Article's about forestry issues written from the 'green' perspective (as this one has been) are typified by a lack of understanding of what occurs in forests (ie. who plans and controls timber production) and a total lack of proportion (ie. how much forest is actually being used for this purpose against the total area of forest).

These things don't matter to the writer because to be so aggrieved as to spend the considerable time required to produce such an article betrays an unbridled passion for 'saving' forests that has no time for reason or perspective.

However, most reasonable, open-minded people should be interested in knowing that academically-trained foresters (not the timber industry) plan and control where and how much timber production occurs. These days just 9% of Victoria's forests are available for timber production, and it is permitted within just a 12% portion of the forests in Melbourne's 160,000 ha water catchment area. The proportion of these available areas that are harvested each year is tiny, and they are immediately regenerated and to grow as new forests.

Logging is not done for amusement. It is done to produce materials that are much in demand by society.

These above points form the context against which this article needs to be assessed.

The author refers to the 'devastation' of logging and 'the new generation of activists' fighting against it. However, is it really devastation to sustainably use a minor portion of a renewable natural resource for human need? I don't think so.

True devastation would be if forests were being logged without limits or controls and permanently cleared (not regenerated). While this is not the case in Australian forests, it is the wrong impression that the environmental movement has deliberately created to engender a muddle-headed conventional wisdom about this issue, particularly in far away cities where their views are rarely scrutinised. Under these circumstances, who can blame the timber industry for mobilising itself in defence of its integrity and livelihood.

As a member of Timber Communities Australia, like the Forest Protection Society, I can tell you it is a grass roots network of communities throughout Australia that is prepared to articulate the hopes and aspirations of their people, their workplace and their community. They seek to support sustainable development of natural resources particularly their forests that provide multiple benefits of timber, carbon uptake, water, environmental, recreational and tourism values. They are proud of their contribution but do not enjoy being kicked like a football in some political game waged by so called environmentalists.

Such organizations grew in response to the image laden campaigns of the new political party now known as the greens; but initially known as groups such as the Wilderness society, Friends of the Earth and other so called “environmental” groups.

As the author acknowledges, TCA has been very effective in promoting the facts about forest management and the social and economic benefits of multiple use and sustainable development, so much so that former Wilderness Society spin doctor Bob Burton has attacked TCA in his Source Watch entry, that like the current article relies on Bob Brown’s attack on the people of TCA behind parliamentary privilege.

It is amazing that Chris James refer to herself as Dr. This is a Doctorate in Communication, eg a University sanctioned “Spin Doctor”. Perhaps she was the one who thought up the PR stunt to keep road kill in the freezer, so that green groups could have “evidence” of the loggers impact when the TV crews arrived, that was a major feature of the Four Corners report.

Forest workers and their families have a vital interest in ensuring our forests are well managed, if there is no forest there is no forest industry. Timber communities rely on professional foresters and scientists with practical knowledge to ensure that the forest is renewed after harvest rather than spin doctors and false imagery of doom. The TV series should be one of good news and hope for a treasured lifestyle.

Having re-read the article it is important point out the following errors:

'Greens ... brought a new knowledge about conservation and a determination to stop logging in old growth forests and the water catchments'

Most Greens have passion, but this should not be mistaken for knowledge. For example, there is no old growth forest logged in Melbourne's water catchments - only 1939 regrowth from the Black Friday bushfires.

'The memory of the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires that killed 49 people .... was still fresh in the minds of local residents.'

While some areas of the Central Highlands forests were burnt in 1983, all the deaths and most property damage occurred hundreds of kilometres away in western Victoria - Otways and Western District.

'The Greens they claimed would stop the clear-felling and this would be the cause of future fires'

It is a reality that commercial activity in the forest generates funding for protective management activities such as fuel reduction burning, and provides a reason for workforces equipped with appropriate fire-fighting equipment to be in the forest and readily availble if needed. Without as many of them, fire control becomes more problematic as we have discovered in 2003 and 2006/07.

A general comment: This writer confers incredible political powers to the 'logging industry' - yet the area of Victorian public forest available for wood production has declined by 70% since 1986, largely for political purposes to appease misinformed 'city greens' swayed by this type of largely ignorant commentary.

It is not just members of greens groups who are opposed to logging the forests, the bulk of which goes to woodchip. 16 Melbourne councils have voiced their objection to logging in the water catchments because it poses a threat to Melbourne's water. This is well over one million people, a potential for boosting greens membership no doubt if the government doesn't act to stop it. The devastation to the biodiversity of the forest cannot be replaced by planting a monoculture.

