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The Forum > Article Comments > Science the biggest loser from Tasmanian World Heritage decision > Comments

Science the biggest loser from Tasmanian World Heritage decision : Comments

By Mark Poynter, published 17/7/2014

The decision to reject this delisting proposal has itself set an unfortunate precedent for Australia that it is now OK for politics, personal agendas, and nepotism to override science and due process.

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So let me see if I got this right, you can't find any scientific body that doesn't welcome this decision, but somehow science is the looser...and your scientific credentials are.....

Of course there is absolutely no bias in your point of view....
The other bit i find funny in your peices Mark is that you very rarely point out there are people in the forestry industry that agreed to this deal. I guess that is a fact you want to ignore.
Posted by Cobber the hound, Thursday, 17 July 2014 9:28:27 AM
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Cobber

You are confusing forest science with the timber industry, and you are also reiterating my central point about science being overridden by politics. Why should it matter if some "people in the forestry industry agreed to this deal"?

The fact is that World Heritage listing is supposed to be based upon a thorough scientific evaluation of a nominated area's values to see whether they are appropriate - not simply on whether some elements of an industry bargaining under the threat of losing their livelihoods agrees with some non-Governmental Environmental groups that WHA listing would be a good idea.
Posted by MWPOYNTER, Thursday, 17 July 2014 10:00:16 AM
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DEAR MARK...I LIVE IN REDLANDS[WEHAVE IN OUR CITY CENTER]..A NATIONAL PARK /REGROWTH REMNANT AREA/BEING HUGELY DISPOILED

sorry about caps/computer=dying

anyhow there is huge abuses re fire managment
destroying mature trees[bY RUBBISH ARROUND THEIR TRUNKS[UP TO 3 FEET DEEP..IN PLACS ..AS WELL AS HUGE CONCENTRATED CLUMPS OF SLOW BURNING MULCH

ITS A MESS [THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY[WE GOT 5 FOOT THICK TREES GOING TODIE THE NEXT FIRE/ COUNCIL IS DRAINING THE SWAMPS AND THERE ARE FENCES INJURING AND TRAPPING WILDLIFE EVERYWHERE[SEE STATES PARCELLED OUT LAND THIS WAS THE LEFT OVERS/BUT WITH HUGE POTENTIAL[they could become a grand thing

maybe its time these folks came and heard what im trying to put forward[that they can take globally

things end/but energy cant be created nor destroyed.
[one door opens/the other closes\..I HAVE SEEN THE VISIONING
BUT ESSENTIALLY ITS ABOUT DOING IT PROPERLY OR NOT AT ALL[IF THEY SUPPORT JUST BURNING IM GLAD THEIR GONE[BUT IF THEIR INTO EVOLVING A NEW VISION/..COME ON DOWN[WALK ARROUND/I GOT HOME CITES IWITHIN THE REDLANDS CITY-CENTER..JUST WAITING TO REAP THEIR FRUITS
Posted by one under god, Thursday, 17 July 2014 10:01:33 AM
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I think I speak for most Australians, when I say, I've had a real bellyful of a control freak section of society, with a hidden agenda, (depopulation) and that is little more than a tail trying to wag the dog.
And to end that nonsense, I believe our best interests and real democracy would be served, if we rescinded our world heritage agreement altogether?
Or at least put it to a national referendum, so all of us could have a say, rather than the few dozen, we know best elitists, who signed in our name, to impose this blatant stupidity on the rest of us.
Of course we shouldn't allow any further clear felling of whole forests!
But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water, and allow a return to selective logging as practiced by native peoples' for millennium, without harm, to either flora or fauna.
But rather, just enduring benefits.
Some bright spark has just discovered, that fine sediment is able to double the diseases, affecting or killing coral.
It has taken quite a while for the "experts" to catch up, but as human populations have increased along with their turbid outfall, coral populations have perished in inverse proportion.
Barrow Island, where the test were carried out, has gone from an uninhabited Island, to one with a large enough resident population, to carry a profitable air service!
Of course there have been changes, and ones created by patently, other things, than the "coupled" Gladstone harbor dredging!
However, I can dredge without creating an ocean outfall or increased ocean turbidity.
It just requires a different method, (Cutter bar and pump) and a reasonable amount of onshore land, which can be used to collect the fine particles, and store them in special evaporation tenements/sediment dams.
In any event, we should decide what areas we develop, not a bunch of foreign Academics!
Enough already, of forgone conclusions and our economic sovereignty stolen by stealth, and or, blindingly patent misinformation!?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 17 July 2014 12:24:54 PM
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Science the biggest loser from Tasmanian World Heritage decision
Mark Poynter,
Overall, scientists, not science have been losers. Too many align themselves with the achievements of a few others.
The problem with science is that it is not merit based when the funding organisations fill the trough for the academic snouts.
Posted by individual, Thursday, 17 July 2014 6:44:18 PM
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To counter the claims presented by Peter Hitchcock on behalf of the ENGOs, the 2008 Rudd ALP majority Government advised the World Heritage Committee: “In 1989 the TWWHA was extended by 78 per cent from its previous boundaries to 20 per cent of the land mass of Tasmania. Australia is not contemplating further extensions to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage property.”

“Old growth forest protection in Tasmania far exceeds the 10 per cent target set by IUCN and the 60 per cent national reserve criterion. Approximately 80 per cent of old growth forest in Tasmania is protected in reserves.”

The ALP went on “As a result of the RFA and the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement in 2005 (TCFA), almost one million of the 1.2 million hectares (or about 80 per cent) of old growth forest areas are now protected in identified reserves. Approximately 406,000 hectares of RFA-defined old growth forest are located within the TWWHA – about one third of the property’s area.

