Well blow me down with a feather - Bob Brown and the Greens support anti-logging activism in Tasmania! So does the Wilderness Society! Concerned individuals fund independent docos about environmental destruction!

Duh.

While I am not entirely opposed to logging the way it is currently practiced leaves a lot to be desired. Only an industry with the status of a sacred cow can cause respiratory distress to so many people during the autumn burnoff periods; a factory would be shut down if it made thousands of people sick. Occasionally you see a giant log on the back of a truck on its way to be chipped. Anywhere but Tasmania a giant tree would be regarded as part of the local heritage, not a cheap commodity. I don't know so much about eagles but I can point to a spot where a lyrebird stamping ground has been bulldozed prior to logging.

Finally a number of bushwalkers (who admittedly use log tracks) are convinced climate change is steadily transforming the forest ecology to warmer, drier and slower growing. I doubt whether this has been factored in to the industry's 'sustainable' yield calculations.

The Wilderness Society is not a business. It is an activist group that needs $12 million to mount its campaigns. Almost all of its workers are highly educated who could earn much bigger incomes elsewhere. They are struggling to save an environment that has taken thousands of years to establish its present ecological balance.

They want future generations to inherit that environment. These crusaders will be long dead and will not be there to be thanked by the beneficiaries. Church-based welfare workers who believe in Heavenly rewards cannot claim to be truly selfless. The non-religious crusaders for the environment are probably the only truly selfless people in our society.

On the other hand what are the forestry people essentially interested in? Answer; money! The accusation is that the Wilderness Society manufactures crises. Starting with the year 1788 as a baseline of 100% now look at how much unspoiled natural area is left. The crisis does not have to be manufactured.

This article describes guerrilla tactics by the greenies. If that is what it takes to oppose destructive greed - fair enough.

We cannot believe the wilderness people BUT can we believe you who has a vested interest in the timber industry? One just one photo of acres of clearfelled once natural bushland with animals, birds, insects and plants all destroyed is enough to make you and your company a pariah and to make you a money driven liar. When a decent caring person sees this freefelling it is hard for us to imagin anyone so foolish and greedy agreeing to it - almost in or un-human. I'm afraid you have a lot more work to do yet and Gunn's which comes across as a devious no standards company who allegedly bribes politicians is your worst enemy. You could have told us just where all this timber goes as I understand most is turned into woodchips.
Regards, a non-convinced - numbat

Ken’s article is spot on; its relevance can be seen by the latest effort by protestors in the Styx Valley. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22046773-29277,00.html

These are the same protestors that signed a MOU to halt illegal protests in the Florentine Valley.

What is amazing is that the Styx Valley has been subject to industrial harvesting since the 1940s when our great media barons got together to use the forests to make newsprint.

It was the birth place of clear fell burn and sow silviculture in the early 1960’s.
The forest management is so good and the regeneration so successful that the protestors still think of the Valley as pristine wilderness with awe inspiring old growth.

The Wilderness Society used photos of the Styx to campaign against the Howard Government at the last Election and to convince Mark Latham to lock up Tasmanian forests, a loopy policy that most commentators’ state cost the ALP government.

There is strong evidence that the protestors receive advice from the office of Greens Senator Bob Brown who is in a desperate battle to retain his Senate seat in the next Federal election.

The Wilderness Society appears to be flat out trying to get him publicity. This is hardly surprising when the Society was created in Bob’s lounge room and its Tasmanian spokesperson is a former Brown staff member.

Funds donated to the Wilderness Society are tax deductible as they are supposed to promote wilderness protection, yet you never hear from this group that 97.5% of high quality wilderness is protected in Tasmania.

Forestry Tasmania has made significant concessions yet the protests and the campaigning against Tasmanian forest management goes on unabated.

