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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
The Federal Productivity Commission recently condemned the subsidised underpricing of logs by governments as illegal and called for a complete overhaul of the system nationally. A 61 page statement from the Competition Complaints Office, entitled Competitive Neutrality in Forestry, finds that none of the country’s state forest managers operate a commercial rate of return on …
Imagine a massive tree, its huge buttressed trunk so enormous it would equal the weight of a blue whale, the base would fill the floor space of the average lounge room. Imagine this tree’s smooth grey-blue trunk towering up though a dense understorey of tree-ferns and blanket leaf, through a middle canopy of sweet-scented sassafras …