The pro-clear-fell-logging fraternity argue along well worn so called scientific lines. These arguements are so out of touch with recent changes in knowledge that they remind me of Rome's refusal to accept that the earth encircled the sun. Read the Green Carbon Report put out by the ANU recently. The forests of the Upper Yarra Ranges where I live are some of the most carbon rich in the world. The demographic of this area has radically changed over the last 10 to 15 years.
Warburton for instance is no longer a timber town. The majority of the local population do not want clear fell logging to continue here.
The environment movement is marganilised by the pro-clearfell logging lobby as if they are modern day witches. But it is no longer only environmentalists who are campaigning against present logging practices. Ordinary residents representing a broad cross-section of local communities are firmly supportive of the position that the Yarra Valley shire and 14 other shires have taken. The old guard within the timber industry are deeply entrenched in denial. They are caught in old patterns of thinking motivated by short term greed and like the American economic crisis instigators are headed towards their own demise.
Having said that I support efforts to creatively redeploy timber workers. They could be redeployed in so many ways especially in the eco-tourism and eco-management fields. Who is not wanting to change?
Who is making the big finacial gains? Who is in denial of climate change? Who supports an old political and social reasoning that is corrupt and intended to benifit a few at the expense of the many, the environment and our children's future?
The arguements put forward against Dr James article are tired, purile and part of the problem that our civilisation now faces.
The economic and environmental meltdown is no fantasy.
The arguement that human activity has little or no place in the changes taking place is pure denialist bunkum.
We need a grass roots awakening now that links us all in a new caring
and wholistic approach to challenges like deforestation.

Response to Chris James:
Yes, all who know about this issue are aware that Melbourne municipalities have been assailed by presentations from 'green' groups - particularly the Melbourne Catchment Action Network - about the supposed 'devastation' occurring in the catchments and convinced that they should oppose it.

This is hardly surprising given that they were presented with only one side of the arguement as I am not aware that any of them sought any similar presentation from the foresters or industry representatives who know what is actually occurring in these forests.

Again this hardly surprising as many of Melbourne's inner urban municipalities have councils dominated by Green Party members or supporters who would be inclined to this point of view anyway.

Interestingly, when the Municipal Association of Victoria (who represent the various municipalities) tried to pass a similar motion opposing logging in the catchments, it failed when the majority of municipalities outvoted those that have been convinced by the 'greens'.

It is drawing a very long bow to suggest that just because a municipal council takes a particular stance on an issue, they are representing the views of all their constituents.

You again display your ignorance of this issue when you talk about replacing the forest biodiversity with a planted monoculture. No planting occurs, the harvested areas are regenerated with seed and all elements of the understorey recolonise the site naturally as they would after a wildfire.

Response to 'keithcolin':Saying that forests are carbon rich is akin to saying that Antarctica is ice-rich. This is not worthy of being considered as a 'recent change in knowledge' as you have implied.

You refer to the recently released 'Green carbon' report as new knowledge. While it has attained some credibility through being authored by ANU scientists, its objectivity is seriously questionable as it was funded by The Wilderness Society (TWS) and its lead author, Professor Mackey, is an anti-logging activist who assists TWS on its Wild Country project. He has also authored several opinion pieces published in The Age calling for the closure of Australia's hardwood timber industry. So, no prizes for guessing what his report finds!

The major shortcomings of the 'Green Carbon' report are that:- it appears to grossly overstate the carbon content of the above-ground forest components, particularly compared to previous carbon accounting estimates by the Australian Greenhouse Office;- it implies that the carbon content of the highly productive SE Australian ash forests is indicative of all Australian forests which are mostly comparatively unproductive;- it virtually ignores the fact that periodic forest fire is inevitable - indeed the forests have evolved to be dependent on it - which invalidates any claim that stopping logging (in the minor portion of forests where it is permitted) will allow forests to become permanent carbon stores.

In any case, it is acknowledged by scientists involved in carbon accounting that sustainably harvesting forests is the best way to increase carbon storage because it transfers carbon from the forest into secure storage in the community, whilst creating space for new trees to sequester and store more carbon.

I wouldn't expect you or Chris James to understand any of this. Indeed, the real tragedy of the on-going campaigns to 'save' forests is that the 'environmentalists' don't even know what they don't know about forests. While their political connections may see their campaigns succeed, the result would be as environmentally and socially dangerous as say allowing the timber industry to determine how our schools or hospitals are run.

Part 1: Dr. James raises some very good and valid points on the unprofessional behaviour of the pro logging lobby, actions that continue to affect the public in an equally insidious fashion today, most recently with the development of the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF). The birth of this organisation stemmed from a supposedly disenchanted group of ‘environmentalists’ that disagreed with the way conservation was being enacted in Australia. This group condones; logging in old growth forests, nuclear power, GM crops, the Gunns pulp mill, land clearing and they continually throw skepticism at the theory of anthropogenic climate change.

The AEF was founded by the head campaigner of Timber Communities Australia; Kersten Gentle and at one point had their principal place of contact in the TCA offices. The organisation purports to represent on environmental issues in an objective fashion unfettered by emotional conservation but the truth is they employ similar tactics to any other environment group and shroud it in a cloak of supposed ‘science’. Max Rheese, its director, publicly admitted on Tripple J’s Hack program that the organisation was a political lobbying group, an action that is in conflict with their government awarded tax deductibility status. This status, by law, prohibits political lobbying and stipulates that financial donors must not use the environmental organisation as a conduit for their own outcomes, interesting when you consider the AEF publicly admits to receiving funds from Tasmanias forest industries, with direct links to Gunns, and the AEF actively promotes logging and lobby’s for the Gunns pulp mill. It could be argued that this group is using the government tax benefits, at cost to the community, to lobby for their donors needs not for the natural environments needs. In their chairmans own words, celebrity Gardner Don Burke says ‘“The proposed pulp mill at Bell Bay in Tasmania should go ahead ...”

