The latest bundle of propaganda to come from VicForests, in mid August, announced the new Sustainable Forest Management System Project for Forest Certification. Don’t all those big words sound impressive? Sadly, its just another expensive publicity fraud. Haven’t the Government propagandists and spin-doctors realised yet that the word Sustainable is way past its use by …
What we see going on with Tasmanian woodchips could well set the scene for the rest of us battling to save our forests. When a 10% drop in orders for Tasmanian woodchips was announced, green groups were blamed. The reduction and subsequent job losses are squarely the result of green groups telling lies to overseas …
DSE logging plans from July 2004 to June 2005 show 4,700 ha to be clearfelled in East Gippsland. Much of this is old growth or mature forest. This will supply 149,000 m3 of sawlogs and 385,000 m3 of chip logs. Consider that a saw log averages 30% recovery (at least 60% is chipped as round …
Will protests against corporations become illegal? Twenty Tasmanian campaigners speaking out against Gunns Ltd, the Tasmanian woodchip company, are being sued for almost $6.4 million. They are accused of conspiracy and interference with trade and business. The 216-page writ was filed in the Victorian Supreme Court on 14th January and targets outspoken environmentalists including Peg …
The industry that gave us the National Park Logs Swindle now brings us the Residual Logs Rip-off. Over the past few years, the CSIRO has been checking low grade logs delivered to East Gippsland mills – so called ‘residual logs’ that nearly all end up as piles of woodchips. The industry is always whingeing about …
Just what is going on lately? Woodchippers are hopping into the sack with other sectors of the logging industry all over the country. Midways, the big export woodchipper near Geelong, is planning to merge with Forest Enterprises Australia (FEA), a plantation company operating out of Tasmania since 1985, which sells whole plantation logs and wood-chips …
APM, AMCOR, Australian Paper, Paperlinx, whatever you want to call this huge Latrobe Valley pulp and paper mill, they clearly have very close connections with the state and federal governments. Donations and gifts flow freely between them (see the article here on political donations from woodchip companies). In April, while touring Gippsland’s now marginal seat …
Members of Chipstop at Bega held a four day vigil outside the Eden woodchip mill from Monday to Thursday, 15th – 19th December 2003. They documented the truck loads carted into the giant chipmill and export wharf. Of the stream of 130 trucks a day that drove through the gates to the woodchip pile by …
A five-day vigil at the Eden chipmill in mid-July has proven conclusively that the woodchipping industry does not use waste wood. Members of the Bega based Chipstop group documented: a.. an average of 132 trucks per day entering the chipmill. b.. of those almost two thirds were carrying mature age native forest or old growth. …
In the never-ending search for new and innovative ways to make a buck from our native forests, one enterprising shipping company decided to try sending a load of Gippsland and WA woodchips to Italy for fuelling a biomass-burning electricity plant. After enquiries, we were told that it was a financial disaster and they lost out …
