It has not taken too long for the anti Green, pro logging "experts" to use the latest bushfires as a platform for business as usual and to spread hate against the Greens.
He starts with the usual claim that unless fuel reduction burns are carried out there is the potential for a catastrophic bush fire.
Findings from the investigation into the Victorian fires have shown that there is no difference in bush fire risks between state forest that have had reduction burns and national parks that have not.
The researchers found that prescribed burning, touted as a possible solution after Black Saturday, offered only moderate protection to houses. Logging native forests also had no impact on reducing house loss. Clearing trees and shrubs close to properties was the best thing anyone could do on Black Saturday. "It was twice as effective as prescribed burning".
The reduction in the forest industry caused by the Greens has lead to a shortage in skilled forestry workers and machinery to make fire tracks and fire breaks he claims.
This is a red herring with the downturn in the woodchip industry due to the GFC and mismanagement by FT the main causes.
How quite narrow firebreaks are able to control the fierce fires that are now normal he does not explain.
Ember attack many kilometres down wind are not going to stopped by a fire break in a strong wind.

Continued
The fires were spurred by fierce winds and heat.
To understand the intensity of the fires, one must consider that the forest had been cured bone-dry during preceding weeks of unusual heat.
Climate change played a major role in the fires severity. This will continue to place even more strain on fire prevention and management.
Let us not descend into a "blame game" and heap abuse onto a scapegoat that is easy to pick on.
I feel that Mr Poynter is as usual acting on behalf of big business that wants to open the forest to more destruction with the aim of bigger profits.
We see this in all of the threats that face the world not just Tasmania.
Big oil has been proven to finance writers who produce denial articles that will allow the continuation of destructive practices.
The problem must be tackled by new thinking. better equipment for fire fighting such as the dedicated flying boat fire bombers from Bombardier in Canada.
All trees and shrubs cleared away from house by a bigger distance.
Fire escape roads mapped out for isolated communities.
In Bundaberg recently there were up to 14 helicopters involved in evacuating up to a 1000 residents from one area.
It took private initiative to organise a ferry service to provide relief here in Tasmania.
Just rebuilding FT's empire to provide more bulldozers will not do now.
We must think again.

My take on this, and its a long article, is that the Greens support burn-offs in principle but are against any specific burn-off proposals. No way. It all too dangerous; these species will be endangered. Consequently nothing gets done. I am no great admirer of the greens. In fact, I would rather be caught in one of these bushfires rather than have anything to do with them, and this article reaffirms that view.

...Another practice of forest management is clear felling in compartmentalized squares. This was a method much derided, but maybe its time now to revisit the old ways, under extreme weather conditions which appear now to becoming a norm rather than the exception.

...Cleared areas also give wildlife a way to escape the fire front.

Robert Le Page

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by a defensive reaction such as yours and its tendency to 'play-the-man'. For the record, I am not paid by 'big business' or anyone to write articles such as this about what is happening to forest management. My observations are given voluntarily and are informed by decades of working in this discipline.

You on the other hand don't display any great knowledge in this area, as is evident in your dismissal of why road and track access may be of importance to fire management. Have you not considered that perhaps they are critical to allowing fire-fighters to quickly attack bushfires as soon as possible after they are reported, or that they form the basis of control lines for both preventative burning or bushfire suppression?

Your reference to a study after Black Saturday to dismiss the value of fuel reduction burning is also misguided, although admittedly you are not alone in assigning it greater than deserving significance. The fact is that those fires burnt though large areas of wet forest types where FRB is not practicable, and other forests where there had been a low level of FR burning. It was also based on a consideration of houses that had been damaged by fire, and therefore ignored undamaged houses/areas where FRB may have been a factor in preventing damage.

There are many case studies documenting situations where FRB has prevented bushfires from reaching damaging proportions well before they could have get close to threatening houses and communities located many kilometres away, but of course these are largely ignored by those lacking in enthusiasm for FRB.