Part 2:Worth noting is how the AEF received their tax deductibility status in a matter of months when most environment groups wait years before their approval or disproval. As the old adage goes ‘its not what you know its who you know and perhaps whose money is funding you’.

Now for Mr Poynter and his role in this equation. Firstly, Mr Poynter is the mouth piece for the logging lobby, the Institute of Foresters Australia, he has also written a book ‘Saving Australia’s Wilderness’, that attempts to provide a ‘balanced’ appraisal of the environmental movement. Mr Poynters book effectively reveals a highly under confident pro logging lobby and inadvertently delivers environment groups with the archillies heel of the logging industry. For some environmentalists, it helped boost their confidence realising they mattered more to the opposition and were a lot more effective in their campaigning than previously thought. Mr Poynter’s book is an endorsement for a business as usual approach to logging in areas of high conservation value forests and is readily endorsed by the AEF, in fact you can buy it directly from their website, front page no less. Fancy an environment organisation promoting a book that condemns environment groups?

Response to 'environment for everyone':
You dismiss the Institute of Foresters of Australia (IFA) as a 'logging lobby'. In fact it is the peak body representing Australia's professional foresters. It has been in existence since 1935 and has around 1300 members who have academic qualifications and/or training and experience in forest science. In my case that is a diploma and a university degree. The discipline of forest science embraces all aspects of native forest and plantation management including fire, ecology, wood production.

The IFA and its members actually know and understand the complexity of what is happening in our forests - perhaps you could enlighten us on what you actually know beyond just a simplistic desire to 'save' forests through political activism regardless of any wider social and environmental consequences.

I am interested in your reaction to my book - 'Saving Australia's Forests and its Implications'. It was written specifically to put into perspective the ongoing anti-logging campaigns. In particular, the fact that they continue despite logging being now such a minor activity in terms of harvested area, and that the environmental impact is so minimal that government publications such as 'Australia's State of the Forests Report' confirm that it poses no threat.

The book was an attempt to show that the environmental movement's attitude to wood production is grossly out of proportion with reality and pose questions about why this may be so. Personally, I think it is because logging is an easy target for people that feel a need do something for the environment but think that the really important issues are too hard. Unfortunately, stopping wood production will do almost nothing except make these people feel better. Indeed, it would be counterproductive because it will transfer our hardwood demand to places where there are few environmental controls and weaken our capability to manage the really important threats to our own forests, such as fire.

Those like My Poynter who support logging in water catchments and deforestation are blind to the bigger picture of the global crisis that we are passing through. I have no time for their blinkered perspectives. WE ARE DYING.
WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF AN ECOLOGICAL, ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND EVOLUTIONAL CRISIS. We need to regain a respect and love for GAIA...and simply shift from the egotistic domination of all and sundry.
Wake up Mr Poynter!

For the benefit of readers I would like to comment on the slur Mr Poynter made regarding my degree, a Doctorate in Communication. My thesis actually dealt with the different levels of consciousness including studies of Autism and false consciousness. I do not feel I should have to justify my position but such a slur is not only another example of unprofessional behaviour it is also insulting to my university, Deakin and the people who supported me through the higher degree process. The National Forestry Association has resorted to similar slurs on its website, one which refers to a recent report on the capacity of forests to store carbon. In this case the Australian National University and the relative researchers were accused of 'pseudo-science'. This is not only a great insult to the ANU it is an insult to the Australian people. Does anyone seriously think our leading university could afford to engage in such unethical behaviour as 'pseudo-science'. I don't think so. It is unfortunate but there are human costs in this debate including the families of loggers, many of whom are simply trying to survive. However, they are not well served by industry representatives that have to resort to under-hand, misleading and abusive tactics.

Thank you, MWPOYNTER, for some science to counter the emotional and often untrue rantings of the anti-logging brigade.
As a West Australian, the only comment I can make about forests in south east Australia is that the logging of ANY forest primarily for woodchips is unfortunate, since timber plantations on cleared land can produce the same low value product without all the biodiversity conservation issues. Logging for saw logs really should be the way to go.
In WA, the timber industry has just about lost everything. Jensen Jarrah was once the state's largest exporter of jarrah outdoor furniture, employing 200 people. He had his clearing sale last Saturday and is continuing on with just 18 employees, thanks to the non-availability of one of the planet's most sustainable materials - wood. The old growth forests that were 'protected' against logging by the Geoff Gallop government in 2001 (together with 3 times as much logged forest to act as a buffer around the unlogged cores) are now rapidly degrading, thanks to a withdrawal of management funds. Threats are feral pigs, jarrah dieback fungus, inappropriate fire regimes, illegal timber removal and an absence of modern silvicultural techniques being applied to forest logged 50 or more years ago.
Chris James may be well intentioned in her desire to solve what she sees as excessive logging in SE Australia but she is poorly informed and should talk (and listen) more to foresters and forest scientists.

Chris James:
Before you publicly accuse someone you should get your facts straight. If you go back through my posts you will see that I have refrained from mentioning your doctorate or even calling you by your preferred 'doctor' because, even though you obviously believe it adds to your credibility, it is irrelevant to a discussion about forests. If you have been sleighted it has not been by me.

