The logging industry has been on massive welfare payments for years, despite it claiming it is profitable. Our taxes pay to have our forests destroyed.
The industry is a dead loss in many ways.

Tasmania needs help

Whistle blower exposes corruption in Tasmania A greying Tasmanian forester of 32 years experience has spilt the beans on broad-scale illegal destruction of the state’s public forests. He claims corruption and collusion by and between the logging industry and Tasmanian Government has been rampant since the signing of the RFA five years ago. Bill Manning …

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Pining for the big one – The 20-20 vision

Is it double vision or short vision? There seems to be no logic behind the government’s push for more plantations Have you ever noticed how foresters, economists and engineers all seem to suffer from the ‘bigger is grander’ syndrome? Size is their obsession too. How did they decide on this target? Well just don’t you …

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Fire fallout

Industry demands public money to salvage logs. Another logic-lacking media release put out by the logging industry in July called for more and faster access to log all the burnt forest. They claimed they needed government assistance to cart the logs long distances to their mills and maybe even money to help with storage (they …

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The woodchip gang of four

Banks help destroy old growth In another first for corporate Australia, The Wilderness Society along with over 500 shareholders in four big banks (ANZ, Westpac, CBA and National Australia Bank) have called for a halt to all investment in old growth logging. This is the first time that all four banks have been formally requested …

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Forestry Fairy Tales – the myth of many jobs

Once upon a time, people thought that the logging industry was the big economic winner for a place called East Gippsland. Without it, the people were told, families would be starving in the gutters. The reality nowadays – at most, only 2.9% of the regions employment relies on logging.1 Those employed in the logging industry …

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HUGE price rise ­1c in 5 years for woodchip logs

OVERLOGGING – NOW UNDERPRICING For the past two years, CROEG has been working to get figures released under FOI to show what prices our forests are going for. After many refusals, delays and denials of the existance of documents, the papers were finally released in late February. As we expected – the Department of Natural …

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Big mess made bigger

No one could have made a bigger mess of the problem than has just been announced.  Small voluntary cut back over umpteen years, introduce cable logging in steep old growth forests, hand out another huge swag of subsidies to a dying industry, allow unlimited woodchipping to continue, consider large consumers of wood like charcoal plants …

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Still using flawed figures

The figures are as flawed as they have been for the past 30 years and this ‘solution’ is only pushing the problem further down the track. In not too many years, the government might be forced to admit to another stuff-up – too late. In the meantime, they’ll be going hammer and tong as ever …

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Why value adding isn’t the answer

Would we approve of hunting Panda Bears or Siberian Tigers if their carcasses were used for high value products? No? So it seems strange that there is still a belief that if we could set up a value adding industry, all our problems with logging native forests and old growth would be over. There is …

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The end of the logging industry as we know it?

The Japanese economic downturn has seen orders for East Gippsland woodchips drop dramatically. The logging industry is now looking perilous. Strong rumours suggest this will be long term and serious. Coupled with this is the planned government cut-backs in log volumes due to past overcutting. Chip trucks lying idle in Orbost, a blockade of the …

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