No one could have made a bigger mess of the problem than has just been announced. Small voluntary cut back over umpteen years, introduce cable logging in steep old growth forests, hand out another huge swag of subsidies to a dying industry, allow unlimited woodchipping to continue, consider large consumers of wood like charcoal plants …
The figures are as flawed as they have been for the past 30 years and this ‘solution’ is only pushing the problem further down the track. In not too many years, the government might be forced to admit to another stuff-up – too late. In the meantime, they’ll be going hammer and tong as ever …
When greens and loggers join forces to try and find solutions, keeping away from government and pollies, it shows that there is no confidence in NRE or Bracks to sort out the mess. The one thing we both agree on is that the NRE are an incompetent lot of dills and the logging industry has …
Would we approve of hunting Panda Bears or Siberian Tigers if their carcasses were used for high value products? No? So it seems strange that there is still a belief that if we could set up a value adding industry, all our problems with logging native forests and old growth would be over. There is …
The Japanese economic downturn has seen orders for East Gippsland woodchips drop dramatically. The logging industry is now looking perilous. Strong rumours suggest this will be long term and serious. Coupled with this is the planned government cut-backs in log volumes due to past overcutting. Chip trucks lying idle in Orbost, a blockade of the …
The Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) sprang from the Earth Summit conference in Rio de Janiero in 1992 where Australia signed a ‘Global Statement of Principles on Forests’. The federal and State governments (excepting Tasmania) then signed onto the National Forest Policy Statement six months later. This policy stated that there would be a comprehensive, adequate …
Figures released by DNRE in August have revealed a massive increase in woodchipping for the second year in a row. Bracks allowed Victorian loggers to rip out 1.09 million m3 of residual wood – a new record for the State. He still claims the RFA is balanced! At the same time as woodchip volumes are …
he February WA election saw Labor promise to end 99% of old growth logging immediately and phase out export woodchipping by 2003. However, their commitment to the logging companies to supply huge volumes of logs until the end of 2003 has seen an increase in destruction of other important forests to account for protected old …
Eighteen months ago conservationists successfully fought off a proposal to log and burn the western NSW Pilliga and Goonoo forests to create charcoal for a silicone plant at Lithgow. It was another plan for a massive woodchip operation, only this time in the ironbark and box forests. The proponents have been quietly sniffing about for …