Bernie Masters:
Thanks for your support. Sawn timber is indeed the target product from Victorian forests but the woodchip component is understandably high when (as the 'greens' do) you include the chips produced from the waste wood and off-cuts generated in sawmills whilst turning round logs into rectangular sawn products.

I agree, the unwillingness of our mostly urban-based 'greens' to countenance local production of hardwood sawn timber is tragically short-sighted given the wider consequences of shifting demand to developing countries and withdrawing funding and management capability from an environment that needs periodic managed disturbance to ensure its survival and renewal.

MWPOYNTER

Who "sheppered" the forest before the logging industry came along?
You are paid mouthpeace for the logging industry and are doing your job.
Most who protest "clear felling" like walking in forests, not the wastelands after the loggers have done their deeds.

Can you tell me the proportion of logs going to chips? as opposed to saw logs?
Forests are the concern of all, not just the people who earn from there destruction, even when having the uni quals you claim.
Healsville is a thriving and famous tourist resort from all accounts and I have friends who live there, despite the endless logging traffic.
The tragic outcome of his retirement. which was forced, resulted in disillusion, he had a monitoring roll as well as fire fighting. He still regrets the loss of his roll in forestry, as he puts it he had untold knowledge of the "hills" and trails he knew so well.

The caring loggers you portray are an elusion, they are there to exploit lax control of authority. Does the industry still pay empoyees
to subvert the greenies protests? Paid for by the industry, supported by organisations with "caring titles".

I'm too old now to bother with the BS fed to me me by spin and pretense, mores the pity, I would be there otherwise!
fluff4

MWPOYNTER states that "timber production .... is permitted within just a 12% portion of the forests in Melbourne's 160,000 ha water catchment area" and I would contend that is too high a portion. No logging should be permitted in water catchments. I am fortunate to have a Shire councillor representing my ward who agrees with my views, rather than the views of MWPOYNTER!

Re-use of re-cycled wood, replacement of some timber products with more quickly regenerating bamboo plantations, and pine plantations are just three alternatives (of many) to the logging of native forests for timber production.

For the information of earlier critics, our values are clearly stated on our website.
It is amazing that some people have an expectation that AEF would support the existing ideological viewpoint of environment groups that mostly, have a stated public policy of ending well regulated native timber harvesting in public forests.
AEF supports forestry under the Codes of Practice because the science and evidence demonstrate this is sustainable. AEF supports the distribution of the book Saving Australia’s Forests and Its Implications because it portrayed a factual account of the campaigns supported by ‘environment groups’ to destroy the timber harvesting industry.
AEF supports the informed discussion on the development of nuclear power generation in Australia – no more, no less – because the science supports such a view. A view that is supported by a growing number of politicians on both sides, Bob Carr included, and significant forces within the union movement. It is incredible that this, the safest form of power generation after hydro and people are afraid to even discuss it. If the arguments are so strong to oppose nuclear power generation in this country on scientific grounds then the discussion would probably be short lived.
AEF supports GM technology because the science supports the technology and its environmental benefits are clear. Also supportive are the Victorian chief scientist, the previous Australian chief scientist, the NSW Government and Opposition, the Victorian Government and Opposition, the Australian Government and Opposition. Most environmental groups are united in their opposition to GM technology – they are not supported by the facts or their governments.
AEF supports the proposal for the Gunns Bell Bay pulp mill. AEF visited the Gunns operations, had a detailed presentation on the proposal at its annual conference in Melbourne last year, which is more than can be said for any other environment group and agreed with the facts and evidence put forward. As did the former federal environment minister and the present federal environment minister.
The foundation is entirely unconcerned that its evidenced based approach is contrary to other ‘environment groups’ ideology.
Max Rheese, Australian Environment Foundation.

People are not stupid, they know the difference between genuine advocacy for the environment and greenwashing.

And so the pro-logging fraternity flanked by their spin doctors and greedy vested interests continue to try and hoodwink those of us who truly care for the well being of the eco-systems that support us.
Their continued bogus so called science is contributing to devasting climate change and economic collapse. The writing is on the wall but wood chips get in their eyes and all they see is their own biased justifications.
Answer me these questions Mr Poynter and other forest rapers:
Is most of the mountain ash taken from the central highlands going to Geelong, being wood chipped and sold to Japan?
Is the timber harvesting (forest raping) being subsurdised by the Brumby goverment? If so...please explain.
How much per ton are the "harvesters" paying?
Are the loggers really happy being exploited by greed from those who are really benefitting from the destruction of our native forests.
No logging in water catchments ought to be allowed.

Ah the argument of science. Science is an extraordinary art, it can be bought and sold depending on who is looking for what and how much they are prepared to pay. Science can justify almost anything but it cannot create feeling. Standing in a logged forest, with the streams contaminated, the slash and trees still smoldering, the remains of a yellow bellied glider charred at ones feet with the once rich soil so cooked, dead and dusty nothing moves.

Science cannot tell us anything here, our human spirit, our connection to country, our love of the land is what will eventually stop this wanton destruction and no matter how much the native forestry defenders call ‘science’, evidence dictates that feeling is prevailing, measurable by the current enrollment of forestry students at Melbourne University and The Australian National University- single digit figures with courses having to be closed down. Forestry in this country is a race to the bottom enforced by rules very few have agreed too. Your science Mr Poynter and Mr Rheese is very, very unpopular and until your forestry science fosters life instead of death, native forestry's days are numbered.

