Diabolical Dictionary

ACRONYMS USED ON THIS WEBSITE

  • DSE – Department of Sustainability and Environment (since changed to DEPI and again to DELWP)
  • DEPI – Department of Environment and Primary Industries
  • FOD – Forces Of Darkness
  • VAFI – Victorian Association of Forest Industries
  • TWS – The Wilderness Society
  • EPBC – Environmental Protection, Biodiversity and Conservation Act
  • ALP – Australian Labor Party
  • NAFI – National Association of Forest Industries – (since changed to AFPA)
  • AFPA – Australian Forest Products Association
  • AFS – Australian Forestry Standard
  • FSC – Forest Stewardship Council
  • TCA – Timber Communities Australia
  • CFMEU – Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union
  • RFA – Regional Forest Agreement
  • VEAC – Victorian Environmental Assessment Council
  • FFGA – Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act
  • EEG – Environment East Gippsland
  • HCV – High Conservation Value
  • TRP – Timber Release Plan
  • WUP – Wood Utilisation Plan
  • CFA – Country Fire Authority

 

Political definitions

  • TRUTH: what the population is gullible enough to accept.
  • MORALITY: what you can get away with.
  • MEDIA: the obedient disseminators of TRUTH and MORALITY.
  • GROWTH: the expansion of big business, usually to the detriment of the community.
  • PROGRESS: the term used to sell the expansion of big business to an unsuspecting public.
  • PRIVATE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM: organised greed presented as a virtue.
  • LEFTY COMMO GREENIE: anyone who hinders the full potential of greed.
  • ORGANISED CRIME: criminals who don’t take the precaution of getting themselves into a position of trust and influence (with good media consultants) before they began their activities.
  • MINING/ TOBACCO/FOSSIL FUEL/WOODCHIP INDUSTRIES/THE DRUG TRADE: a primary source of political party campaign funds.
  • INTERNAL INVESTIGATION: devising a whitewash when a cover-up has failed.
  • POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY: an essential quality for the proper functioning of government – in other countries, or from other parties.
  • CHOICE: one person having total control over another person’s workplace and life.
  • MEDIA BIAS: media presenting a non-Liberal/big business point of view or daring to questioning unaccountability.
  • I BELIEVE:used when blatant lies spoken with authority are designed to be swallowed by the public.
  • THE AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE WANT…: this is what very few people want, but if I say it often enough hopefully they’ll want it.

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Watch their LANGUAGE!

“Harvesting” or Logging?
“Timber” or a stand of forests?
“Managing” or Trashing?
“Sustainable” or cut out and get out?

Many people do the industry’s work for them & use carefully fashioned ‘industry-speak’, those crafted terms that send pretty images to the public about forest destruction. The industry must be laughing at us.

Timber and harvest are the two most common. They were invented by PR firms and psychologists to help placate and con the public. And we’ve fallen for it. This issue won’t make or break it for us but it’s one of those obvious things that is so easy to spot once you’re aware of it.

We don’t say ‘ultra-dominant and socially-disfunctional male people who are emotionally challenged’ instead of rapist. So why do we say “timber” and “harvest” instead of logging?

It’s not a timber industry that harvests forests. That’s like using the term collateral damage for government sanctioned mass murder. VicForests might say “enhance”, or “modify” or “liberate” when talking about cutting down old growth trees in a forest. Magic Pudding forestry management

PR language

Logging conjures up the image of muddy, churned earth and torn apart forest with stumps and broken branches.

Harvesting conjures up the image of maidens in flowing skirts gathering arm fulls of ripened wheat. The whaling, sealing, mutton birding and just about every other nature exploiting industries love using this term too.

Timber makes people think of a hardware yard with neat stacks of 4×2 – far removed from flattened forests. So the term timber industry also gives the impression that it’s really all about nice neat bits of building wood. On average, only 2% of an entire forest ends up as those square edged packaged items in a city yard. This industry is not about timber.

Sustainable has also been hijacked and bastardised to become a cheap, tacky, meaningless bureaucratic term. Even with the word “ecologically” stuck to it. Once these terms have been hijacked and our ears hear them abused for years, it’s very difficult to value them.