wipes them out, completely.

i could be wrong but will be happy with either outcome.

BTW, the conservative parties could always push for a royal commission on Closet Communism, a senate committee on UN australian activities. No australian child will be safe until it happens.

Why not kick the bullies when they are down?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216633

imajulianutter, correct, i find it wonderful irony that they work assiduaously to destroy every industry but will complain about importation of NZ apples.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216625

cinders, great comment, don't expect the econazis to reply coherantly, they don't like "inconvenient truths".

i would be interested to see former Democrat's senator Norm Sanders reply to this article on OLO. He used to be a manufacturer/supplier of wood fired stoves/fire places.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12528#216638

taswegian, you ought to know better than that.

Selective logging ignores the tallest oldest trees because they are full of wet/dry rot, borers, white ants, strangler figs, etc & are therefore "rubbish" timber trees anyway.

They take healthy "medium age" trees, nor do they need to burn, leaving the oldest trees behind means the birds, sugar gliders, etc keep their nest holes in the older trees & the saplings, seeds in soil sprout to produce the regrowth.

50 to 100 years later any econazi who can tell the difference between the regrowth & "virgin" forest is telling deliberate, premeditated lies.

Congratulations Mark. You are a lone rational voice in this debate. I admire the way you keep your cool among the insane solutions and distortions being heaped on us by the Green mob. It is a pity more of your professional forester colleagues are not prepared to raise their heads above the parapet. Let's hope that now we have seen the Greens exercise power (as opposed to simply advocating their ideals) Australians will see the wisdom in turning away from this destructive coalition with Labour and seek an alternative that meets the pluralist needs of a democratic society.
BTW, I think we can add "economic basket case" to the description of Tasmania as "a retirement village in a national park". Who do these people think should pay for Tasmania? Perhaps Jan Cameron and Graham Wood could buy out the state, build themselves castles at each end, turn the natives into serfs and stage medieval battles. Now that might just be a tourist attraction, though the last time that happened in merrie England they almost destroyed their forests. There may be a lesson there.

[Deleted as spam.]

By the titles of his article Mark Poynter condemns himself as a hypocrite of the highest order. You see it is well know to Mark and infact most Australians that Tasmanians and in particular residents of the Tamar Valley are unwilling victims of having the Gunns Pulp Mill rammed down their necks. Mark Poynter has been a cheerleaser of this horrid situation from day 1. Mark Poynter shows that he cares only about the rights of loggers not the wider community.

imajulianutter

Why not have a referendum on this issue too?
Of course, that would raise issues that Tasmanians would be subsidizing a government with their taxes that no longer works for them, unless the agreement was that Tasmania would neither pay federal tax nor receive federal funding; but then would mean that Tasmanians get to vote for a government they don't pay for- but are subjected to this government- except in exception to their own referendum- and warrants that the island be granted independence to pursue its own foresting policy without our input at all, and without worrying about whether they deserve our precious money or not.

Alternatively, all electorates and local areas get to have referendums about what is done with their backyard- ensuring that the collective financial interests of other electorates cannot single out another to dump on, so the electorates surrounding the forests get no particular preferential treatment over another.

Can someone please inform me of how a 400 year old tree is more benificial to the environment than a 40 year old tree?