All eight councillors of the Shire of Yarra Ranges voted in early December to oppose any further logging of their water catchments. They will ask our state’s Water Minister, Gavin Jennings, to stop VicForests plans to clearfell eleven logging coupes in the Armstrong and Cement Creek catchments. That area is the stronghold of the loggers …
If anyone had a flicker of optimism left that Peter Garrett might start to show some tiny verdant streak – even under his armpit or hidden deep behind his kidneys – sometime soon – then anticipate no more. We’re all wasting our hopefulness. He’s approved the Gunns pulpmill and now the dredging of the beautiful …
The natural diversity of unlogged forests makes them very robust. This healthy resilience is extremely valuable at a time when climate disturbance is impacting more harshly on disturbed environments. But besides being sturdy arks and biological refuges, forests are one of the worlds best carbon capture vessels. While the world authorities try to work out …
The headline in the Sunday Age in early December 2007 was ‘How to turn $99 million worth of trees into a $17,000 loss’. VicForests was exposed as incompetent economic managers of our public forests. Even with a state government gift of tens of millions of dollars to get it set up, it’s still not profitable …
Gippsland saw the Greens increase their vote by just over 1% to 6.06%. Though in the end, National Party senator, Peter McGauran (“Chops”) romped back in with hardly a chink in his support base (the Liberals never stand in Gippsland’s Federal elections). In Victoria the Greens should be close to or just above 10% in …
Don’t pin all your hopes on having just ousted Howard. Rudd and his henchmen could prove to have the very same corporate mates. East Gippsland is losing its forests as fast as Tasmania, relative to its size. Tassie has had a huge public profile for years, but is still unable to get rid of the …
It’s not workers vs the elite anymore; it’s environment vs business greed. What with temperatures rising, taps running dry, food becoming a valuable commodity – all coupled with peak oil – the economy, the environment and the voters are about to cop a serious body blow. It could be too late for changing governments’ priorities …
A report card on the Brumby Government’s progress of its environmental promises was released in early December 2007. It shows they can put a lot more effort into their work. Half of the Victorian Government’s environmental promises before the 2006 election have been broken or are at risk of being broken. The analysis is backed …
The umbrella group that lobbies on behalf of all Australian (and overseas) logging interests were officially invited along by Kevin Rudd to be part of the Australian delegation to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change in Bali in December. We hear that the CFMEU was there as well. The National Association of Forest Industries’ …
New research has found that meeting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may rely less on renewable energy than on the forests. As reported in the last Potoroo, forests seem to be the key to meeting Kyoto and post-Kyoto goals for reducing CO2 emissions. The findings, published in the British journal Energy Policy, could lead …
