During the 2009 bushfires, a huge log dump near Marysville was destroyed by fire. Michael Ryan from VicForests stated that 50,000 tonnes of pulpwood had been destroyed – around 10% of the total annual production of pulp logs for this area. The log dump was located near Marysville surrounded by tinder dry forest. Photographs of …
The fifth EPA audit of logging has been released recently and shows that DSE/VicForests is still incapable of ensuring full compliance with the Code of Practice. The report checked logging done at 41 logging coupes during the 2006/7 financial year and its findings include:More than 10% of coupes had fires that escaped outside the logging …
VicForest foresters and PR men always like to present their ‘facts’ as unquestionable science and anyone who dares question them are blasphemers.Well – get a load of their latest ‘home brand’ fact sheet on logging. VicForests are proudly peddling this small two page glossy on their homepage and it’s a truly amazing mishmash of statistics …
As $45 million of your taxes is about to be divvied up for broke loggers, a worrying precedent has come to light that raises serious questions about this bailout of a struggling industry. Attempts by successive federal governments to pay businesses out of the native forest industry in Tasmania have failed to meet basic benchmarks …
The plan to reintroduce beef cattle into the Alpine National Park as a scientific trial has been shown by local environment groups to be a poorly masked political move. The Gippsland Environment Group applied for documents under the Freedom of Information Act. When these were finally obtained they showed that Parks Victoria warned the government …
This one is a ripper if you take a moment to read it. Andrew Darby, an Age journo based in Hobart, revealed in early January that the $45 million of our taxes about to be handed to Tasmanian loggers could be money down the drain. One exit program of the Howard era was supposed to …
French botanist Francis Hall makes a case for the defence of trees as a powerful ally in saving the Earth’s ecosystems Give me a tree and I’ll save the world ? that is the message that comes across from a book just published by the French botanist Francis Hall?, Du bon usage des arbres (Making …
Australia’s forest conflict gets easier to solve as every day passes. In reality, the conflict will solve itself if the government can just resist reviving the environmentally and economically inferior native forest part of Australia’s “forest” industry. The government must not open native forest wood to the energy market. Some are proposing that Australia’s forest …
In December, VicForests sent logging contractors into a very controversial stand of forests – a National Rainforest Site of Significance. Our appeals to VicForest and DSE to pull logging machines out of course were ignored, and police arrested people protesting at the site. The law states that areas designated as Sites of Significance for rainforests …
Baillieu seems to have handed his government over to miners and loggers to run. Its latest Timber Industry Action Plan which was released on 13th December could have been written by the logging industry at a bucks party. What this plan does is try to squeeze every last tree from every last corner. Here’s what …