Similarly your denial of the role of Greens and ENGOs in reducing timber production and bushfire management capability is simply not borne out by the facts.

Robert LePage is actually arguing that how much fuel there is, does not make any difference to the risk of fire damage.

Yes you heard that right. Reducing the amount of fuel DOES NOT reduce the risk of fire damage, according to Robert.

By what process of reasoning, you might ask, does someone arrive at such an obviously false conclusion?

He appeals to the absent authority of government departments who were implicated in the recent conflagrations that destroyed so much human life and property; and who, surprise surprise, make findings exonerating themselves. They said so, therefore it must be true, according to Robert.

It never seems to occur to Robert that, just because he reposes blind credulity in obvious falsehoods spouted by vested interests in big government, that other people don't share the same methodology, and can see through his nonsense.

My property was recently burnt out by a fire that caused enormous damage and suffering. When we first heard about it, with the winds tending to us, it was on grazing land, but as soon as it hit government land, we knew we were doomed. As predicted, a huge fireball destroyed all life in its path but what was saved at enormous expense and risk. (Was Robert one of the volunteer fire-fighters?) The government had just spent $2 million re-introducing koalas to the areas that were completely incinerated. And this is the government's idea of managing the ecoystem for "ecological sustainability".

The farmers aren't allowed to burn the tussocks that reduce food production without crawling to government for permission, but the green bureaucratic priviligentsia get to incinerate the whole landscape without liability.

(cont.)

Those on the receiving end of the greens' irrational worship of big government as some kind of all-knowing all-capable God, are getting sick of the regular burnt sacrifices of human life and property. I, and everyone who spent days on my property destroying sheep in agony from the fire, have wished we could rub Robert's face in the carcases of stinking rotten dead sheep killed by his absurd and stupid belief that the amount of fuel there is, bears no relation to the amount of fire damage that it can do!

To anyone not blinded by ideology and power-worship, it's perfectly obvious that the more fuel there is, the greater the risk of fire damage; and that the conflagrations of recent years are because of governmental restrictions on burning because of the anti-human, anti-rational green religion which regards human life as a plague, and private property as immoral.

What's the government doing pretending to manage the ecology anyway?

The solution is for state-held lands to be sold to the highest bidder, and let the Robert LePages of this world put their money where their mouth is, and be liable for the destructiveness of their actions like everyone else.

It is frustrating to continually hear the Greens espouse the importance of “listening to the Science”, when it comes to climate change. However, In this instance, there is significant research conducted by Australian scientists (CSIRO), professionals with extensive field experience and knowledge that will save lives and property - but because it doesn’t align with a false ideology, it is discounted. Instead, policies are formulated by cappuccino sipping city dwellers responding to the perceived popular opinion of those whose land management experience amounts to the odd bushwalk every now and then. It is absolutely nuts.

Jardine K. Jardine.

A very heart welling story, felt by all, however the planet and the human effect cant be stopped. From my understanding as a?..(name your topic) the world/planet is going through some changes at the momment, and these events are not fully the fault of who is in charge on this time-line. IMO the gold rush has stopped and now all that mankind can do, is to wait it out...(just like all the other changes thats happened over time)(hundreds of millions of years and so on)

So its biz as allways, just every ten years, it gets 0.2% harder.

Good luck and all the best.

PLANET3

Jardine...if this helps, our human greatness, is partly bad timing and the movements of the planets ways, thats well doc>ed.

Mark Poynter, nice ant-ball kickings, but the facts remain.

PLANET3

Some self proclaimed inner city Sydney greens bought 1800 acres of mountain country near us to do their bit to protect montaine forests.
They locked up the land with a Voluntary Conservation Agreement and refused all entreatments to manage the fuel on their block.They eventually sold on after a decade because they felt guilty about the carbon they emitted driving down from Sydney. They left a time bomb with legal caveats left in place and maximum fuel on the ground.
The bomb went off December 2009 on a blow up day leaving this mountain block devoid of wildlife and reducing trees that stood when Cook sailed up the coast to ash! Not too mention neighbours houses.
They are not remembered fondly.
Be wary of non resident greens owning land next to you, especially in the bush.