Yep ban all timber exports, is the only answer to the rape of our ogygen generators. Houses used to be made from native wood once, now they are made out of very small pieces of wood glued together onto plantation pine, and the native timber gets mulched for export.
The beautiful native timber in old homes, instead of having maintenance and restoration subsidised by govt, is either bulldozed or dismantled to build new homes, and the irreplaceable timber cut up for foot lockers coffee tables etc, all pathetic uses for now rare native timber.
Ban Timber Exports.
Cheers Neil

As one of the reading/viewing public who may just be interested to know what's really going on, I would like to know why the industry goes right on doing whatever it likes.

Is it a pulp mill that's about to be built, regardless of failing to meet basic environmental standards and safeguards? Or did I misunderstand and Gunns is actually building a series of free health clinics?

As the posts on this trail clearly demonstrate, there is no limit to the ignorance of those who oppose forestry. Get this through your moronic brains folks, the Styx valley is mostly regrowth. The "harm" that people think they are observing in selected photographs is transitory. Most wildlife achieve a higher stocking rate in healthy, well managed regrowth rather than old growth.

The real experts in forest ecology are the wildlife themselves and they consistently vote with their feet and favour regrowth forest.

And as for climate change, the only way a forest can adjust to drier and warmer climate is to reduce the amount of growing wood. The only way an untouched old growth forest can do that is by strangling each other in a fight to the death that makes the entire stand vulnerable to disease. In managed regrowth, on the other hand, the foresters selectively remove a portion of the trees so the rest of the stand can maintain their vigour.

Brown's politics of forest exclusion will destroy more forest thasn anyone has to date.

Perseus, what rubbish are you spouting today? On what basis can you claim that wildlife "prefers" artificially regenerated forest? That flies in the face of ALL scientific studies, unless by 'prefer' you meant to say 'forced into', in which case get yourself a dictionary. And to suggest that conservation leads to more destruction than clear felled logging and 1080 poisoning shows you to be a complete parody of your trolling self.

According to the DPIW current population trends clearly show that Bennetts wallaby numbers are well above what they were in the 1980’s.

This confirms Perseus observation on animals enjoying the regrowth forest

Bennetts wallaby and Tasmanian pademelons (rufous wallaby) have a combined population estimate between 7 and 10 million. ( http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/internnsf/WebPages/JCOK-68R49R?open )

Browsing damage caused by these species to both the agricultural and forestry sectors in Tasmanian is considerable. Yet Forestry Tasmania has ceased the use of 1080 to protect crops due to a public campaign led by the media. However who will be prepared to compensate farmers for lost food production?

This explosion in population that has occurred in the last 30 years parallels the outrageous claims that Tasmania is destroying these animals and their habitat

That's great news cinders. Bennetts wallabies now outnumber Tasmanian humans with respiratory problems.

I'm sure that's the best news Tasmanians have had all day.

It's interesting that Tasmanian forestry presents itself as the "do-gooder" in this instance. TF presents itself as being under government supervision, however a closer perusal of this so called government sanctioned clearfelling of Tasmania's old growth forests, finds that a number of the relevant people in power have a very deep economical interest in the forestry industry - they are involved in companies who are involved in the logging industry. It is also well known that the logging industry is channeling a significant amount of money into government coffers. This is as per a number of well renowned media presentations.

TF says that they are replanting areas that have been clearfelled, yes they are, with sterile green deserts of pine trees or blue gum. That is not biodiversity.

The only question I ask, is when all the forests are destroyed, the beauty that Tassie was once known for is gone, when the micro climate of Tassie is altered forever - will someone then say "Oh dear, maybe we should have kept a bit more of the forests?" A bit late then!

Good on yar Ken Jeffreys you are spot on with evry thing you have said, its a pitty a few still refuse to see the woods for the trees or just don't want to execpt what Tasmania has achieved in the name of forest conservation and why that achievement is world class.