But as we are discussing science, fans of it such as Mr Rheese and Mr Poynter may like to hear the findings of the latest science of the government by Professor Garnaut, in his final report that will shape Australia’s response to climate change, Prof Garnaut has made the following recommendation on the logging of native forests;

‘There is significant global potential for emissions removal (or carbon sequestration) through revegetation of previously cleared land and increasing the stock of carbon in forests, wooded land and soils. Management of existing forests for ecosystem services, rather than simply for fibre production, would significantly reduce emissions from degradation and deforestation.’

Some might say the forests have finally been seen for the trees...or will this be inconvenient science for you two?

Ah, the well intentioned but misguided beliefs of someone who doesn't understand that science is nothing more than a tool to give us answers to questions that some people don't want to ask because they may not like the answers!
Science can tell us almost everything we need to know in the logged and burnt forest described in the last post: mountain ash is adapted to infrequent disastrous fires which create almost exactly the same conditions as logging followed by fire, with dead fauna and polluted streams, but with the knowledge that the soil properties, flora and fauna will all return.
Scientific research done properly can't be bought and sold; that accusation only applies to the people who try to manipulate it for pro- or anti-positions.
As for Garnaut, he's actually an economist trying (successfully for the most part) to understand science and come up with economic responses to environmental problems. Is he saying there should be no more logging of our native forests? I doubt it. He's urging that protection of all forest ecosystem services - which by definition must include timber production - needs to be built into forest management plans.

This quote from Richard Flanagan's article in The Monthly says it all for me. Clearly, forest fires do not reproduce ['almost'] the same conditions as logging.
‘The hellish landscape that results from clear-felling - akin to a Great War battlefield - is generally turned into large monocultural plantations of either radiata pine or Eucalyptus nitens, sustained by such a heavy program of fertilisers and pesticides that water sources for some local communities have been contaminated by Atrazine, a controversial herbicide linked with cancer and banned in much of Europe. Blue-dyed carrots soaked in 1080 poison are laid on private plantations to kill native grazing animals that pose a threat to tree seedlings. The slaughter that results sees not only possums, wallabies and kangaroos die slowly, in agony, but other species - including wombats, bettongs and potoroos - killed in large numbers, despite being officially protected species’ .
Flanagan is describing Tasmania but this is indicative of an overall disrespect for our national heritage.

Timber production is NOT an ecosystem provision Mr Masters. Ecosystem provisions are natural byproducts of terrestrial and ocean systems engendering life on earth; water, air, carbon storage and sequestration. Logging does not occur naturally but rather is a by product of mans quest to extract the earths bounty for gain. This is the most amusing misnomer the native forests loggers purport, that their industry is somehow ‘natural’. Terms like ‘harvesting’, ‘sustainable’ ‘naturally fire occurring’, please Mr Masters, for anyone that has studied the montane forests of Vic or Tas they should know that wet, aging forests subject to fires do not behave the same as a logged wet forests subject to regen. burns.

What is commonly known is that commercial activity in the forests is exacerbating fire risk for a number of reasons. Logging creates densely stocked, even aged forests that, by 30 years of age, are much more flammable due to massive fuel loads, according to Professor Lindenmayer’s research. In addition to the forests them selves being of greater fire threat after being logged, post logging fires also add an enormous risk, routinely escaping their coupe boundaries and often being found to reignite months after the DSE have considered the coupe safe. This is being fostered by drought and generally warmer seasons, so logging puts massive fire risk into our catchments. Interesting fact, wildfire benefits the logging community in so many ways, not least of all the free for all forest salvage log that takes place after a forest has been burnt but additionally logging contractors are handsomely paid to keep their logging machines on stand by during fires unlike the CFA volunteers and farmers that offer their personal machinery freely at huge personal risk.

Still no apology from Dr Chris James for falsely accusing MWPOYNTER of a slur, an accusation that a casual reader of the comments would know, should have been directed to me. Such an accusation is a bit rich seeing her article is riddled with slurs on the timber workers, their families, their communities and the many businesses that operate lawfully and sustainably within the forest sector.
Dr James uses her communications skills to cherry pick quotes from green apologists and journalists supporting her view about forestry. She falsely labels timber folk as criminals, saboteurs and a full range of ‘not so nice’ people as portrayed in the TV series “Underbelly”.
She uses quotes from another TV program, Four Corners that went to air during the 2006 Victorian election; but she deliberately misses the “underbelly” tactics of the greens:
“SALLY NEIGHBOUR: 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.”
Thus to describe the author of this article as a spin doctor, is totally defensible.
Dr James attempts to justify her vitriolic piece by quoting Richard Flanagan who is of course a fiction writer and as National Senior journalist Piers Akerman recently pointed out the “TRUTH has suffered a major setback” in the article quoted see http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,24310573-5006550,00.html
Flanagan is not averse, like some of James’ supporters, to make outrageous claims of “rape” and “rapists”. Such terms should be offensive to all fair minded people wishing to have an informed discussion.