First Jardine I am very sorry that you and many have lost property and loved ones in bush fires.
I realise that it will be rubbing salt into wounds to criticize any fire fighting efforts.
No I was not one of the volunteer fire fighters because I am now close to 77 and have a heart ailment as well as recovering from cancer but I can assure you that if I was younger and in reasonable health I would be a volunteer.
I can find nowhere in my posts where I am appealing to an authority and then accepting their word in answer to my mythical appeal.
The reasoning about the lack of effect of FRB is from a study in the US where it was found that areas that had been burnt out and then had regrowth, had a hotter burn due to the ground being dried out in the first fire.
This is not my idea but I have read about this and it seems logical to me.
To take the theory of FRB to it's lunatic conclusion, the best approach is to clear fell all of the forest and have no fuel at all.
Possibly this would appeal to some at FT and a big company that has just gone bankrupt but is obviously not practical.
I reiterate what I said in my earlier post that we need to think about this and use brains not politics or profits to find a solution.

Cont
It would seem that there are different rules for different States and I gather that Jardine, from the talk of koalas is from a mainland State.
I agree that "some" Greens over there have exerted a bigger influence than I would have thought possible on local by-laws and have used this to go overboard with draconian enforcement.
But I think that " spending days on my property destroying sheep in agony from the fire, have wished we could rub Robert's face in the carcases of stinking rotten dead sheep killed by his absurd and stupid belief that the amount of fuel there is, bears no relation to the amount of fire damage that it can do!" is going a bit too far.
I was not personally responsible for this catastrophe and would have been as distraught as you are.
The thing that strikes me about some of the posts is that there is a continuing vehement hate towards the Greens and anyone perceived as being green.
This attitude will not stop future fires and more heartbreak.
"The solution is for state-held lands to be sold to the highest bidder" is maybe not the panacea that you claim.
It might all be bought up by China and control lost over it for good.
All the local councils are not Green so they cannot be held to account for a handful here and there.

Robert

You are sadly displaying the hallmarks of a typical Greens supporter. Someone who doesn't actually know much about the topic at hand, but nevertheless has strong, self-righteous opinions way out of kilter with their personal experience or knowledge; as well as a healthy denial that those with an alternate view - lets call it an anti-Greens view - may actually know far more because they've lived and worked with these issues for decades.

As one of the earlier commenters has put it, it is astounding and extremely sad for Australia that the political power of the Greens derived through the incessant campaigning of their ENGO associates has to a large extent steered land management out of the hands of those with expertise to appease those such as yourself who like the idea of environmental protection from afar, but don't understand what it entails.

Whish-Wilson's desperate attempt to deflect the barrage of criticism of the greens anti-burn off policy is shameless . He is now saying The Greens only object to regeneration burns (an essential part of sclerophyll forest management). He goes on to say they are happy with "hazard reduction burns". BUT On the Tassie Greens website from mid-2012 http://mps.tas.greens.org.au/2012/06/where-there%E2%80%99s-norske-skog%E2%80%99s-smoke-there%E2%80%99s-ire-at-maydena-maydena-residents%E2%80%99-furious-at-smoke-pollution/ we have Tim Morris saying Norske Skog's burns are a “Neanderthal practice” and should be stopped. Sorry Tim - but Norske don't grow eucalypts - only pine trees. They don't do regen burns - only fuel reduction burns. This is just more evidence of green deceit and hypocrisy - but what is worse he insults a leading Tassie employer and an exemplar of a very green Nordic corporation

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14625#253110

and thus the "Wild Rivers" legislation in QLD, drafted from a coffee shop in inner city suburban Sydney.