The Regional Forest Agreement process, established an independent panel of world-respected environmental scientists to develop nationally agreed criteria for a compensative, adequate and representative forest reserve system. Resulting in recommended non-mandatory reservation targets of 15% forest biodiversity, 60% old-growth forests and 90% high quality wilderness. With assigned for assessment, detailed descriptive criteria. (Forest had to be forest)

The 1997 Tasmanian RFA process employed over a two-year period several hundred highly qualified environmental and resource scientists to rigorously and objectively evaluate forest against the criteria. Resulting in reservation levels of 40% (1,269,000 hectares) forest biodiversity, 69% (851,000 hectares) old-growth and 95% (1,836,300hectares) high quality wilderness.

The 2004 Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement upgraded these levels to 1,465,000 hectares (47%) forest biodiversity, 1,004,480 hectares (80%) old growth and 1,885,300 (97%) high quality wilderness.
Not a bad achievement when compared against the 10% forest reservation target set by the Convention of Biological Diversity, and agreed by the WWF and the IUCN.

Additional good reading is the just released Sustainability Indicators for Tasmanian Forests 2001-2006 available at DPAC as part of the Tasmanian RFA 10 year review.

Well done Mr Jeffreys, the media does allow its self to be taken in by dark greens, last year Tasmanian ABC news run a anti forestry story with supporting footage from Doctors For Forests. Following questioning the ABC took a while to get the truth with the filming date changing from 2006 to 2004 then 2003 finally some time during 2000.

The ABC’s Complaint Report is an interesting read.
7pm Television News
25 April 2006
The complaint
The ABC received two complaints from a single complainant about the source of footage used during a news story about tax cuts for timber plantations. The report included statements about the poisoning of native animals and the footage depicted a dead native animal. The ABC’s initial response to the complainant advised that the footage was supplied by the group Doctors for Forests and was filmed during 2004. The complainant was unhappy with this response and wrote again to the ABC, stating that the source of the footage was not attributed during the story and that the date of the footage could not be correct because it appeared to be the same footage used in the Four Corners program ‘Lords of the Forests’.

Findings
In a further response to the complainant the ABC acknowledged that the footage was filmed in 2003, not in 2004 as the complainant had initially been advised. The ABC also agreed that the footage should have been accompanied by a caption identifying that it was supplied by
Doctors for Forests, because it was likely that it had been used as media release by a lobby group. The ABC apologised to the complainant and the News Editor put out a memo to all of his staff warning of the dangers of using third party material.

Following receipt of this further response from the ABC, the complainant raised further questions about its accuracy. Additional information was sought from News & Current Affairs, and the ABC acknowledged that it had again provided an inaccurate response to the
complainant. The ABC apologised for these regrettable and embarrassing errors in its advice to the complainant.

Drive from Burnie to Tullah - down the Murchison H'way or the Heemskirk to the West - apart from strategically placed screening plots about 20 meters deep the place is clear felled from horizon to horizon - with hectares of barren windrows of useless timber - or miles of mono culture pine - and all this within 80 ks of Cradle Mountain where for one of your testricles you can rent the use of a beer.

You want to see old growth forst in Tassie - stand by the side of any road and wait for them to be driven by on the back of a truck - and the tallest man made structure in Burnie - is a pile of wood chips.

Tassie is green alright - but a lot of the green is where the rot has set in.

Drive from Burnie to Tullah - down the Murchison H'way or the Heemskirk to the West - apart from strategically placed screening plots about 20 meters deep the place is clear felled from horizon to horizon - with hectares of barren windrows of useless timber - or miles of mono culture pine - and all this within 80 ks of Cradle Mountain where for one of your testricles you can rent the use of a beer.

You want to see old growth forest in Tassie - stand by the side of any road and wait for them to be driven by on the back of a truck - and the tallest man made structure in Burnie - is a pile of wood chips.

Tassie is green alright - but a lot of the green is where the rot has set in.

Thanks Ken your article reminded me of a ABC Four Corners program from late last years titled The A Team where a startling admission was made by a green activist that it is common practice to collect road kill possums and other road kill animals, to then keep them in a fridge for latter use to, and to quote “to make it, sort of, real to the public’.. To Rod up the track, wonder if Doctors for Forests was using the same fridge?

