Can you trust logging industry spin?
Originally Published at http://www.ecoshout.org.au/are-you-sick-logging-industry-spin
Victoria’s forests are not magic puddings
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 …
Heyfield timber mill plea misleading
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 …
VicForests finally admits – the logs aren’t there
Forests are not a Magic Pudding and this fact finally caught up with the government and VicForests in January 2017. Knocking down forests faster than they can regrow has been the management standard for decades by every logging agency and overseen and excused by every government (Liberal and Labor). After such cut-throat management, the industry …
Logging plan puts squeeze on Victoria’s high value native forests
Victoria has taken the dubious title of being the largest logger of Australian native forest by volume, accounting for around a third of all native forest logged in the country over the past year. The state government agency VicForests logged more than 1.3 million cubic metres of wood from Victoria’s native forests, almost 100,000 cubic …
VicForests logs Powerful Owl habitat for …. firewood?
You’ve got to be joking, right? VicForests are spruiking the importance of firewood as a sustainable product from Parlour’s Creek coupe. Is firewood really such an important part of their business model? Which kind of means that they’re logging Powerful Owl and Greater Glider habitat for firewood! Minister d’Ambrosio – can you and your Department …
The CEO of VicForests bails out
Ironically, after years of overseeing the destruction of Victoria’s forest, Robert Green, CEO of VicForests will soon be taking up a position running the NZ Timberlands plantations. In the interim, Robert Green’s position will be filled by Nathan Trushell, General Planning Manager. Also – we hear that Gordon Davies has resigned from the Board of …
Logging starts in Strathbogies
After years of discussion and campaigning, environment groups feel like they are losing the battle to protect Strathbogie State Forest with VicForests beginning its logging operation. Euroa Environment Group and Strathbogie State Forest Group want a thorough assessment of the forest values to establish how much forest is available for sustainable logging and ensure it …
High drama turned into a High five!
A Greater Glider forest refuge was being clearfelled by VicForests through July and August in an extremely provocative act while taskforce members negotiated. This created extreme volatility between the government, its Forest Taskforce (set up to solve Vic’s long and bitter forest dispute), environment groups and VicForests. The logging coupes in our current legal case …
VicForests to employ an East Gipp Field Ecologist
We have grave concerns that VicForests is positioning itself to carry out its own surveys in forests planned for logging. Before now it has hired independent expert consultant biologists to do the work – albeit minimal. This recently advertised new position points to this backward move. Pre-logging surveys will have very little credibility if this …