Gavin Jennings explains

I was present at Melbourne Town Hall last night (18/11) when the Minister for Climate Change, Gavin Jennings, explained why Victoria was locked into the provision of low cost timber to Australian Paper, resulting in the subsidized destruction of Victoria’s native forests.

It was, he explained, because the cost of varying the legislated commitment to Australian Paper, before the termination date of 2027, would burden future Victorians with substantial litigation and compensation costs. I wonder if he has calculated the current and future monetary, lifestyle and environmental costs to Victorian taxpayers of persisting with this course of action.

He also suggested that environmental concerns should be viewed as humanitarian concerns. I already view environmental concerns as humanitarian concerns, and that is why I will be voting for my grandchildren next Saturday.

Nesting Time

In October Gavin Jennings proclaimed the extension to the Errinundra National Park promised in 2006. In the same month, just a few kilometers away, another area of publicly owned State Forest, roughly equivalent in size to seven city blocks, was clear felled in East Gippsland. This recently logged coupe is less than five kilometers from Brown Mountain where, in September 2010, the Supreme Court declared that inadequate surveys and conservation methods prior to logging put unacceptable risk on already endangered species of birds, mammals and reptiles.

Who conducted the surveys of this coupe before it was cleared – VicForests or the Department of Sustainability and the Environment?

Were surveys done during nesting time while birds and animals were in their tree hollows tending young? Or during the day when nocturnal animals were inactive?

Are these survey results available? If so then where? If not then why not?

Measuring the real cost

We all love a bargain – sure there are those who like to tell you how expensive something was when they purchased it in the exclusive store in the High Street, but they would probably be even more excited to tell you that they actually bought it at a huge discount.

As for the rest of us, we just like to shop around and, even when we spend half a day making endless phone calls and have to travel an extra 20kms, if it means we can save $50 we’ll do it.

And how many of us, believing ourselves to be environmentally conscious, don’t think twice about doing this?

I really like wearing my $10 Rolex and I’m not sure why. I can say it’s because I bought it from a second hand shop, (and No, I don’t for a moment believe it is real) but I can’t help but think about the people who made it, who mined the metal to produce it, who worked in the factories to assemble it. How much did this Rolex cost before it became a consumer item sitting in a shop?

I first began thinking about this sitting inside a very inexpensive tent on a wet summer evening. Allowing for a 50% markup, the various zips, mesh, poles, mats and moldings for the tent were cut, assembled, packaged, transported overseas, to the warehouse and then to the store for about $18. Was the $25 I paid from my visa the true cost of this tent?

Imagine how our decisions might be different if we paid the real cost of the items we fill our homes and lives with.

Costs in human rights, human lives, environmental degradation, water quality, air pollution, loss of biodiversity. Long term we can only guess at the effects each throwaway product will have on climate change and species extinction, on the delicate balance of small ecosystems and on the ecosystem that is planet earth, on the health of our children and grandchildren.

And for what? Drop by drop we are eroding our lifestyles in ways too small for all but the most observant among us to see.

Perhaps if we paid the true value of consumer items then we would demand these items be made durable rather than cheap.

But instead we mistake our “wants” for our “needs”, and allow advertising agencies and TV characters to convince us what our lifestyle should be, convince us that we deserve the newest, best and fastest, and convince us that we should have it now.

You might be lucky enough to know someone who remembers a time when children shared a bedroom, when a family had just one car, when people usually had at most three pairs of shoes, and there was only one telephone in the house.

If you do know someone – make sure you take the opportunity to talk to them.

If you don’t, you might like to look up old copies of Australian Newspapers at Trove (http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper )

Letter to The Age October 25 2010

Woodchips are the main game

ACCORDING to the most recent Monitoring Annual Harvest Performance report, published by the Department of Sustainability and the Environment (August 2008), 1,667,600 cubic metres of commercial timber was harvested from Victoria's state forests in 2006-07. Of this, 24.7 per cent became sawlogs and 68.5 per cent became woodchips. (In fire salvage areas, 11.5 per cent became sawlogs and 75 per cent became woodchips.)

It would seem that sawlog production has become a byproduct of the woodchip industry. There has to be a better way to produce paper.