Mark Poynter understandably displays an eloquent and plausible knowledge of forestry and fire ecology. Like his erstwhile comrade Evan Rolley ex Forestry Tasmania CEO,an eloquence sufficient to bamboozle government policy. M Poynter also in this argues for a continuation of that same status quo that has led the Tasmanian forest industry to the present monocultural ruin. His line of argumentation in many forums displaying more of a defense of his life investment in the profession of forester. He cannot accept, like many other professionals, that it is a failed failed world view he operated in.

I feel for people in such a predicament, I too had a similar if not bigger investment in the failing (from and ecological perspective) paradigm of industrial agriculture. On which tragically contemporary foresty attempts to model itself. For me it took retirement from Agriculture and development of social ecology perspectives to start to get a handle of it. I know how hard it is to accept that one has made a bad investment; but they can also be a great vehicle for life's learning.

To understand how we become unwittingly trapped we must critically analyse the culture that produced us. Australian culture has been heavily influenced by the experience of colonisation, mining booms and two world wars. Social phenomena that rewarded swift moving action on the part of human organisation in pursuit of short term goals. The winner taking the strategic high ground of wealth/survival regardless of the long term consequences.This then appealing to the innate conservatism of human nature which further entrenches it.This world view has also found a seductive ideology in neo conservative economics and an unwitting partner in our lower brain, the home of ego.

These forces conspire to inhibit us from thinking rationally at higher moral and ecological levels for the longer term; for the sake of the quality of all human experience, for all life forms and for future generations.

In Poynter's argument for the status quo in fire management, we see the ego trap and received wisdom playing out once again, feeding continued paralytic polarisation of society.

cont/...

from previous

An institutional response is necessary to counter act this human frailty. The first and essential step is to vest the management of public lands in an authority who commission is to manage for ecological sustainability, an ecology that accepts humans and their future needs (not wants), as the reality of the current ecosystem. Within the scope of the consequent management objectives it may then tender utilisation of the resources to separtate entities to administer the harvest. A separation of interests that minimises (with integrity) the opportunities for the tail to wag the dog, as has been the case Australian forestry .

While managing forests will never be without risks, a more balanced landscape wide and holistic approach that is not compromised by vested and short term interests is required.

An example would be to manage fuel levels on the staggered mosaic approach . Harvesting the fuels where practicable for biochar and product that has been shown to lock up carbon and amend ancient Australian agricultural soils. Thus reducing the loss of nutrients that are plaguing coastal ecosystems, evidenced by coral die of and increasing algal blooms. Also contributing are catastrophic forest fires, accidental or intentional. Where not possible mosaic cool burns at high soil moisture do minimal damage to soil, wildlife and standing trees; The science on this is well developed and easily applied.

If we are to transform natural resource management, surely we need to first compensate for our own human weakness with appropriate structural responses?

Duncan

I probably shouldn't bother even responding to your pontifications about my supposedly ego-driven defence of my supposedly failed life investment in forestry, but I guess its worth exposing your self-righteous foolishness in advocating changes to management regimes that you don't even understand.

Sadly, society may one day have to bear the needless costs and upheaval of overturning a century of evolution in forest management to eventually find that mooted improvements advocated by self-righteous laypersons such as yourself either don't work (which is obvious to any forester) or simply return us back to the system that we currently have - probably after the passage of many wasted years.

Some examples from your post are:

"While managing forests will never be without risks, a more balanced landscape wide and holistic approach that is not compromised by vested short term interests"

Using Tasmania as an example, most people would think it to be already pretty well balanced when 75% of its public lands are managed for conservation and just 25% for long term timber supply.

"An example would be to manage fuel levels on the staggered mosaic approach"

This already happens where fuel reduction burns and regeneration burns are scattered across the landscape. We need more of it, but simply killing off Forestry Tasmania (as you advocate) which is best at it, is certainly not going to help, and will make it difficult to maintain the current level of fuel management.

"Harvesting the (forest) fuels for biochar ......"