The ALP government explained:
“Australia has an agreed approach to heritage assessment at a national level and, under the RFA, for extensions to the reserve system and the TWWHA in Tasmania. This approach is consistent with the requirement under the World Heritage Convention to consider the environmental, social and economic aspects of World Heritage nominations... any World Heritage nominations of any part of the Forest Estate (i.e. State forest and private forest managed for production) will be from the Dedicated Reserve elements of the Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative (CAR) reserve system.”

The 2003 amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 established the National Heritage List. The April 2004 National Heritage Protocol outlined arrangements for the coordination of Australian, State and Territory Governments systems for the protection of heritage. Under that protocol it was agreed that, as a general principle, future nominations for World Heritage listing would only be drawn from the National Heritage List.

So why did the 2013 nomination include harvested and disturbed forest that was not part of the reserve system, nor on the National Heritage List. Was it politics or science?
Posted by cinders, Thursday, 17 July 2014 8:57:38 PM
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Democracy is a "due process" Mark Poynter.

The Tasmanian electorate has made a choice and you should respect it. Tasmania wallowed in self righteous Green policies for too long and it is now essentially bankrupt. It has become a beggar state dependent upon federal largesse for economic survival. But one thing has become clear to all of those greenies who immigrated to Tasmania as a Green utopian state. Unless they get over their tree hugging neuroses, their kids will become bereft of any hope that things may ever improve and the Tasmanians will lose their children to the mainland.

It is alright being pious and sneering at industry as the polluters of the world, and doing everything to drive industry away. But sooner or later, the penny drops that unless you have industry, you can forget a future with prosperity. Greenies may have a vision of everybody in the world becoming secular Amish but most people do not think like that. Fantasising about the nobility of poverty is only for those who have money and security.

Now we have the absurd position of an unelected international body telling democratically elected state and federal governments in Australia, what they may or may not do with their own territory. Who was the idiot who signed away the sovereignty of Australia to foreigners? That is the issue that Mark Poynter should be examining with his self righteous attitude.

But no, Mark is another greenie who's job in the media is to look for creative ways to portray the responsible people who want Australia to be economically viable, to be the enemies of humankind, while the green conservatives are the "scientific" thinkers who are the saviours of the world.

Here is the solution, Mark. Let Tasmania and South Australia secede from the Federation and you can all go and live in Green poverty forever without federal assistance. But I doubt that you will go for that. You would prefer to sit on your Federally subsidised ivory tower and pretend that you are oh, so morally superior to us, while we pick up the bill.
Posted by LEGO, Friday, 18 July 2014 6:00:07 AM
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Good article Mark although the true depth of the perversion of science and due process in this world heritage debacle goes much deeper and information is still coming to light.

more information about this at

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tasmanian-World-Heritage-Con-Job-the-truth-behind-the-2013-extension/325896320896192?ref=hl
Posted by Chris1904, Friday, 18 July 2014 6:37:14 AM
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Great article Mark! It is a pity it is all true, and in fact I believe the corruption is more widespread and deeper than you have outlined in your article here.
I believe the strategy and tactics used by the green groups were cranked up when they saw both the Tasmanian and national Labor governments pass into minority needing the support of Greens in the space of a few months back in 2010, combined with the Greens having the balance of power in the Senate.
They knew they had to create a bargaining situation, and they knew that if they could get an agreement of the type they wanted they could land a body blow on the native forest-based timber industry. They knew they would have to get federal cash for buy-outs, and they knew the deal would have to have Tasmanian legislation, and they knew it would be secure if they could add a WHA extension to it. FSC certification was part of it, and the article published in Quadrant Online by Ron Boswell in July spells it all out.
Other aspects needing more clarity are they inter-connections between some of the people mentioned, and it starts to make even more sense. Some caught up in the negotiating process were lambs to the slaughter, including the branches and members of TCA in Tasmania, and of course FIAT must be disappointed at where their negotiating effort got them, and they didn't help their smaller colleagues much, and in fact their efforts could have been like this: "OK, if there is going to be a smaller pie, we want ALL of it for our members, and the rest can go away, and take the buy-out if they can get it."
The deal was a disaster for the Special Timbers industry, which has had a large portion of its resource locked up. The members of the previous Labor state government should hang their heads in shame. They abrogated their responsibilities and sold us down the river, and are showing no recognition of that, or any preparedness to help fix it.
Posted by teredo, Friday, 18 July 2014 11:22:52 AM
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LEGO, you said:
"But no, Mark is another greenie who's job in the media is to look for creative ways to portray the responsible people who want Australia to be economically viable, to be the enemies of humankind, while the green conservatives are the "scientific" thinkers who are the saviours of the world."

Before you started typing it would have been prudent to have read the article .... if you had done so you would probably have been surprised to find that I am not one of the 'greenies' that you deride, and that the article actually supports your view that we can't as a society continue to simply lock-up all our resources and hope to maintain a viable society as per the Green-Left's default position in relation to forests.

By the way, I am not employed in the media, but am a professional forester who occassionally writes online articles representing forestry viewpoints that are otherwise rarely seen in relation to environmental issues.
Posted by MWPOYNTER, Saturday, 19 July 2014 10:07:52 AM
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teredo

I realise that this article is only scraping the surface of what runs much deeper and is more widespread, but the constraints of a 2000 word essay makes it impossible to cover everything. I suspect that a book would be required to fully document everything that has happened.
Posted by MWPOYNTER, Saturday, 19 July 2014 11:28:16 AM
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