The same report stated that ''sufficient information on regeneration and thinning operations [within Victoria's state forests] was not provided to allow adequate reporting'' of regeneration operations.

Surely it is not possible to regenerate 600-year-old trees in 120 years. And it is certainly not possible to regenerate extinct wildlife.

Letter to The Age October 11 2010

Conflicting figures

NATHAN Trushell assures us (Letters, 9/10) of the success of VicForests' regeneration program, but the latest Department of Sustainability and Environment report, Monitoring Annual Harvesting Performance in Victoria's State Forests, estimates that 19,000 hectares are overdue for regeneration surveys, and that a further 7191 hectares ''require additional effort for successful regeneration''. These figures do not include the effect of fires in 2006 or 2009.

Mr Trushell also assures us that the regeneration is maintaining biodiversity, yet on its website, under the headings of topics like ''monitoring change in species composition'', ''monitoring stocking survey success'' and ''monitoring root regenerating species'', it reports that ''results are still being collected''.

Furthermore, Mr Trushell states that VicForests harvests 5500 hectares of native forests each year but Victoria's State of the Forests 2008 reports that 9470 hectares of native forest are harvested each year. Who do we believe?

Adopt a logger?

Latest available figures from the Department of Sustainability and the Environment (Victorian State of the Forests Report 2008) are as follows...
9470ha of native forest harvested annually
50ha Old Growth Forest harvested annually (0.528% of harvest by area)

22500 employed in wood and wood products industries
9% of these in forestry and logging (2025)

Assume all of these are employed by Vicforests in the logging of native forests although some will be employed in plantation logging and some will be in non-logging activities.

So...
2025 employed in the logging of 9470ha of native forests of which 0.528% is Old Growth Forest.

0.528% of 2025 is 10.67 loggers.

If each earn $100,000 before running costs then they earn $1M per year.

If 1million people donated $1 per year we could keep these guys employed doing nothing until they found alternative employment...

Fancy employing a logger anyone?

Photos from the Frankston Bipass

Sadly, it is unlikely that protesters will be able to save this last patch of wetlands in the path of the Frankston Bipass.
The fallen tree took a few minutes to cut down, just 20 minutes to survey for wildlife then a few minutes more to bundle into this pile.
The small trees adjacent to this fence had a family of ringtails.
Who will be reponsible for minimising the loss of wildlife here?
Was the cost of rehabilitating displaced or injured wildlife factored into the costings of the freeway project?

Here are my photos...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39752210@N07/sets/72157624879247741/

Why?

The forests issue in East Gippsland, and in particular the Erinundra Plateau (spelt differently in Errinundra National Park), has been ongoing for decades, dividing the community in townships, in courts, in the media and in the forests themselves. Throw in broken promises, seemingly deliberate obfuscation and agreements stretched to breaking point, and it’s not surprising that environment groups feel unable to trust even proper process.

In the nineties the forests issue was the subject of student debates. News articles at the time spoke about conflicting perspectives, particularly relating to woodchipping and clear felling, but indirectly addressing the effectiveness of regeneration, sustainability both for the industry and for the environment, the economic value to state and to timber reliant communities, an agreed definition of forest, effects on biodiversity of habitat fragmentation, effectiveness of statistical evaluation and reporting, standards and methods of measurement, and the effects of deforestation on water catchments. Add to this now the threat of wood fired power stations, disease (phytophthora in particular), prescribed burns and fire salvage logging.

Curiously, these natural threats (disease, fire, drought) give vicforests added incentive to seek out additional logging coupes when, as David Lindenmeyer says, the forest is already under stress, adding clearfelling and prescribed burns is further weakening an already ailing ecosystem.

Forests considered diseased or economically unviable to the timber industry are selected for national parks and conservation areas – the richest and healthiest forests are selected for logging.

At stake is our state’s natural heritage, flora and fauna, and remnants of the state as it was before European settlement.

Stakeholders in the forests debate include local communities, timber communities, educational institutions, tourism, and future generations.

Everything points to the timber industry as being in decline. The Department of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries 2008 report talks of labour shortages in all facets of the industry and the declining number of forestry graduates while timber industry primaries are squeezing contractors and smaller mills out of business.

