Science behind alpine grazing questioned

The plan to reintroduce beef cattle into the Alpine National Park as a scientific trial has been shown by local environment groups to be a poorly masked political move. The Gippsland Environment Group applied for documents under the Freedom of Information Act. When these were finally obtained they showed that Parks Victoria warned the government …

Continue reading

Our taxes wasted on logging industry payouts

This one is a ripper if you take a moment to read it. Andrew Darby, an Age journo based in Hobart, revealed in early January that the $45 million of our taxes about to be handed to Tasmanian loggers could be money down the drain. One exit program of the Howard era was supposed to …

Continue reading

Is using native forests for energy really carbon-neutral?

Australia’s forest conflict gets easier to solve as every day passes. In reality, the conflict will solve itself if the government can just resist reviving the environmentally and economically inferior native forest part of Australia’s “forest” industry. The government must not open native forest wood to the energy market. Some are proposing that Australia’s forest …

Continue reading

Baillieu’s new logging party

Baillieu seems to have handed his government over to miners and loggers to run. Its latest Timber Industry Action Plan which was released on 13th December could have been written by the logging industry at a bucks party. What this plan does is try to squeeze every last tree from every last corner. Here’s what …

Continue reading

Baillieu and Ryan’s Payback Policy

The largest destroyer of our endangered forest species could be made exempt from the law that protects them! Victoria’s Baillieu led National Party government plans to rewrite the environmental Code for logging so that the DSE Secretary can flick his pen over a piece of paper to exempt logging from abiding by the Flora and …

Continue reading

New state law in the pipeline to aid loggers

LOGGERS can seek exemptions from state environment laws protecting endangered species under proposed changes quietly released by the state government. The proposed amendments to the code for timber production – outlined in a document posted on a government website – hands power to the Secretary of the Department of Sustainability and Environment. The secretary would …

Continue reading

Time to fell obstacles to tracing wood products

There is a massive re-rating of native forest going on, even as world resolve to tackle climate change crumbles. Deforestation accounts for roughly 20 per cent of our greenhouse problem, on the ”sink” side of the ledger (because it’s not just about how much gas we pump up into the atmosphere – by clearing trees …

Continue reading

Baillieu to protect loggers above threatened species

(Forest Flogging Guarantee Act?) Driven by our Brown Mountain win a year ago, the Baillieu government is planning to rewrite the 23 year old environmental law that was to protect threatened species – to allow better protection of the logging industry. The deliberate inaction and disregard of the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act by the …

Continue reading

Threatened species yield ground to loggers

VICTORIA’S old-growth forests could be opened to more logging under a state government plan to dilute environmental laws designed to protect threatened species. The Age has learnt that the Department of Sustainability and Environment is quietly examining Victoria’s 23-year-old Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act so that the existence of animals deemed threatened or endangered is …

Continue reading

Latest logging audit spin

How can an audit that has found environmental breaches on almost all the coupes checked possibly end up with a result of 93% compliance?The latest audit of logging in Victoria’s forests will leave many environmentalists convinced that these Audits are totally worthless exercises that have done nothing to protect biodiversity in our forests. One of …

Continue reading