Environment for all is right on the money. The idea that science is objective is a vast modern myth. Science is indeed bought and sold by the highest bidder. You pro-logging anti-life people really need to feel....yes, feel...the sacredness of life. Shed a few tears. Love a little. Be vulnerable for a moment. Let go of your massively unpopular ideas and become a part of a new world...that will honour and respect our planet. Does your money and power bring you happiness and do you sleep well at night? Your science is anti science. It is an approach to life that is rooted in greed and domination. All your facts and figures Mr Poynter and friends are twisted deceptions, cover-ups, hidden agreements between power brokers who care little for the true welfare of our planet and its life forms. Yes, under great pressure you make minimalist concessions here and there. A smoke-screen. You can change...NOW!

To keithcolin
If you've been in a forest you will understand that tree trunks are roundish and reduce in diameter from the ground up. There are quality constraints on what can be a sawlog based on engineered strenth standards. And minimum size standards as well. So much of a tree stem is unsuitable for producing the highest grade product. The same applies for trees grown in plantations.

The proportion of sawlog to pulp log produced in catchment harvesting varies from 50/50 to 35/65 depending on the piece of forest being harvested.

When sawlogs are taken to a sawmill, they must be converted from their roundish shape into reectangular products so a lot of waste timber generated in off-cuts. This is also chipped and sent for export.

The proportion of highest grade target product obtained in timber production is actually high by comparison with other natural resource extraction such as mining. Even in beef production, the quantity of meat suitable for human production is minor compared to the volume of waste product such as offal, fat, and bone from each slaughtered beast.

Now we could close down the woodchip industry and just log forests for the highest grade timber as this as you seem to want. This is what used to happen. The result was an enormous amount of waste wood left in the forest from the unwanted parts of each tree, as well as waste wood generated in sawmills. But as we all use paper and there are paper makers willing to pay for woodchips, they are now sold to them. What is wrong with that?

As for who is exploiting who - don't you use wood and paper? I thought so. So ultimately, if anyone is being exploited it is because we as a society have a demand for these products. Fortunately, we have been logging and regenerating Australian forests for so long that forests are not 'destroyed' or 'raped' in this process. The same can't be said in developing countries who may shoulder our demand for hardwood if we refuse to use or own forests.

To 'environment for everyone'
Like so many 'green' advocates, you appear to be reality-dumb through having lost touch with nature (that's right) and any sense of perspective about what it is and its relationship with humans. 

If you really believe a natural product like timber is not an ecosystem service, you have forgotten the most basic fundamental that our whole lifestyle is founded around human intervention in nature - just think about agriculture for example. Perhaps instead of timber, you would you prefer steel, concrete, or aluminium and to hell with the massively greater greenhouse emissions?

So 'logging does not occur naturally' - well haven't humans been using wood to build houses, boats, weapons, bridges and all manner of essential structures for thousands of years? So just perhaps they cut a few trees down - isn't that natural? But again you view humans as being somehow seperate from nature.

So its all about feelings is it. Try telling that to those who have to get down and dirty fighting forest fires for living. Forest scientists and the timber industry are at the forefront of this, and the fewer of them, the poorer we are at it as was acknowledged by the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Public Land Management (June 2008). This isn't about science, its a reality that won't be solved by closing rural industries, and getting rid of those you know the most about forests.

Ah but there's the CFA. Well unfortunately as rural industries are closed by 'progressive green thinking' and towns become awash with cashed-up, hedonistic urban sea-changers in touch with their feelings, there's fewer CFA members, and fewer again willing to spend weeks away from home fighting forest fires for nothing.

You are right though, forestry is unpopular. This is largely because the sort of silly views which you espouse have obscured the reality of what happens in forests. As I said earlier, the real tragedy is that forest policy is ultimately being shaped by people who don't even what they don't know.

Mr Poynter

I read your last post carefully and would like to ask you a few questions.
Why can't recycling of paper replace much of the need to woodchip for the paper industries?
There is a tremendous waste here just waiting to be recycled.
Yes, I do use paper in many ways. But why should this be incompatible with my desire to see an end to clear fell logging in our sensitive native forests?
Why is the timber industry not retraining and redeploying people to develop recycle plants?
Are you not concerned by the ecological and economic decline due to old ways of thinking and doing things?
You said that selective high value timber was an old way of logging.
Would I like to see a return to that? Yes, you bet.
What would happen then to the voracious need for paper?
Wouldn't we have to then develop alternative strategies? Such as plantation timber and recycling?
Would I be prepared to undergo some hardship in the transitional period?
Yes, you bet.
The bigger picture is far more crucial than short term gains that are contributing to green house gas emissions, water depletion, native species destruction, climate change, etc.
Or would you prefer to cave into socially acquired greed and over consumption?

Whose reality?

