VicForests has failed a forth time to gain the global forest environmental certification tick. We wonder what other motives they have to continue applying for acceptance when their practices don’t change.
Victoria’s central highlands are essential to protecting Melbourne’s water supply and also contributing $260 million a year to the tourism economy, a new study has found. The report from the Australian National University (ANU) used an international method recognised by the United Nations to value the ecosystem in the central highlands — an area that …
Victoria’s state-owned logging company breached rules protecting native animals and rainforests almost 30 times over three years, environment groups allege in a new report. The report comes after a dead koala was found in a logged section of forest in the Acheron Valley near Marysville that was home to the endangered Greater Glider. As revealed …
A dead koala has been found between fallen trees in a logged forest that the Andrews government could have protected – had it not ignored advice from its own scientific committee. The Sunday Age has obtained graphic images of the lifeless animal slumped over branches in the Acheron Valley north of Warburton, in a confronting example …
Those who know the greater glider have a vivid way of describing it: like a flying possum crossed with a koala. About the size of a garden-variety possum, but with a looped tail up to 60 centimetres long and membranes that extend from its elbow to its ankle, it is Australia’s largest gliding marsupial. Scientists say it …
VicForests has been caught out using very dodgy arithmetic to blame the small endangered Leadbeaters possum for its predicament. These were presented to the VEAC investigation and the Parliamentary enquiry as kosher – and too complicated for the average Joe to understand. But their bamboozling tactics didn’t fool Greens MP Samantha Dunn. VicForests is exposed …
A parliamentary inquiry into Victoria’s forestry body won’t be a “witch hunt” because it is simply designed to get some answers for the state’s ailing timber mills, Victorian MP Jeff Bourman says. Mr Bourman, an MP for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, has established a parliamentary inquiry into VicForests, who manage the state’s timber …
Originally Published at http://www.ecoshout.org.au/are-you-sick-logging-industry-spin
Matt Ruchel, member of the Forest Industry Task Force and our executive director, explains why sawmills and the pulp and paper industry don’t understand how forests work. Forests are living ecosystems, not magic puddings, and cannot supply something that doesn’t exist. The recent declaration by VicForests, the state government’s logging agency, that there is insufficient …
LIKE politician Danny O’Brien, I’m angry about the Australian Sustainable Hardwoods sawmill debacle. Very angry. This disaster should have been avoided. Successive governments, of all persuasions, have badly mismanaged timber resources. A sawmill company is now gaming the system, demanding access to timber it knows is not there. Sawmill workers will be losers. But so …
