In a startling rebuke to “greenies” in the south west, Dr Chrissy Sharp, former Greens MLC, fired both barrels at greens and forest managers at a World Forestry Day dinner held in Bunbury last night.
Dr Sharp stated that the real risk facing WA’s native forests was climate change and that drying out of the forest was a potential calamity. Her concern was that greenies were totally focussed on reservation of old trees, totally ignoring the far more pressing need to manage stands of young regrowth trees.
Her speech at the annual World Forestry Day dinner hosted by the Leschenault Timber Industry club startled the audience of mostly forest industry people.
Foresters didn’t escape her attack as she was concerned that they had seemingly not provided enough forthright independent advice, having the perception of being too close to the vested interests of the timber industry.
Other speakers on the evening, Hon Barry House MLC and Hon Adele Farina MLC, were supportive of assuring a viable future for the timber industry in balance with competing demands for conservation.
Hon Barry House was concerned that the profession of forest management had been denigrated and he was seeking to have that respect restored.
The loss of trust in the stewardship of the forest was a theme raised by all speakers. Some of this was undeserved according to Hon. Adele Farina who pointed out that no species was known to have become extinct as a result of timber harvesting. She called for a return to stability in the forest and timber industry for the good of regional communities.
Dr Sharp provided other stunning comments on how she saw forests being managed, issuing a challenge to forest managers with her forthright support for thinning of the regrowth forests to reduce the threat from a drying climate.
A range of probing questions came from the audience with one of the most concerning coming from Janette Sturis, Manager of the Kingsley Motel in Manjimup. She claimed that if her business had to rely on tourism it would close and that most of her clientele were commercial visitors. She claimed that most of the tourist restaurants at vineyards in the lower southwest were now closed. She was dismissive of promises by the Gallop government when introducing the old growth forest policy, with the then claims that tourism would replace the timber industry now demonstrated to be completely unfounded.
Forester Phil Shedley expressed his concern for the future health and vitality of all forests in a drying climate, especially the two thirds in National Parks and other conservation reserves which have effectively been ‘locked up”. He challenged the speakers to lobby for legislative change to allow adaptive management, including thinning and more prescribed burning, to be undertaken in all forests, not just the one third outside the conservation zones. All three speakers concurred with his views, but could see a challenge in convincing a confused public and suspicious media
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Forest industry should demand p
If foresters and the forest industry were genuinely concerned about the impacts of Human-Induced Climate Change on our country and our forests, they would be demanding that our native forests be acknowledged as the best land-based carbon stores known to man and that they be protected from logging and burning and allowed to regenerate as naturally as possible, with legislated protection and rehabilitation efforts.
Studies by the Australian National University on eastern states forests have shown that unburnt and unlogged native forest has far greater carbon storage capacity than any rotationally logged forest or plantation forest. It would be interesting to see the WA State government and the Dept. of Environment and Conservation invite the same researchers to WA to carry out similar research on WA forests.
If the Federal government acknowledged this research and the value of the carbon sequestration potential of native forest and included them in a national carbon credit scheme, local communities in forested areas around the country could borrow funds from the government to purchase all the logging contracts in their shires to save the forest from logging and not only offset their own emissions but build a new industry based on protecting and rehabilitating the forest for carbon sequestration (storage). Communities who currently log the forest could simply switch over to new economies based on being paid for carbon storage.
This is a win-win-win situation for local communities, native forests/the environment, and also for the economy.
Also, if foresters and the forest industry were so concerned about Human-Induced Climate Change, they should be uniting in a call to demand a phase out of the coal industry, coal-fired power and other fossil fuel based energy mining and generation, concurrent with a switch to a 100% Renewable Energy future in 10 to 20 years.
Forestry industry lives in a world of it's own
Last Wednesday, while we were celebrating World Forest Day by handing Environment Minister Bill Marmion messages from around 5,000 people opposed to native forest logging, the Institute of Foresters of Australia were engaging in a little bit of rebranding.
Attempting to reshape the event as 'World Forestry Day', the institute released an amusing, and very telling media release. We've attached the full version below, but here are some highlights:
• Foresters have played a critical role in protecting and managing our forest resources whether they are in National Parks, State Forests, Plantations or Water Catchments.
• Foresters do not enjoy cutting trees down. To do so would be similar to a farmer standing on the killing floor an abattoir saying “how good is this”!
•Foresters harvest trees in the knowledge that they are either improving the health of the remaining forest.
• Public calls for the cessation of harvesting in regrowth native forests and eucalypt plantations because they have biodiversity values is actually positive proof that foresters are creating valuable multiple use forests and not the reverse.
You see, foresters aren't greedily trying to chop down the last unprotected native forests before legislation finally catches up with the real environmental, tourism and carbon-capture value of our trees. They’re protecting them! The rationalisations required to think that the presence of numbats in Warrup Forest - an area where the only logging experience was a few trees brought down with handheld cross-saws 70 years ago - is proof that modern clear felling is sustainable is staggering.
http://ccwa.org.au/blogs/forestry-industry-lives-world-its-own
Endangered Australian Cockatoo Loses One Third of Population
Endangered Australian Cockatoo Loses One Third of Population in Just 1 Year:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2012/03/13/enda...
"Carnaby’s cockatoos (also known as short-billed black cockatoos or large black cockatoos) nest in the hollows of large trees. Many of these trees, typically 100 years old or more according to Australia’s DEC, have been lost to LOGGING or development, or to people trying to neaten up their properties."
Stop the loggers and save our endangered wildlife
* Stop the loggers and save our endangered wildlife - http://ccwa.org.au/content/save-our-cockatoos
* 12 good reasons to stop logging our native forests - http://www.waforestalliance.org/12-good-reasons-stop-logging-our-native-...
Re: Greenies obsessed with old trees
I wondered about the origins of World Forestry Day or was it 'Forest'? See blog claimant 'forest industry lives in a world of its own' above.
If you google it without the 'ry' its clear there is no claim on ownership of title. If anything it was probably forestry, the term hijacked by those few who don't recognize management activity and delude that forests will look after themselves in whatever state they are in or pressure faced from a consuming world. Maybe the upper amazon is secure for now unmanaged, but most forest are subject to great human pressure, demand for access and products and fire!! Be real
Re: Greenies obsessed with old trees
The beginning of the Regional Forest Agreement clearly states it's aim is to create a facade of a well managed forest. That is a front, like a shop face or the front wall of a building that gives an impression of a well managed forest. This is why a carefully planned image of tree-lined tourist drives, main roads and highways exists, with all the clear-fell logging, destruction of canopy, almost total destruction of all undergrowth and anything that lives there is hidden from view and not easily accessible by the public.
From the highway it looks as pretty as a picture, but if people bother to get out of their cars and walk a couple hundred meters into the forest they will find a totally different picture. The once majestic, old and complex forests have been largely gutted in little more than 30 years for wood-chips! Now the outright deceptive lie that selective felling removed all the seed stock so the forest must be totally cleared is being peddled by the wood-chip sales people who are trying to wring the last couple of dollars they can from a collapsing ecosystem.