Judging by the lack of comments there appears to be little interest in the topic which is really a tragedy. As detailed by Mark, there is an appalling amount of misinformation out there being peddled by people from the ANU who have the temerity to call themselves scientists.

David

Thanks for your article Mark.

The quality of science emanating from the Fenner School at the ANU these days is appalling (I have read much of it and I cannot believe it passes peer review). As an ANU alumnus I am very disappointed in this.

I genuinely believe that their conduct can be described as scientifically & morally corrupt.

I include in this statement not only Lindenmayer, but also his colleagues Mackey and Ajani. They have collectively developed a series of ‘research outcomes’ based on activist hypotheses ‘supported’ by deliberately skewed statistical analysis, absurd assumptions and infeasible economic models.

These ‘research outcomes’ are all concocted to deliberately misinform policy makers and the public in relation to timber harvesting in Australia’s forests. It is clear that these ‘research outcomes’ have been predetermined to collectively support a picture that their funding organisation (TWS) wishes to portray.

If this kind of approach were attempted in one of the 'hard' sciences (i.e. Chemistry, Physics, Engineering) the researchers would be thrown out of the university. These people are publishing the equivalent of “cold fusion” science with a political activism twist.

The ANU is disgraced by this conduct.

I whole heartedly agree with your comments. Unfortunately this is only one small example of the skewed debate and misonformation surrounding the management of our forests to the detriment of our industry and livelyhoods of many workers. Look at the debate raging in Tasmania over forest harvesting. Protesters from the Huon Valley Environment Centre reccently staged a protest at the Ta Ann plywood mill in supposed opposition to native forest practices. All timber is sourced from sustainably managed public regrowth forests within a strict environmental regulatory and approval regime. These sorts of acts of economic sabotage harm our local industry and shift timber production overseas where regulatory controls protecting the environment and safety of workers are not as sophisticated as ours.

To me this reeks of the old adage that "attack is the best form of defence.

Many knowledgeable people have aimed the blame for our forest fires growing more catastrophic, & deadly, over time, squarely at greenie, [including activists academics] promoted lack of active management of the fire threat in those forests.

Among practical people, with fire fighting experience, this is accepted as fact. Perhaps this is intended to be a preemptive strike, to gain a political edge in the fight to improve that management.

Hasbeen

I'm not really sure of your point about a 'pre-emptive' strike. Perhaps it is difficult for you to contemplate that an article may be simply aimed at putting some fact back into a debate hijacked by media hyperbole based on poor, but widely-promoted 'research'

It is certainly true that environmental activism aimed at locking away more public land has played a role in reducing fire management capability. This is because national parks and reserves are typically poorly funded and so cannot be well managed beyond providing visitor services, and because the associated loss of economic activity by evicting timber industries has reduced skilled workforces which were once involved in fire management activities. That much is obvious to those who've been involved in forest management over a long period.

Does anyone take this industry apologist trash seriously?

First sentence, "scientists ignoring expected standards of objectivity "...Oh yeah, that would be foresters failing to conduct studies that detail the environmental impacts of clearcut logging?

Note: I use the term "clearcut" advisedly because 'clearcutting' was imported from the US to Australia without any long term objective scientific studies being conducted prior to the introduction of this logging system. Right Mark?

Did foresters clearcut an area of Eucalypt forest and systematically monitored and researched regrowth for 10? 20? 50? 100 years? And then conduct the same objective experiment over the myriad complexes of species distribution, structure and composition? Or did foresters, inspired by pure objective science, just apply the commercially expedient template in ignorance of the virtually infinite variation of our forests? Be honest Mark, clearcutting is solely about filthy lucre and nothing else. You'll try to justify clearcutting of all native forest on the basis of the Mountain Ash life cycle but Ash forests only make up a tiny proportion of all Euc forest and even then they are often uneven aged which challenges the notion that 'clearcutting' is based on catastrophic climax events. Nature itself exposes clearcutting as a commercially motivated lie.

"Forestry issues are an example where biased or agenda-driven 'research' can be more easily exposed". Providing you bother to measure the impacts of clearcut forestry.

This is ridiculous, do I have to go on? Don't waste our time Mark. You're a spin doctor. Anyone with half a brain sees through this pathetic patronising rubbish. Give us a break, we're not all News Ltd idiots.

Does anyone without a vested interest buy any of this crap from industry spin doctors? More to the point is whether anyone without a commercial interest in some aspect of destroying nature actually believes any of the crap spouted by these vested interests?

All I can see is a conga line of people compromised by their greed inspired activities lining up to kiss each other's butts. You don't care about science, bushfire or forest ecology. You only care about money. It's pathetic.