Pt 1 From a sociological perspective ‘nature’ is a social construct and this is a legacy from the 18th century Enlightenment and a philosophy of utilitarianism [utility]. We didn’t know at the time of the Industrial Revolution how deeply damaging the industrial footprint would be. We are all of nature, which means we have to face the ‘reality’ of our own finality and the finite resources we have depended upon for so long. Humans intervene in nature and can continue to do so in a symbiotic way. However, when humans simply use and abuse there is a price to pay. 75% of Australia’s timber has gone. The rivers are drying up. Have you not seen the bald hills of Gippsland? It would appear there are more to come. The Government will be paying Hancock $5.5 million to relinquish logging rights in some areas of the Strzelecki’s and then will allow them to cut 1,500 hectares of a Rain Forest Reserve, including more than 350 hectares of land with National Conservation Significance [College Creek]. Once logged it will be handed to the Trust for Nature to manage; this is ‘greening’ Australia? I can think of only one analogy and that is people who self-harm, cut their bodies and then put themselves in hospital. It’s a cry for help!
This debate is very much about feelings, not just the expressions of feeling for the forest that one hears from the greens but also the feelings that come with cutting and killing anything, trees, cows, people. If you think that doesn’t have an impact on emotions any psychotherapist will tell you it does

Pt2 Historically, at least at the turn of the 19th Century, environmentalism was not just about nature [‘greenies’] it was about the kinds of environments that were needed to keep the new material production line going. There were two sides to the equation; the rich and the poor. As I am sure you know environmental conservation was the philanthropy of the rich. The tables turned and it is almost like the workers will seek their revenge. We can’t cut down people so we will cut down the trees instead [hence, the reference to Underbelly]. Criminals are still people, human beings who are often victims of a system of hierarchy and survival. Loggers and families are victims of the big corporations and the governments who are beholden to them.
This is an old formula. We have hewn civilisation out of the wilderness and killed any native [human or animal] that gets in the way. We still cut all the trees, over-run cattle on the land and then when it’s no good for grazing anymore we dig into the earth’s entrails to see what else we can salvage. We are all responsible. We all use the products of this pillage but where has it got us? Into a deep economic crisis! Again! We have to change.
You know the reformation burnt witches but today we still base some of our best medicines on what the witches gathered and used for their own medicinal purposes. We hold value in the medicines and forget their origins. There is a paradigm shift taking place. Some will chose to deny it but denying a sickness only brings more pain.
I apologise for my error in mistaken identity. I also apologise for my part in putting the world and many of its people in crisis, miniscule though my role might be. We are all learning and needing to improve our lives

Sadly Victoria is one of the few States that still supports clearfelling our main water catchment the Thomson reservoir.
Every year 150 hectares of high water catchment forest is clearfelled for woodchips. Once a diverse wet sclerophyll forest it now becomes a monoculture, uniform age dry sclerophyll plantation. 1/3 of the trees are taken to the chip mill whilst 2/3's of it are dozed into piles and burnt. The area is cleared of understory, sprayed and burnt in preperation for the spreading of single Euc species.
We loose 1,000 litres of water per second due to logging Melbournes water catchment. I full Maroondah dam goes up the trunks of the thirsty eucalyptus plantation every year.
To see how we destroy our water supply go to google earth or www.tcha.org.au and see the massive clearfelling in our Thomson.
80% of our logs go to woodchip export or pulp purely because its cheaper for the companies to clearfell public forests than use their plantations. As our Thomson dries up the woodchip companies clearfell on untill the Government of the day has the guts to say thats it.
WATER OR WOODCHIPS THATS THE DEBATE.

To 'bizkit'
I had resolved not to participate any further in this because of time constraints, but your post needs massive corrections:

You refer to huge areas clearfelled in the Thomson catchment.
Actually, the average area harvested in the Thomson Dam catchment is 120 ha. The catchment is 47,600 ha in size, so at that rate it would take 396 years to log it all.

However, logging is only permitted in 8,200 ha of the Thomson catchment (about 17%). So 83% won't be logged again - some of it has been logged in the past when it wasn't part of Melbourne's catchments ie. prior to 1983 which was when the dam was built.

You say 'a diverse wet sclerophylle forest becomes a monoculture, uniform age dry sclerophylle plantation...'
The forests being used for timber production are 1939 regrowth so they are already uniform age. They are regenerated with seed so they are not plantations (which are planted). Wet sclerophylle could only revert to dry sclerophylle if rainfall massively declined - which it hasn't. Regeneration after logging is the same as after natural fire with full regeneration of understorey species over time.

You say 'about 2/3 rd logs are dozed in heaps, then area is sprayed and burnt in preparation for single Euc species.'
You obviously know nothing about these forests - they produce both sawn timber and woodchips. There is no heaping of debris, except for bark heaps at landings. There is no spraying. The forest is of a single species, so that is what is used to regenerate it

Continue response to 'bizkit':
You would obviously prefer to use plantations for timber but that is where herbicides are sprayed, animals are poisoned (if necessary) - not in native forest operations such as in the Thomson catchment.

You say "1000 litres per second' - a ridiculous figure. The difference in water use between young regrowth after logging and 70 year regrowth if left unlogged, is not that great. If the aim was to increase water flow into reserviors, the catchments would be clearfelled and turned into pasture - would you prefer that?

You say the 'logging companies prefer to use public forests instead of their plantations'. It is not up to the companies (the government already limits logging to just a minor portion of the catchments) and they don't have plantations capable of supplying eucalypt sawlogs which is what they want from the catchment forests. Woodchips are a by-product. Some companies have woodchip plantations but these are mostly too young to harvest.

I'm afraid you don't know really what you are talking about, but hopefully this will help you understand.

