The state government has withheld from the Commonwealth a survey of rare and threatened plants of an area of the Alpine National Park earmarked for a cattle grazing trial. It is believed scientists at the state’s biodiversity research body – the Arthur Rylah Institute – were asked to look for rare and threatened plants in …
Thousands of Koalas have been knowingly killed and maimed in harvesting machines and shredders by a plantation company for years. This has highlighted the deaths and horrific injuries of thousands of native animals that go on under the label of certified environmentally-friendly products, in both plantations and native forests. Koalas have highlighted just the tip …
This is so insane it seems it can’t be real; while primary native forests are bulldozed and burnt over in East Gippsland (at our expense), the blue gum MIS plantations from western Vic (put in at our expense) are being bulldozed and burnt – because there’s no market for their wood! About 2.5 million acres …
So Julia Gillard has declared that she wants the parties who started the so-called Tasmanian forest peace process “to do everything they can to use their abilities to silence those who haven’t gone with the mainstream consensus”. To silence. I lived with the silence of Tasmania for too many years. And now the leaders of …
Nippon, owners of the Eden woodchip mill and the Maryvale pulp and paper factory that makes Reflex paper, recently announced it will be building a cellulose nano-fibers production facility using wood pulp as the raw material. These fibres are supposed to have special qualities like high elasticity, barrier performance to gas, including oxygen, can be …
Addressing markets worth more than $130 billion worldwide, researchers say that lignin from trees could become the main renewable aromatic resource for the chemical industry in the future. The first opportunity could emerge as early as 2015 from the direct substitution of phenol in most of its industrial applications: phenolic resins, surfactants, epoxy resins, adhesives …
CSIRO research funds given to logging lobby group We recently asked the CSIRO to cancel its $10,000 membership to Australia’s national logging lobby group, Australian Forests Products Association (formerly NAFI) as it was inappropriate and against the charter for the CSIRO. The CEO refused. We took the issue to the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s office. It also …
In order to maintain its standing with certain beef farmers over the Alpine National Parks grazing issue, the Baillieu government took its legal challenge to the Federal Court in early August – at great cost to you and I. Victoria’s current conservative coalition wants to overturn a decision by federal Environment Minister Tony Burke that …
A BOGUS quote attributed to a major university by a key environment group is “no problem”, the university says. Planet Ark had released a quote claiming logging products are carbon-friendly to build with, complete with a reference to an RMIT study. But the quote: “Substituting wood products from well managed forests and plantations for carbon …
Planet Ark or Dark as some say – famous for loo paper, soap powder and advocating we recycle our Xmas cards – has accepted a large parcel of cash from the logging industry, in exchange for its ‘green’ endorsement of forest destruction. No genuine green group would go near the AFS with a bottle of …