Just found the Four Corners A Team transcript (it was televised 2 Oct 06) and the geenies admission is startling to say the least.

The damming passage from the transcript reads.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: Tracy and her A-team colleagues filed extensive written reports on Environment Victoria's discussions and plans. They reported when and where demonstrations would be held, and recorded in detail any reference to Amcor. They also revealed some of the greenies' own tricks - like planning a graphic photo display about the effects of logging, using dead possums from a collection the forest campaigner kept in his freezer.
Do you remember that discussion?
GERALDINE RYAN, FORMER VOLUNTEER, ENVIRONMENT VICTORIA: I remember that was more than once. That he...he used to collect, if a possum was a road kill or an animal was a road kill, would collect them and keep them in the fridge. It was just again...to make it, sort of, real to the public.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What, animals out of the forest campaigner's freezer?
GERALDINE RYAN: Yes.

So Bas, how did all those animals die? Did Sally Neighbour kill them?

Chain smoker

That is a question you should direct to your forest activist colleagues in Victoria, as it was one of them Ms Geraldine Ryan who admitted on national television its common practice keep road kill animals in a fridge to use latter to “to make it, sort of, real to the public”

Just for your benefit here again is the quotable quote;

GERALDINE RYAN, FORMER VOLUNTEER, ENVIRONMENT VICTORIA: : I remember that was more than once. That he...he used to collect, if a possum was a road kill or an animal was a road kill, would collect them and keep them in the fridge. It was just again...to make it, sort of, real to the public.
SALLY NEIGHBOUR: What, animals out of the forest campaigner's freezer?
GERALDINE RYAN: Yes.

Bas, I don't personally know any forest activists anywhere, and I did read your quote. So they pick up road kill, keep it in a freezer, then take it all out and put it on the road again to show that animals get run over.

The fact that animals get killed on the road is still a fact, whether they're fresh or defrosted.

What's that got to do with Lennon letting Gunns run Tasmania?

Chain Smoker

Can understand why you are so desperate to direct the focus away from the totally underhanded (could say dishonest) tactics of your forest activist mates, their admitted reason for keeping dead road kill animals in fridges was to, when it suited their job destroying anti forestry campaigns to then use these poor dead animals to mislead the public into thinking timber harvesting caused their death.

In a court of law I do believe this is called fabricating evidence.

Going on what Ken Jeffreys said in the opening to this thread its clear that this type of dishonest tactic by forest activists is not new and that’s backed up by a previous post from Rod up the Road where the ABC admitted it was mislead by Doctors for Forests over the origins of news footage supplied to it by this anti forestry activist group.

To me with this on going need by anti forestry activists to mislead the public by fabricating evidence, then perhaps there is no real case against the forest industry, the real aim of these activists is to create fear then cash in on it to maintain a very profitable tax free marketing business based upon this fabricated fear. .

Well done, Ken, for an illuminating article.
During the late 1990s when the RFA debate was taking place around Australia, Dick Smith's name keep on getting mentioned as a person who was funding the forest activists. Rumours only, of course, but many people wanting a bit of honesty in the debate were keen to know who was funding the protesters.
Three years ago, there was another relatively minor forest confrontation over another eucalypt known as tuart, located in an area of state forest between Bunbury and Busselton in the south west of WA, as a result of a mining proposal. This time, I was told unequivocally by a local businessman than one of the forest protesters purchased various items using a cheque with Dick Smith's name on it.
Now, I don't have a problem with Mr Smith or anyone using their democratic right to fund any legal activity or process in our country. But, like Ken, I believe it's outright dishonest when the people providing such support are able to hide their names and affiliations, while the targets of their campaigns are open to almost total scrutiny.
The greatest weakness of our democratic system is that its openness and commitment to public participation and honesty can be so easily manipulated by the media, special interest groups and individuals who can fund campaigns for change without having their motivations understood and challenged.