To Manorina
Your comment: "The usual propaganda from a vested interest"
As a forester, yes I do have a vested interest - it is in ensuring that the public discourse about forests is accurate and factual. My profession has been demonised for decades by the spread of misinformation about forest management, and we are sick of it.

I am not advocating more harvesting of native forest beyond what is already planned in accordance with government policies and management plans. At a national level, only 6% of public native forest is now available for this use.

Looking specifically at old growth forest - in Tasmania something like 85-90% won't be harvested, and in Victoria the figure is >95%. Yet environmental campaigns continue to imply that unless we close the native hardwood industry we will have no old growth forest.

What seems to be forgotten in the old growth debate is that this forest type it is not finite, but is growing all the time as forests age.

For example, in East Gippsland there is 225,000 ha of old growth forest - 190,000 ha of this is already reserved, unsuited or inaccessible for timber production. Within the region's protected parks and reserves there is a further 123,000 ha of mature forest that is expected to have become old growth by 2050 (these are 2006 figures).

So hypothetically (as it is subject to bushfire), if old growth harvesting was to continue in East Gippland's avialable areas at the present rate of 200 ha/yr, by 2050, about 9,000 ha would have been harvested and converted into regrowth forest. Meanwhile, in the region's parks and reserves there would be 123,000 ha more old growth - a net gain of 114,000 ha.

So, while I accept that many people don't like logging, it is hardly having a significant affect on the future area of old growth forest.

Responses here are not addressing the OP. The question is do the conservationists have credibility? Not one has addressed the claims of the OP regarding exaggerated claims.

I do feel that overall, anywhere you go, there is a feeling the conservation industry has run out things to do and to acquire further financing needs to get a little over creative with emotional blackmail.

I did see clear felling in the Styx Valley. Very ugly. It is an emotional reaction. If I went screaming through the streets of Sydney dressed as a cow to stop people eating meat because I was traumatised by seeing a cow prodded enroute through the outback, probably only committed vegetarians would support me. It is not likely to stop many eating meat. Same with being totally against logging.

So we are not going to stop logging or the use of paper. So being totally anti-logging is not going to get anyone anywhere. Better to work within reason and with due respect to people earning a living.

I did read the wiki link, My 2 minute reaction is that clear felling is not necessarily bad for the swamp gum but would appear not to preserve water catchment integrity if over large areas. So it should mimic nature and be staged so that no large area is cleared at any one time. I maybe well off course but an example on how compromised solutions can be sought rather than pure anti-anything and all things with inaccurate claims.

Same up here with the Barrier Reef. It is dead, it is dying, it is never go to recover apparently. People say oh well better go to red sea instead to snorkel. The Great Barrier Reef is the most pristine and healthiest coral reef system in the world. Convincing people of that fact is near impossible due to overzealous fear mongering by those that jump on any nature conservation program. I do not know what the unhealthiest reef system is, you never hear about it. No money in it probably.

Mark’s challenge to simplistic and often misleading messages about forest management is spot on. Yet imagery and glib one- liners have strongly influenced the public against the scientific basis of current practices that have seen demands for alternatives to clear fell burn and sew regeneration of wet eucalypt and mixed forests.

The comment on the Upper Florentine Valley, the site of the latest protest action in Tasmania can be compared with story of the production of sawlogs, craft wood and pulp from the variable retention harvesting, see http://www.forestrytas.com.au/topics/2009/01/upper-florentine-valley

Even Wikipedia falls to the trap of simplistic statements and claims of vested interests. The page of Eucalyptus regnans fails to give a citation to the statement on fire, despite the article relying on fiction novelist, Richard Flanagan’s opinion.
Another search on Mountain Ash (Regnans) on Wikipedia links to David Attenborough’s The Private Life of Plants (Part 4-6) - The Social Struggle, features the regeneration of E. Regnans by fire from the 31 minute, 30second mark at http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=7842699323637962234&ei=wGQES__1CZrwqAPM3ZXeCQ&q=private+life+of+plants+eucalypts&hl=en#

Forest science agrees with Attenborough’s observations in regards to the Eucalyptus regnans genus such as "The threat to the survival of the spectacular forests of noble mountain ash is not, in fact, fire. It is the absence of fire," and "Paradoxically, such a forest will not survive unless much of it is first destroyed."

A detailed look at Tasmanian Bush fire heritage and the impact of fire on its environment is available from the publications page of the Forest and forest industry Council’s web site, (www.ffic.com.au ) written by a forest scientist after a lifetime of research and study of Tasmanian forests in places such as the Styx and Florentine Valleys.
Access to such knowledge allows informed debate as reflected in Mark’s article.

It is obvious that the governments are out to make money from whatever means of environmental issues as possible & if it isn't oil, it has to be through a bogus campaign for carbon tax. At least that is the sales pitch. A ETS that will pay for clean energy & make the governments richer is about as far as I would go in saying that is true because one only has to look at the demographics of the trade environment to weigh up the odds. If it is a viable product, clean energy that is, it will sell & create a sustainable market but if it comes with a third tier tax, it will make it too unaffordable & depress or destroy the products ability to get off the ground. It is the governments desire to keep off loading fossil fuel & that is the means behind it's madness.