The largest destroyer of our endangered forest species could be made exempt from the law that protects them! Victoria’s Baillieu led National Party government plans to rewrite the environmental Code for logging so that the DSE Secretary can flick his pen over a piece of paper to exempt logging from abiding by the Flora and …
The overseas woodchip market is slowing down, but our major exporter has other plans.Even though it’s across the dotted line in NSW, the Nippon export woodchip mill at Eden (100% Japanese owned) is the monster that drives East Gippsland’s forest destruction. About 85% of the wood that is hauled out of East Gippsland goes to …
Park Protection Officer Phil Ingamells reports on the Fire and Biodiversity symposium, which was organised jointly by the Victorian National Parks Association and the Royal Society of Victoria and held on 24-25 October, 2011. Victoria is currently performing the largest ecological experiment ever carried out in the state. Over the past decade, more than three …
This one simple graph tells the story; the orange line shows the declining level of sawn timber coming from native forests – down down down it goes. At the same time the export of native forests has skyrocketed – only dropping slightly due to the slump in the overseas market. This is for a number …
Until he returned recently to Australia, expatriate Jim Douglas had spent the last eight years as the World Bank’s Forests Adviser in Washington. Writing a guest editorial in “Australian Forestry”, he had this to say about Australia’s forests: “I will go out on a limb here and suggest that the conservation, recreation and carbon values …
This short video explains how forests and our climate are so closely connected. Forests are our greatest land based carbon stores, shade the earth, moderate our climate and provide clouds and rainfall. More information about the link between forests and climate at www.forestsandclimate.net
Dr Judith Ajani analyses the arguments of both sides of the forestry debate about whether native forests should be used for bioenergy or biodiversity. Australia’s forestry industry and foresters argue that, from a climate change perspective, we should substitute fossil fuels and emission-intensive products with native forest wood, highlighting the fact that trees re-grow. Ecological …
If you get confused by all the talk of carbon trading, prices, international negotiations and Kyoto rules, you’re not alone. But here’s an attempt to simplify a part of it. Sadly, forests are still being done over by the latest wheeling and dealing. Late last year there was the Durban Climate Conference. Countries worked on …
LOGGERS can seek exemptions from state environment laws protecting endangered species under proposed changes quietly released by the state government. The proposed amendments to the code for timber production – outlined in a document posted on a government website – hands power to the Secretary of the Department of Sustainability and Environment. The secretary would …
Today, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, The Wilderness Society and My Environment have released an international report detailing repeated failures of the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) forest certification standard. The report is being released globally today. The report, On the Ground 2011, is a joint project between NGOs in North America, Europe, Asia …
