I think climate change and pressures of human intrusion means we will never again see E. regnans get to 100m in height. We are essentially mining live wood, a bit like catching undersized fish. With actual mining of rock there is no pretense the activity is sustainable. However we kid ourselves that trees that took 200-400 years to grow will be replaced by similar trees centuries from now. In all likelihood the tree species mix will become less aesthetically pleasing. At the same time carbon uptake, biodiversity, shade and average soil moisture will decline.

Old growth logging is like bulldozing Sydney Opera House to put up a block of flats. It destroys something we should preserve and is a lazy way to make a buck.

It is pretty simple really, no clean green environment, no us.
What could be easier to understand?

I fundamentally disagree with the Author's take, and see it as yet another recipe for a major bush-fire event; but particularly as forests are now dryer and wind speeds are higher!
One remembers well when a large area of mostly inaccessible Victoria's upland forests were locked up, and for much the same reasons advocated here, with the only possible result; millions of hectares burned, in an impossible to control fire storm, that destroyed flora and fauna on a hitherto, unprecedented scale; including endangered and threatened species!
Further, timber stores carbon whether vertical or horizontal!
Young vigorous forest, [and no we are not talking about plantings/saplings just inches high,] harvest more atmospheric carbon, than any old growth forest.
Indigenous peoples have been selectively harvesting their forests for millennium, without harm to flora and fauna, just multiple benefits.
Trees fall by them selves, and fauna is then obliged to find new homes; and, with the natural falling of forest giants, huge open spaces are created, for new life to force its way through, and for fauna to graze!
All part of the natural order as are we.
Yes, we should manage our forests, to maximize their productive capacity and value as valuable timber.
And that just has to include the construction of many new dams, or should I say wetlands?
Wetlands that quite massively increase the landscapes ability to collect and store water, and then release it in dryer times.
Patently, wet green land, is a lot harder to burn, than timber that is so dry due to the ravages of enduring drought, that it explodes into flame/firestorms!
Logging roads act like fire breaks, and loggers are many more experienced eyes, looking out for and protecting our, not green devotees assets! And simple logging roads, make formerly inaccessible land, accessible!
Moreover, controlled cell grazing eliminates fuel loads far more safely, and thoroughly, than so called controlled cool burns, that can and do get out of control, and always with disastrous results!
Goats and very rapid, very intense cell grazing, my first choice fuel load reduction strategy, followed by soft footed Lamas.
Rhrosty.

Matthew

I could easily write an essay of similar length discussing the shortcomings of many of your assertions, but central to it all is a complete lack of proportion.

In Victoria, just 6% of the native forests are being managed for long term timber supply - so, 94% are already available to provide the full gamut of ecological services you are arguing for. In 1986, 31% of Victoria's forests, or five time more than now, were being managed for timber.

The current rate of timber harvesting is already 80% lower than what it was in 1980, and is arguably the lowest that it's been since WW2 - and yet you are advocating a further 70 - 90% reduction to supposedly save the environment!

You talk about reserving more areas as being essential for combatting climate change. However, greater use of timber is acknowledged to be one of the solutions to climate change given that it is renewable, stores carbon, and its production and manufacture requires only a fraction of the carbon emissions used for steel, concrete, aluminium.

Much of the research that you allude to is considered to be highly contentious amongst scientists who are not driven by the same agenda to lock-up more forests. I can only hope that as you grow and graduate as a scientist you become far more questioning of research sponsored by ENGOs with a 'save-the-world' agenda.

It is depressing to read this garbage from a naive brainwashed kid. Like MWPOYNTER I could write a thousand words & still not cover all the misinformation in this article.

I see the kid is already on the bandwagon, flying around the world funded by the promotion of this garbage. I can only wonder if this is actually the reason for this article, or is it really possible he actually believes what he wrote.

I do find it hard to believe that anyone could really fall for this stuff without an ulterior motive. Well I did, until I talked to a couple of young lady environmental science graduates, recently employed by the Queensland government.

They were nice sweet young ladies, who's heads had been filled with utter rubbish at a Gold Coast university. They had to have a senior bloke at water resources confirm that increased tree growth, & ground litter, actually reduces runoff from a water catchment. Like our author it appears, they had been taught exactly the opposite.

What could be easier to understand?
ateday,
Nothing really but what needs to be made clear is that it's not nature/forests that need to be managed, people need to be managed & we're not doing that because our experts are too insipid to understand.

When an article lacks balance, it lacks credibility and therefore intellect.

There is far too much rhetoric to consider this as scientific inquiry, rather it should be considered a poorly informed opinion piece

Matthew, if you spend some time with a timber expert, someone who makes their living from it, not some well paid uni lecturer, they will tell you that threes, just like most living things have dominant, sub dominant and juveniles within their group.

Now, if you remove the dominant tree, the sub dominants compete to become the new dominant, resulting in excelerated growth and, excel stated carbon storage.

Timber harvesters do just that as there is little commercial value for small diameter t
Logs and, the costs of harvesting same often outweighs the financial gains.

Finally, most hardwood forests are harvested every twenty to fifty years, depending on spices and growth rates and, once the harvesters have moved on, the smaller trees experience a huge growth spurt, again resulting in increased carbon storage.

Everything is about balance and what woukd like to see is legislation that sees all now houses containg a certain % of timber, as that stores carbon fir as long as the building remains.

Storing carbon or dealing with it is where the solution lies, not reducing it to levels where jobs are threatened.

% of timber, as that stores carbon fir as long as the building remains.
rehctub,
excuse my ignorance but I'm wondering if the treated timber that is nowadays used would still absorb Carbon ? Isn't it a requirement now to only use treated timber ?

Indi, timber does not exhaib carbon once sawn, but it does store carbon, whether it be treated or not.

As a rough guide, carbon equates for approx 50% of the timbers weight so, if an average house were to contain 3m3 of timber, at say 1200kg per cube, it would store around 1.8 ton of carbon for as long as it remains.

Furthermore, trees only exhaub carbon when they are growing and, ode growing slows, towards the end of their life cycle, they exhaub less and prohibit sub dominant trees from maturing, resulting in reduced growth rates, meaning less carbon exhaubtion. I see not problem with harvesting timber so long as it is replaced, or allowed to replace natually.

At the end of th day, simply reducing carbon emissions will result is reducing jobs as well. We must come up with ways to store carbon and this is potentially one such way.

As for treated timber being exclusively used, I doubt it, but untreated must be from strength group 1 or 2.

We must come up with ways to store carbon and this is potentially one such way.
rehctub,
Yes but in my language that translates directly into reducing emissions full stop. Electricity is vital to modern society so cutting that would be a very ask. Motor Sport is one industry that could be curbed from 24 hour races to say 4 hours etc. Frivolous industry can be curbed as, by its nature it is well, frivolous. Some profits are more than just profits, they can be curbed too. If we do not collectively address the biggest problem in our society, Greed, we'll be dragging ourselves collectively into the pits. Greed can be reduced by early education in responsibility such as a non-military National Service. Australia hs been running wild for too long now in the area of responsibility, it's time to reign in this dreadful metality.