Apologies to all for my misplaced post of Nov 4th on Indigenous issues. I posted it to the wrong discussion site.
Cinders is quite correct. By global standards, we're doing very well in relation the area of land protected from clearing. Loss of biodiversity through vegetation clearance is now a major issue in countries like Brasil and Indonesia, although I have a 1980 statement from the NT Conservation Commission saying that all of Brasil's rain forests would be gone by the year 2000 if current clearing rates were maintained!
From what I can guesstimate from dickie's posts, I'm pretty sure he's an anti-everything activist who's never worked in the private sector and so has no idea where the wealth comes from to sustain his lifestyle. It's pretty much a waste of time trying to debate him on the science of issues. Sure, he throws lots of facts and figures around but, in a country of 8 million square kilometres, non-agricultural industry hasn't really done much damage , considering the many mistakes that have been made in other developed countries.
On the Alcoa issue, I donated funds to the WA Conservation Council legal fight against Alcoa in the 1970s because I was concerned about the loss of jarrah forest from mining and dieback fungus spread. Today, Alcoa is an economic powerhouse in WA and almost untouchable. Normally, this would concern me a lot but they do good (but not perfect) post-mining rehabilitation and our jarrah forests are very well protected (but poorly managed for the most part) so that bauxite mining is one of the least important threats to WA's environment.

Now that I’ve recovered from Mark Poynter’s king-hit (a frozen packet of peas is very therapeutic!,) I would question his motives for criticizing the “environmental” movement in every one of his articles without exception.

Perhaps he is unaware that most Australians, concerned over native forests, are not “environmentalists” but ordinary citizens.

Mark states that “It is particularly significant that although both the Ajani and Mackey et al papers are about forests, there is no evidence of input from forest scientists who are surely experts in this field.”

Since he has written many papers on native forests, including a book last year, I would be curious to know what scientific credentials he has and if his writings have been peer reviewed.

I reqest that in the future, on OLO, he rises to the challenge in the following links. This would assist in allowing the uninformed public (including me) to more accurately assess the operations of the timber industry:

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=16111385

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/opinion/editorial/general/careful-research-in-call-to-halt-oldgrowth-logging/1340178.aspx

Mark Poynter claims in another article that logging and regeneration of native forests sequesters more carbon than locking up forests, therefore what methods has he adopted to prevent the release of carbon from the disturbance of soils since three to four times more carbon is stored in soils than in the vegetation above?

And the impact on native habitats?

The timber industry should be a little more courteous to the Australian public who are fully entitled to question operations propped up by tax payers' dollars. These operations privatize and exploit public lands - lands and a biodiversity which belong to all Australians not just the timber industry which continue to profit from the forests' eco-systems in this era of climate change.

Bernie

You persist in believing your own hubris and forget that there are better qualified people than you who would wish to disagree with your assertions.

I assure you that in many parts of the planet, Alcoa wears the leper’s bell. Last year Alcoa’s revenue was in excess of $30.7 billion but one way or another, all “good” things will come to an end, Bernie:

http://www.nsi-ins.ca/english/pdf/Robert_Goodland_Suriname_ESA_Report.pdf

(See Page 28)

As he often does, dickie now runs off on other tangents when he starts coming under pressure to explain his emotional anti-development positions. Now he's being critical of BHP for a proposed bauxite mine in Suriname because of the impacts on native people living within the mining area. An important issue, I agree, but it's a distraction to what we were discussing.
He criticises me because I "forget that there are better qualified people than you who would wish to disagree with your assertions". Well, I'd like to know what dickie's qualifications are but, more importantly, it really doesn't matter in a democracy like Australia's what qualifications a person has: we should all be free to express our point of view. It's only when we have to decide who to believe and what position to adopt that a person's qualifications and the quality of the science contained within his or her argument become important.
Or is dickie suggesting I shouldn't be allowed to have a contrary point of view because I don't have the qualifications that dickie expects? No, I'm sure that's not what he's suggesting!

Bernie Masters

You suggested in your previous post that Alcoa was a good corporate citizen.

I provided you with a link to substantiate my claim that they are not. In addition, I advised you to go to "Page 28."

However, since you feigned an inability to comprehend the written word, you went to Page 1 instead, to select your red herring.

You were once a S/Minister for the Environment. Your role was to protect the environment but you protect the pollutocrats.

Of course, I could raise the issue of the jarrah forests with the Department of Environment and Conservation, could I not?

Unfortunately, most of the senior bureaucrats in that department have jumped camp and are now on Alcoa's payroll, advising them on how to pollute - sorry on how not to pollute.

There is no lag time between tenures.

Then again, perhaps I should have consulted the head of the EPA - Wally Cox. Unfortunately he is currently the subject of a Corruption and Crime Commission enquiry. And rumour has it, had he not been exposed for improper conduct, he had planned to work part-time for industry lobbyists, Burke and Grill whilst retaining his position as head of the EPA.

Your previous role as S/Environment Minister is typical of the Liberal Party who like to gift this portfolio to the vested interests of geologists, land developers, lawyers, bankers and candlestick makers.

No wonder WA is in a state of disrepair.

Thank you Bernie!

Mark Poynter and Bernie Masters are right to express concern on the ANU figures from the Wilderness Society funded Green carbon analysis. A key claim is that the Australian forests hold up to ten times the default values used by the IPCC.

These are stated in the report as “The IPCC default values for temperate forests are a carbon stock of 217 t C ha-1 and an NPP of 7 t C ha-1 yr-1.”

The reference given for this is Watson, R. T., Noble, I. R., Bolin, B., Ravindranath, N. H., Verardo, D. J. and Dokken, D. J. (eds) 2001, Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Cambridge University Press, Third Assessment Report, Table 3.2.

This report is available at http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc%5Fsr/?src=/Climate/ipcc/land_use/index.htm

In fact table 3.2 in the Executive Summary of Chapter 3 of the Watson paper is about Issues, options, and implications related to definition of afforestation, reforestation, and deforestation (ARD) activities.

The Values quoted by Mackey and co authors is a calculation of figures from two scientific reports made in the 1990s and included in the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. They are not default values but the latest information available to the IPCC when it issued its third report in 2001.

Such an error undermines the Mackey paper and the peer review process. It also is a shame that this claim that the IPCC had these as default values is also repeated in the final Garnaut Report on page 165 section 22.3.7 and page 556.

Garnaut provides the same reference (different year) but no table.
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) 2000, Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry: A special report, R. Watson, I.R. Noble, B. Bolin, N.H. Ravindranath, D.J. Verardo & D.J. Dokken (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

If the correct reference is not quoted then how can the base figures be compared by independent peer reviewers and other experts?

The IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry was published in 2000 (not 2001), and was not part of the Third Assessment Report.

The ‘Table 3.2’ reference in the Green Carbon analysis may have been intended to be a citation to Table 3.2 on p. 192 in Chapter 3 (‘The Carbon Cycle and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide’) of the contribution of Working Group I (Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis) to the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report, which WAS published in 2001.

This Table is headed ‘Table 3.2. Estimates of terrestrial carbon stocks and NPP ...’. However the values therein are not described as ‘default values’, and those for ‘temperate forests’ do not match the Green Carbon report figures.

The Australian lead author of Chapter 3 of the IPCC WGI report was Professor Graham Farquhar of the ANU, who was also a Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 6 (‘Implications of the Kyoto Protocol for the Reporting Guidelines’) of the LULUCF Special Report.

I hope this helps