Do you understand how extensive Australia's/ Tasmania's forests are?? The best way to do this is via timber production systems using waste wood, but you clearly view this as some out-dated process that has no part in your utopian future.

"Where not possible mosaic cool burns at high soil moisture do minimal damage to soil, wildlife and standing trees; The science on this is well developed and easily applied"

Gawd..... just what do you think happens now if you see this as something new - reinventing the wheel!

*when 75% of its public lands are managed for conservation and just 25% for long term timber supply.*

And this is how the pro loggers "adjust" the accuracy of their propaganda.
75% of public lands conserved, but how much of that is actually high conservation value trees and how much low value scrub?

*killing off Forestry Tasmania* is really the only answer when they have made it obvious that they are not to be trusted in the management of public forest and are so inept that they continue to lose money and demand bailouts even when they have their "stock in trade" supplied to them for free.

They are a rogue organization that needs to be disbanded and a properly supervised management put in their place.

Robert

In view of your intemperate comment, I'm tempted to ask if you've ever been to any of the many Tasmania's national parks and reserves (comprising about 50% of the state's public lands)? I think you badly need to do so given your ill-founded insistence that they are only comprised of scrub and low value forest.

The figures I use come from the Australian Government's DAFF report, Australia's Forests at a Glance 2012, which shows that Tasmania has 2.23 million hectares of publicly-owned native forest..... not scrub of button grass plains.

It is well known that about 0.6 million ha of this is being managed for long term timber supply by Forestry Tasmania. I DO beg your pardon, that is 26.8% rather than 25%,..... so I guess that makes me a spin meister!

As you are no doubt aware, the term 'high conservation value' forest is meaningless as it is yet to be scientifically-defined. In reality, all forests have conservation values, and the fact that large areas that were formerly managed for timber production are now contained in national parks Australia-wide, is testament to the fact that forestry does not diminish conservation values at a landscape level over a long timeframe.

The Otways in south west Victoria is a classic example. It supplied a strong hardwood sawmilling industry for 150-years before being declared as national park in 2003. Apparently, this political act was enough to change the area from low to high conservation values overnight.

Mr Poynter : Response to D Mills 19th Feb.
Responses need more rigour.

"self righteous lay-person" , sorry a worn out cliche thrown at anyone having to critique how public interest fields are administered by their administrators; perhaps I was hasty in ascribing Mr Poynter eloquence. Read J Ralston Saul's writing on society's inablity to communicate across professional boundaries.

In defence of citizen opinion. Providing argument is based on personal experience and/or respected literature it stands on better ground than that based on the defence of obvious self interest. Hopefully that also aspires to avoid sophistry and half truths so common in debates where reason is no longer respected, on the sad road to polarisation of debate.

To the technical facts of Mr Poynters response.

1.I will pass on the reserve/production split in Tasmania; it is complex multifactorial and best adjudicated by an body independent of use interest.

2.Yes at a macro level mosaic fuel reduction is already crudely practiced by FT. And that is the problem,crude!
The unnatural forced draft holocausts used in the regeneration burns, in late autumn dry soil, destroys most of the organic matter in the top soil and associated life, taking centuries to recover. ref both personal observation at numerous locations and Warra trials.
The damage it does to situational biodiversity, resilience can never recover in the short rotation monocultures understood by monocultural foresters. Add to this the damage done to water catchments by the loss of organic matter and humus and biota and the accelerated water use of unnaturally young crops of trees; Water the birthright of people living and farming in the lower catchments.

3. It is widely accepted by progressive thinkers that carbon management must determine systems of utilisation; yes if wastes can by used in long life material. Biochar has many synergies and huge potential application in Australian soils given sound carbon market signals. For carbon management hazard reduction must be the last resort technique but only under scientifically prescribed methods. I would hope that yes this is current practice, but I would like to have this independently verified.

cont/........

continued.

