Massive increase in woodchip production

September 2, 2001

Figures released by DNRE in August have revealed a massive increase in woodchipping for the second year in a row. Bracks allowed Victorian loggers to rip out 1.09 million m3 of residual wood – a new record for the State. He still claims the RFA is balanced!

At the same time as woodchip volumes are skyrocketing, the volumes of sawlogs have dropped substantially from 800,000 m3 in 1999/2000 to only 650,000 m3 in 2000/2001. The royalty income for all this has ...

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Quoll’s extinction looms

September 2, 2001

It’s not guns and hunting like it was with the Thylacine, but the Spot-tailed (Tiger) Quoll is knowingly being annihilated by logging, poisoning and NRE’s latest “protection” plans.

Spot-tailed Quolls, the largest meat-eating marsupials surviving on the mainland, are on a slippery slide to extinction. They have gone >from rare to vulnerable to endangered in Victoria in just the last 10 years! However, the Victorian government’s measures to protect the Spot-tailed Quoll have been weakened in a draft rewriting of the ...

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Good news on biomass – Wood-fired power plan rejected

September 2, 2001

Stanwell Corporation is re-designing its proposed cogeneration plant at the Maryborough Sugar Mill, after the Queensland Government rejected its original plans to use native forest waste. It said “any project that depends on the use of native forest hardwood residues as supplementary fuel cannot be supported, even as an interim measure.” The Government suggested the company look at using cane trash or other options.

TXU steers away from wood waste

The TXU power company, which donated part of its land in Bairnsdale ...

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WA’s forest “win” was a con-job

September 2, 2001

he February WA election saw Labor promise to end 99% of old growth logging immediately and phase out export woodchipping by 2003. However, their commitment to the logging companies to supply huge volumes of logs until the end of 2003 has seen an increase in destruction of other important forests to account for protected old growth. These important conservation areas are being converted mostly to woodchips (90%).

To make up the shortfall in quota from old growth, logging of Jarrah in ...

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$2.5m for Creswick forest facilities

July 23, 2001

Victoria’s logging industry has received yet another massive tax-payer funded gift – a $2.5 million grant to build new facilities at the Creswick Forest Science Centre. A new office, laboratory and lecture theatre will ultimately accommodate a further 25 scientists and amenities for up to 100 people.

Creswick conducts research and development into logging and tree growing and seems to give budding young forestry students some form of frontal lobotomy that transforms them into tree counters and graders when they finally ...

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Latest $$$$$$$$$$$ give-ways

July 2, 2001

Gippsland’s biggest monthly welfare handouts were announced in May – and there’s no mutual obligation or eligibility tests. Another two and half million dollars goes to an already overfed few.

 

1) Neville Smith timber industries at Heyfield – They were the mob who pulled out of Swifts Creek a while ago (and caused a stir which forced the govt to give $1/2 million to Dormit to build a pallet making mill in Swifts creek – which it never has!). Neville ...

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100% partly or fully rehabilitated

July 2, 2001

For several years, NRE has been making available to the public a summary of its audit of the Code of Forest Practices (environmental guidelines to adhere to while ripping down ancient forests). NRE must hope that people will be left with the feeling that our forests are in the best possible hands – and that no one would bother to analyse their data. Ha!

The most recently released Compliance Audit was published last year and looks at a sample of 54 ...

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Lawyers For Forests

July 2, 2001

Over 100 lawyers have joined a new group that aims to end woodchipping and the logging of old-growth forests in Victoria, and overhaul the entire management of the state’s forests. The group was launched by the Federal Court’s Justice Murray Wilcox in Melbourne in mid-May.

The Lawyers For Forests group joins the Doctors, Liberals and Vets as professional groups opposed to government destruction of forests. President of the group, Lucy Turner, said the emergence of the group shows the strength of ...

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Dingo Creek rainforest

July 2, 2001

An inquiry is slowly cranking up into how many trees really are out there, compared to how many the government have promised. Meanwhile, important areas of acknowledged conservation value are being clearfelled to meet the demands of the logging industry.

Nationally significant.

Dingo Creek could become the next icon area to fight for. NRE knows it and wants to destroy it quickly.

Values

The latest in this long line of contentious logging ‘mistakes’ is at Dingo Creek, which adjoins the northern end of the ...

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Good News KLEENEX pulls out of native forest

July 1, 2001

Kimberly-Clark (50% owned by Amcor) have stated that they have ceased using native forest woodchips from Victoria’s Central Highlands in their tissues and toilet paper. This was after a three year consumer campaign by Environment Victoria.

Native forest woodchips will be substituted with plantation eucalypts from the Strzelecki Ranges and from South Australia.

Native forest fibre for Kimberly-Clark’s brands Kleenex and Wondersoft was also sourced from the Otways Ranges, until a short sharp campaign by Otways Ranges Environment Network.

Trevor

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