Regional Forest Agreements fail to meet their aims
Malcolm Turnbull caves in to Tasmanian loggers
Last weekend, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull flew to Launceston for the Tasmanian Liberals’ yearly conference.
Accompanied by Premier Will Hodgman, Turnbull’s first stop was the timber yard of logging company Neville-Smith Forest Products, once a part of the now-fallen Gunns logging empire. Twenty years after John Howard signed the first Regional Forest Agreement with Tasmania, Turnbull was in town to give Tasmania’s loggers all they wanted for the next 20 years and more. There was not a protester in sight.
What a ...
Five threatened white-bellied sea eagles die after being poisoned in eastern Victoria
A farmer in Bairnsdale could face charges over the fatal poisoning of five white-bellied sea eagles found dead near Bairnsdale last month.
The threatened birds were poisoned after eating corellas that had been illegally baited.
Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning Program Manager, Craig Oldis says necropsy ...
Wildlife killed by department burn in fauna reserve
THE state environment department has defended its fire management practice which led to the incineration of a colony of rare New Holland mice.
In early May, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, and Forest Five Management Victoria carried out a burn in the Providence Ponds Flora and Fauna Reserve near Stratford.
The reserve is one of only three ...
Heyfield timber mill: rarely a good idea for government to buy a failing business
Environmental concerns, planning for sustainable yield, uncertainty around future supply and myriad other inputs are weighed up in assigning timber volumes to private firms. Joe Armao
The Victorian government this week took the unusual step of buying the Australian Sustainable Hardwoods mill in Heyfield, ...
Victorian government’s timber mill bailout has bad whiff of pork
The Victorian government’s decision to appropriate a large undisclosed sum of taxpayers’ money to buy a struggling timber mill nobody else wanted to acquire appears more driven by dubious politics than by rigorous public policy.
The government has not revealed how much it has agreed to pay Australian Sustainable Hardwood for the mill in Heyfield, Gippsland, but reports place the price as high as $50 million, 20 per more than an estimate earlier this year. With 250 staff, the mill is ...
Heyfield mill: Victorian Government signs agreement to buy Gippsland sawmill
The Victorian Government has struck a deal to keep open Australia’s largest hardwood sawmill, at Heyfield in Victoria’s east, but workers are warning up to 20 contractors could be out of work in weeks.
The mill’s operator, Australian Sustainable Hardwoods (ASH), had been locked in a dispute with the Government and state-owned logging ...
Dead koala found in logging coupe reignites push for new protected national park
A dead koala has been found between fallen trees in a logged forest that the Andrews government could have protected – had it not ignored advice from its own scientific committee.
The Sunday Age has obtained graphic images of the lifeless animal slumped over branches in the Acheron Valley north of Warburton, in a confronting example of the potential impact of logging in Victoria.
A department investigation is now under way, as Premier Daniel Andrews faces renewed calls to create a Great Forest ...
Clean Energy Finance Corporation lobbying for wood-fired power to replace coal
Sorry state for threatened gliders in Victoria
Background
Greater Glider populations are suffering across Australia. This is especially so in Victoria where populations in the Central Highlands and East Gippsland are in distress due to – among other reasons – fire and logging eating away at their habitat.
The Greater Glider was listed as ‘vulnerable’ under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 in May 2016. It is expected to be listed as threatened under ...
Throwing forests into furnaces to supposedly help our climate has been the dream of the native forest logging industry for years. First our governments and the CEFC are coal-captured and now logger-captured.
No. It’s definately NOT carbon neutral. A shame this story repeated the lie that burning forests reduces emissions. It is in fact THREE TIMES more polluting per unit of energy than coal! But we are not hearing a lot of truth or science on this topic when ...
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