4. Sadly scrapping FT is not so much about technical expertise of which its employees have much as about the perverse evolution of its culture. A culture that has degeneration since the inception of the wood chip industry into short term values, self serving decision making, cronyism, conflicts of interests, lack of accountability and transparency and contempt for the owners of the forest, the people of Tasmania. All my experience in dealing with industry players in the last 30 years. But the defensive of course will say I am one observer, but also know there are many many more as this and other forums have shown.
Independent experts also have verified this; URS consultants also putting forward the disbandment of FT as one option to government in the process of verifying wood supply to inform current peace negotiations. As technical consultants their terms of references did not extend to systematic cultural critique or analysis but reading between the lines of the various recent reports implies different and new structural approaches are necessary; particularly the separation of powers and responsibilities. All this particularly in the light of the now obvious carbon management imperatives and opportunities for forest managers.

5."Gawd" rhetorically crude and unhelpful! Facts clearly disputed in 2 and 3.

In summary: Mark Poynter would have more credibility if some sense of balance and humility in accepting the industry's mistakes could be shown. The mistakes are largely systemic and little reflection on most individual foresters; Having blossomed with the lack of collective critical reflection within a stressed and archaic authoritarian system of management.

You like to leave forests undisturbed, you don't like mining, you don't like aquaculture, you don't like broad-scale agriculture and tourism is only accepted if there is no development.

You do like your house held up by timber (not burnt down) and wiping your bum with toilet paper, you do like driving your metal car (just one of many mined products you use), you do like eating food grown on farms that used to be forests and you do like revenue generated from tourism.

hhhmmmmm - that is a predicament.

that was a generic comment not aimed at an individual

Duncan, this comment is in response to your recent post.

It is clear that you are an intelligent individual. It is also clear that you lack practical experience in the relevant land management disciplines we are discussing. Please accept that i mean no disrespect by this.

"The unnatural forced draft holocausts used in the regeneration burns, in late autumn dry soil, destroys most of the organic matter in the top soil and associated life, taking centuries to recover ".

As a logical thinker, i urge you to conduct a broad experiment. Tasmania has recently experienced destructive fires - as a fire fighter, trust me when i say they don't get much hotter - if you think a regen burn is a holocaust, don't visit the front line of one of these beasts. Anyway, it took out 000's of hectares and by your logic it will take centuries to recover - that is simply not the case. Pick a few sites and visit them every year monitoring the recovery - you will be pleasantly surprised.

contd.

In terms of bio char. Sometimes there is a very fine line between profit and loss when it comes to extracting and processing fibre, even in instances when it is in whole log form relatively close to processing facilities. It is more than likely that extracting the material for the purpose you have described (which is not in whole log form) will cost significantly more than the return - therefore, someone has to loose money. Logically, it is not a practical solution. In any case, the science is their to support the alternative and present practice.

As i am not a Tasmanian, i cannot comment on your assertions about FT.

I think that you have made a Freudian slip. I did not say "button grass plains even though of course that is part of the 75% "locked up'".
Not to worry it's what the "lay person" has come to expect from the *experts*.

I did notice that you made no comment on the fact that FT is rogue organization.
The rest is just the usual mish mash of figures taken from various sources that are at best suspect.
Do remember the saying that "there are statistics and damn lies".

Robert

It seems too much to expect you to read and understand what I say. For your benefit again, the Australian Government's Australia's Forests at a Glance, 2012 and Forestry Tasmania's figures show that 75% of Tasmania's 'native forests' are reserved. So, no, I wouldn't have thought this includes extensive buttongrass plains, although it may include small gaps in the forest that are too small to map.

But I guess you must know better than the scientists and mappers who come up with these statistics given that according to you they are 'suspect'. Perhaps you can outline the special expertise that you must possess in order to have this belief. Sorry, but there I go again being an arrogant professional.

Forestry Tasmania as a 'rogue organisation'? Once again, I'm sure everyone would like to hear your expertise and rationale for this belief. Surely, it couldn't be simply that you've heard it parroted so often by agenda-driven ENGOs and like-minded kindred spirits that it therefore must be true?

