The Bracks Government has spent more than $74,000 fighting a Freedom of Information request for Department of Sustainability and Environment video tapes of the March 2002 raid on Goolengook. This is despite giving edited clips to television for broadcast. DSE says it is protecting the identity of its staff from intimidation by conservationists! The Victorian …
Our dogged pursuit of the crooks involved in the opportunistic logging of a large strip of the Snowy National Park during the January ’03 fires is starting to pay off. Auditor General to scrutinise DSE. Firstly, in mid-July we received a response from the Auditor General’s Office confirming that they had decided to investigate the …
For the logging industry’s movers and shakers at the Australian Forestry Conference in Melbourne in late July, one of the few hopes touted in an otherwise gloomy political landscape was the prospect of co-operating with the World Wide Fund for Nature to divide and conquer the Australian environment movement.Bob Burton reports. “The idea of the …
The brazen illegal logging of the Snowy National Park, along 60 km of its boundary during the January 2003 fires, shocked many people – even DSE personnel. An investigation was carried out into how this happened and where the logs went. The report has now been officially swept under the carpet. At the time of …
Just two days after this season’s first protest in Ferntree Creek, EEG had to deal with hoax tree spiking claims again. It’s a predictable part of the forest campaign. The industry claims have a long history and rely on public and media gullibility. They are well timed but have never been substantiated. Every year we …
After the illegal logging of the Snowy National Park last summer, the public was promised a full investigation and outcome. But the joke now goes: How many DSE officers does it take to do an investigation? Five. One to notice logs were stolen from 300 ha of National park, one to go “damn, we shouldn’t …
In February, when the Snowy National Park was illegally logged during the bush fires, we immediately put in a Freedom Of Information request for all relevant documents, to determine how this could have happened. We asked for: a.. Incident Management Log, b.. Any assessments done of Park values and significant trees, before clearing c.. Maps, …
Last issue’s front page story was of the needless logging of a 70 km swathe through the Snowy National Park during the January fires under the direction of a logging company boss seconded into the Department to help with fire fighting management. He was put in charge of this back burn line. Findings from …
The opportunistic logging of a 70 km slice of the Snowy River National Park in late February outraged more than just environment groups. The normally compliant Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) is so disgusted by this shameless act of vandalism, it is carrying out an investigation. The plan was to brush up an almost …
Did you know that the Commonwealth Bank has a 17% share-holding in Gunns? Gunns is the largest woodchipper of hardwood forests in the world, destroying Tasmanias old growth at a rate of knots. So the Commonwealth Bank is effectively responsible for about one sixth of the export woodchipping, clearfelling, burning, poisoning and old growth logging …
