Using East Gippsland as an example, a reduction in sawlogs does not mean an equal reduction in woodchips – f’rinstance, while there’s been a 20% drop in sawn timber (from market forces), the chip volumes have increased 100%! In Tambo forests next door, they’ve had a 700% increase in chips! Next year’s plans for log …
At 5am on Tuesday 5th of March 2002 – the five year long blockade of the ancient forest masterpiece called Goolengook was broken up by police and NRE. Two people remained in a lock-on device and a tree sit, slowing down the legalised vandalism of this area. NRE say they will start logging immediately they …
Don’t be deluded, the latest logging ‘cut-backs’ are little more than a huge spin-doctoring excercise. It’s business-as-usual for the big boys with a few small players out of the show. Not one tree will be saved. Their slight reduction in the small end of the industry doesn’t mean a reduction in area, it’s just a …
The long battle by locals to obtain a 28% release of water from the Jindabyne dam for the Snowy River could be partly or wholly negated by clearfelling its major sub-catchments, scientists have warned. Two reports from the early 90s indicated that logging would cause reduced water yields. They were dully ignored by government, but …
As a result of arrests at the Dingo Creek rainforest coupe last Autumn, two protesters are challenging the charge of ‘obstructing a lawful logging operation’. The case has been heard for two days so far and the last session is on January 18th at Bairnsdale. The public are welcome to attend. The NRE have made …
he promised five yearly review of the East Gippsland RFA looks like being delayed another year. Its shaping up to be a rank job an attempt to sanitise whats totally on the nose. The States do their own assessment, pretend theyve honoured their environmental duty, have token public input, give themselves a tick, and dont …
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 …
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 …
The Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) sprang from the Earth Summit conference in Rio de Janiero in 1992 where Australia signed a ‘Global Statement of Principles on Forests’. The federal and State governments (excepting Tasmania) then signed onto the National Forest Policy Statement six months later. This policy stated that there would be a comprehensive, adequate …
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 …