Duncan

I must admit to being endlessly bemused by the fact whenever I write these articles, the comments soon shift off-topic and then suddenly it becomes all about me! That this happens this says far about those such as yourself who shift the discussion in that direction, than it does about me.

Just to reiterate: I wrote an article about a topic which I know a lot about. It was written in an analytical and detached manner just piecing together the evidence readily available in news coverage, and then pulled together to give conclusions from an informed forestry perspective. For my troubles, I am soon personally denigrated including misgivings about the mental state that supposedly must underpin my denial of supposedly irrefutable facts provided by persons with little or no practical knowledge or experience of the topic at hand ........ and yet I'm supposedly the one with the credibility problem!

I don't start this process, I just put up with it and respond politely and appropriately:

Exhibit A: Robert Le Page's first two comments describe me as an "anti Green, pro logging "expert" acting on behalf of big business that wants to open the forest to more destruction with the aim of bigger profits. Apparently, I am akin to other writers who've been funded by 'big oil' to allow the continuation of destructive practices.

He goes on to describe some facts provided for his benefit as 'propaganda' taken from 'various sources that are at best suspect'.

Exhibit B: Duncan Mills describes my writing as 'displaying more of a defense of his life investment in the profession of forester' based on a world view that is derived from the 'seductive ideology in neo conservative economics' which finds 'an unwitting partner in our lower brain, the home of ego' and creates a 'human frailty' including the 'lack of humility'.

Oh for the good old days, when people tried to argue with facts rather than psychology lessons.

MW Poynter: with your description of yourself :

"as an anti Green, pro logging "expert" acting on behalf of big business that wants to open the forest to more destruction with the aim of bigger profits. Apparently, I am akin to other writers who've been funded by 'big oil' to allow the continuation of destructive practices."

Well I cannot better that and I am glad that you realize who and what you are.

Now perhaps you would tell us in simple terms what your aims for Tasmanian forests actually are?

Is it to return to full scale clear felling for wood chips (up to 5 million tons a year) and the return of the pulp mill to the scene, huge fleets of log trucks hogging the roads and threatening all other users, anything that the chippers do not want burned and a handout of quality timber to the boat and furniture makers to keep them off the backs of FT?

Continuous handouts to FT from the governments to prop up a bad business model?

In Mark Poynters wish for the good old days of impersonal abstract debate are laudable but as Post Modern philosophy has clearly shown us; truth is mediated by the networks of power relations and personal interests. Consequently it is naeve to debate technical issues without an exposure the former matters. Institutional reform often the first priority.

The forestry profession has been a pawn in the hands of commercial interests and /and or captured hierarchical organisational employment structures . The few "foresters" known to me critical of the status quo and willing to speak have been threatened with "you will never work again in this state".

The destruction of old growth forests and its sacrifice of the timber and the ruse the claim that fast grown industrial monocultures were adequate replacement in terms of quality timber and ecological services, is just one example. of the shell game played on the community.

The conventional wisdom of the industry is very much captured by the imperatives of the market place in the shorter term. There has been very little evidence in the public arena of forestry talking about strategy required to deliver the full range of ecological values the community value from forestry , like oxygen, clean and stable supplies of water from the forested catchments, preservation of biodiversity, carbon capture and landscape amenity.

Yes it could probably be argued that forest managers are not paid for these things but when have we heard forestry institutions arguing for market reform to address these deficiencies?

Yes Australian foresters did develop a quality assurance scheme, but failing to address the post modern requirement for self disclosure they failed to make it independently accountable on a triple bottom line basis.

Like the Tasmanian Forest Practices act Australian Certified Forest product ends up as another case of " the fox in charge of the chicken house".

When we see professional foresters disclosing personal material interests/vulnerabilities and industry organisations demanding independent auditing/supervision of practices and standards we will be happy to focus on debating the way in which the science is interpreted.