Mr Poynter,

You just don't get it.
Deforestation is generally a curse and is a part of a historical disease that has its roots in an attitude that humans have the right to pillage, exploit, rape and dominate nature.
All your well rehearsed arguments amount to nothing but justifications for an evil that has/is supported by governments, corporations and those who cannot see past their own narrow self interests.
Your words are so twisted. You make our that your industry has a balanced, responsible and caring agenda. BS! Your industry is driven by corporate greed, political weakness and ignorence.
The environmental, social, economic crisis is the tip of a huge iceberg. You are like the captain of the titanic refusing to believe that your enterprise is fatally flawed.
Sure, I admit that a radical change in thinking and policy would disrupt most of our lives to some extent. We have become so over-dependent on amazingly massive unsustainable ways of living. Clear-fell logging is one evil among many. And we are all involved in the mess we have created. But for goodness sake, what will it take for people like you Mr Poynter to wake up and see the writing on the wall?
What would the loggers from 70 years ago have to say I wonder about present logging practices?
We are destroying the planet. YES WE ARE. And deforestation is at the head of the beast.

to keithcolin'

This is my last post - it is not worth going on when you just refuse to accept the facts and dismiss than as propaganda. If you don't believe me, I suggest you look at the Victoria's State of the Forests Report on the DSE website.

I don't disagree that the world is facing massive problems with deforestation in SE Asia and Brazil where forests are being permanently replaced by other non-treed land uses. But this is different to harvesting and regenerating Australian forests for wood where trees are being grown in perpetuity.

You really need to find out what deforestation is.

Mr Poynter, this will probably be my last post on this thread too...unless you decide to have another last post.
You suggest I read the DSE website but the DSE and Vic Forests are entrenched in a culture of thinking in specific ways and are therefore a major part of the problem. It is like saying if you don't believe my views (mistakingly referred to as facts) about vegetarianism go to the website of Department for Vegans and read up the facts. And lets for goodness sake expose this word "harvesting" for the furphy that it is. Clear fell devestation is harvesting...sure, nice, clean, beneficial kind-hearted foresters.
BS! This new spin would be in shatters if people stood in the midst of a recently logged coup...except for those who are desensitised. People who can chop, hunt, maim, kill, exploit, dominate and destroy in the name of progress and jobs. Let's keep all the armament factories and personnel intact because jobs are at stake!
Your perspective Mr Poynter is greately coloured. So is mine. But who is really caring about the whole ecological life-support existence?
Who is really feeling a deep connection with Nature? We read the book of life on vastly different pages. Or do we?

The Municipalities Association of Victoria just passed a motion to
oppose any further logging in the catchments representing the
interests of 79 councils. The representatives were from regional
councils primarily, which begs the question as to how much logging is
really supported in the bush. I wonder where this leaves them on their role in the wood and water assessment.
May I propose a toast to Shire of Yarra Ranges Councillor Samantha Dunn and Mayor Tim Heenan's exemplary work on this one

There will be no toast from many for that Green Party member, Cr Dunn.
At the recent review of the Yarra Ranges Shire's Vision 2020, of which I was a particpant, it was decided by the community to bring in the Timber Industry as part of Our Vision and have it included in the chapter Local Economy and Tourism. Although the review is not completed, there will be many who will protest if the Council over rules the community. Our statement: "That the Timber Industry be a part of Vision 2020 and that the community and Council supprt their efforts."
As of now, she has gone against the community's decision and once againt brought Green Party ideology into council.
I only hope she is as thoroughly reprimanded as she was when she dared litter out Yarra Ranges sign with a Green Party logo.

Politics and peoples politics are a standard ingredient of government; local, state or federal. ‘Angry rate payer’ is clearly exercising their political right to be upset by Cr Dunn’s actions. Could it be that Cr Dunn is a leader that is responsibly acting on water scarcity and ‘angry rate payer’ is politically advocating that woodchips are more important than community water supply?

‘Angry rate payer’ makes clear their political persuasions in their defence of the woodchipping industry in that they perpetuate, if not decree, the business of high conservation value woodchipping. Indeed many of the greater community are irate with political woodchip players like Michael O’Connor (CFMEU -The state secretary of the ‘Forestry’ division) and his ‘stand over’ tactics in the ALP especially in conjunction with the ‘A-Team's’ ALP branch stacking exercises or the Timber Communities impressing their politics in hostilities such as death threats sent to environmentalists, the bashing of environmentalists or worse, the killing of environmentalists animals (such as horses and farm dogs) in the Central Highlands and East Gippsland.

We are in conflict over one subject - Logging for woodchips. If the state government stopped destroying regional and Melbourne water supply to provide ‘chips for pulp’ for the heavily subsidised woodchip industry then the politics will move on this issue. I believe Cr Dunn is enacting her elected responsibility to protect the community against that which science, community and government have all found is robbing children and families of water, is this really politics, or is this simply risk - wary, responsible leadership?

environment for everyone,
In WA, we're thinning (i.e. logging) a catchment in Perth's hills to allow more water to flow into the Wungong Dam. And Alcoa (who's been mining in several water supply catchments for 40 years) has been told to stop doing such a good job of regrowing a dense jarrah forest so that more water can escape the revegetated areas and flow into the dams.
Am I missing something: are you saying that logging decreases water run-off in Melbourne's water supply catchments? I agree that logging for woodchips is a terrible waste of a natural resource but logging should be increasing water run-off, not decreasing it.