Good article; the Greens want no foresting, no mining or any development which encroaches pristine nature. The renewable, 'sustainable' energy sources they advocate do not work and in any event require huge areas of land because they not energy dense. As well, they often produce extreme pollution.

The absurdity now is that Greens are even objecting to wind and solar farms because they take up too much room. They are irrational and have distorted not only economic appraisal and process but the integrity of the social structure

While Tasmania is different from other States in many ways, Victoria’s native hardwood industry has also been subject for many years to similar battles with so-called ‘green’ ENGOs. The city-centred push to place more and more native State forests into National or State Parks was very successful under the green-friendly Labor State government (until late 2010). Victoria saw much highly productive native forest become ‘out of bounds’ for sustainable timber harvesting: think Otway Ranges, along the Murray River, the forest near Portland, and areas of East Gippsland. However, the Coalition government appears to have “drawn a line in the sand” and is supporting the (now much smaller) native hardwood timber industry.

This of course only spurs The Wilderness Society and other ENGOs to battle harder to stop ‘nasty and destructive’ timber harvesting, despite it being subject to strict environmental regulation such as a Code of Practice, Australian Forestry Standard certification, detailed forest management prescriptions and regular audits, not to mention that it is a very ‘greenhouse gas-friendly’ industry.

A case in point was the recent effort (although it was unsuccessful) by an ENGO to stop VicForests’ harvesting in Mountain Ash forest near Toolangi. A nearby blockade of harvesting, supported by Bob Brown, was also attempted. Protests in East Gippsland have occurred over many years and don’t look like stopping until all the forests are turned into parks waiting to be burnt in the next big bushfire. Mark Poynter has described the sorry situation in Tasmania. Unfortunately Victoria is also not immune to misguided attempts by ENGO activists to ‘save the forests’.

The 2004 Federal Election saw a total of 1.47 million ha or 47% of Tasmanian forests reserved for conservation. Voters were given a choice between labor's adoption of a Wilderness Society plan to add 600,000 ha of forest to the reserve, or the more modest 170,000 ha addition of the iconic forests of the Styx and the Tarkine. We know that Latham was defeated and his political career destroyed by kow-towing to the greens.
Yet is Julia Gillard repeating the same mistake? She promised an independent verification process to determine the values of the re-jigged 2004 demand for more reserves, but then appointed a former National director of the Wilderness Society to oversee the process and a host of former green consultants, employees and activists to write the "independent" report.
One of the authors, former Wilderness Society activist Sean Cadman, is even said to have been the initiator, along with Gunns of the flawed and expensive process, see http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45786.html

David Suzuki, a Leading globe-trotting conservationist, is on the public record saying, "that indigenous populations the world over, have been selectively logging their forests for millennia, without harm to flora or fauna". Quote, unquote.
In fact, such harvesting invests in and or adds to the proper management and health of forests, which store carbon, whether vertical or horizontal.
Were we not to ever log our forests, old trees would still fall over, others would break off branches as a survival mechanism, during dry times; and the fuel load would become almost unimaginable!
And another indescribable Victorian black Friday disaster in the making.
Another National Park wildfire that destroys millions of hectares, and all the threatened flora and fauna that resides within.
Following said massive, indefendable, unstoppable wildfire, feral species were able to gain a considerable foothold, that upland summer grazing effectively prevented.
The Brown Greens claimed, that tourism would replace the jobs lost to logging.
Arguably jet-setting tourists add more carbon than selective logging?
And like Northern Q'ld, talked out of local hydrocarbon harvesting by the promise of improved tourism, still waiting for these hordes of mythical tourists and their billions of dollars.
The jobs offered by tourism are in the main, very menial table and drink waiting, toilet cleaning and other equally or more demeaning, invariably seasonal, low paid jobs, and a pathway to a Banana Republic!
The greens have often been referred to as eco-fascists.
Listening to that LADY, in HER tree, you begin to understand why.
That said, the future for Tasmania lays in intensive irrigation assisted farming, and dozens of irrigation projects and DAMS!
And the Greens have a record of resistance to dams, however logical the arguments put, for either improved environmental outcomes, considerably less erosion and far less alluvium heading harmfully out to sea, to kill off the sea grass, which by the way, mops up three times more Co2, than all the forests in the entire world!
Rhrosty.

You cannot call any endeavour that seeks to destroy the natural capital of milions of people (even billions globally) for the enrichment of a few men and women: an industry .. ITS A CRIME.

Put your humanity back in and Find some other way to make money!

But in a country where successive schizo PMs :

*Make $billions from coal exports while spruiking votes for OUR carbon tax

*Turn a democracy into a dictators nightmare by immigrating Islamic and other religious and racial VOTE BLOCKS to gerrymander key seats while telling us of all the blessings of multiculturalism. All we see is economic growth from the clean up of crime, knife and gun fights over some foreigners precious sister or the building of roads to nowhere and unsewerable Paramatta Rd Mumbai slum plans.

*Lip service to making banks, miners and other rich listers pay their fair share of tax while letting them get off scot-free because they essentially represent foreign dictatorships and Ponzi enterprises like China and Indonesia who can PAY because of the hardships they inflict on their people.

*Privatise everything except Tax Collection, armed forces and Police so that voters can't compain about crap services because they are all under private non-negotiable contract to the government. This emerging Clayton's Democracy is the death of freedom, truth and sustainability of an Australia free from Civil strife and war.

We have to ask what kind of Government will stop all the lies and deal with the Greed based Schizophrenic of our so called politicians.

For starters it would be a Government that converted Tasmanian loggers into Geothermal Heat miners so that Tasmania could be economically viable with an endless supply of free energy.

Continues,

Continued..

As for our politicians, NEVER VOTE THE SAME PARTY TWICE . Keep changing them over till we can get rid of Privatisation and be able to depend on self reliance and JOBS that come from getting kids out of class and into industry and even on overseas training. You can't get skill by immigration . All you will EVER get is opportunism, lies and MORE leg-ins to privatisation.

Go Tassy. Make a mark in the right direction: convert forestry to GEOTHERMAL heat mining and JOBS.

And South Australia: Ex-Olympic Dam, Lithium mining of the big salt lakes and the heat mining at the foothills of the Flinders are State Boosters. Go for it and get SA kids out of malls & helping and LEARNING in these environs & ventures.

Give Australians a future. Current Govt policies are offshoring jobs & dehumanising & enslaving Australian workers in a deeply unhappy "Consumerisation" schema that has become an even bigger money spinner for Rich minorities & foreign investors than Tasmanian Forestry Crimes.