According to Hansard 21st August 2007 (p 2485) there were then 525 people directly employed in harvesting and processing but 409 of these would lose their jobs as well as a $50million loss to the area if the 50ha of old growth forests reportedly harvested annually in east Gippsland were protected. Victoria’s state of the forests report 2008 indicates a similar number of employees (in public, private and joint owned forests) yet some industry reporters make the claim that nationally the industry employs 120,000 individuals, putting East Gippsland’s contribution at something less than 0.5% of the industry.

In the timber industry are the state government operated Vicforests (established 2002 to “ensure the Government’s commercial forest operations are open and accountable”), the Victorian Association of Forest Industries (VAFI), the National Association of Forest Industries (NAFI), the Institute of Foresters of Australia, the Timber Communities Australia (TIA) with 14 branches in Victoria (2007), the Australian Forest Contractors Association to name just a few.
Internationally there is the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FOA) established in 1958, the UNFF (supporting 2011 year of forests), IUCN (see below).

Meanwhile the potential growth the areas of tourism, eco tourism in particular, and environmental employment opportunities, are recognised by tertiary institutions offering tertiary places in all manner of subjects from research and fire ecology to outdoor education environmental science, yet overlooked in the consideration of Victoria's Public Native Forests.
Wading through just a fraction of the reports available, leaves one confused about the multiplicity of the evidence and astounded that it is being ignored.

Federal and state reports are lost in reshuffles and name changes. DPI, DPIE, DAFF, DSE, LCC, DEWHA, DEST, DNRE, EPA, Environment Australia, Environment Victoria and within these departments multitudes of reports are also to be found containing recommendations and warnings, many in conflict with other reports or Government activities.

Recommendations are adopted in part. For example, in 1986 the LCC made recommendations as to the amount of sawlogs that could be removed to ensure sustainability. This recommendation was accepted but the accompanying recommendation on woodchipping was not. In 1992 the sawlog cut was reduced, but woodchip harvesting, claimed to be the byproduct of sawlog harvesting, has increased by extraordinary amounts.

Endless acts and agreements such as CARS 1997, Regional Forest Agreements 2000, Flora & Fauna Guarantee Act 1988, National Parks Act, Annual reporting Act, … reports on performance indicators and sustainability controls such as Monitoring Annual Harvesting Performance (DSE 2008) and the Joint Sustainable Harvest Level statement (DSE 2008) … and State of the Forests reports that repeatedly warn of logging at unsustainable levels both to the environment and to the industry.

And in 2009, the Victorian Government’s Timber Industry Strategy...

The more I read the more I want to ask WHY?

Why are our state owned forests being turned into fence palings and woodchips?

Why is the responsibility for protecting and monitoring our endangered species left to
community groups and volunteers who take time out of work and study, funding their activities from donations?

Why is monitoring not carried out as prescribed by government legislation?

Why has the quantity of sawlogs produced annually fallen since 1992, while the quantity of woodchips has risen markedly from native forest timber supplied by Vicforests?

Why are some departmental warnings ignored and laws changed retrospectively favouring the timber industry?

Why does 26ha of Victorian State Forests felled per day on average not ring alarm bells?

Why, when 2010 is the year of biodiversity, are statistics on our endangered species non-existent or approaching 20 years old?

Why aren’t other nature based industries encouraged and/or promoted for regional areas?

Why aren’t recommendations and research into fire regimes considered in determining prescribed burns?

Why has the timber industry taken precedence over the obvious potential for tourism and education, and principles of conservation in the area?

Why is the recent decision to add protection measures citing the Precautionary Principle, overshadowed by the history of retrospective legislation changes in this debate?

Why, when the protection of old growth forests is an ongoing issue, are governments so reluctant to adequately address it?

Why aren’t effective methods of control for

Why are the 50ha publicly owned old growth forest Vicforest says it harvests annually, so important to the industry given the community resentment of this activity?

These are just a few of the questions I’d like answered.

The most comprehensive knowledge bank on the debate is with Jill Redwood at EEG and Luke Chamberlain at The Wilderness Society.

The economy is but a subset of the ecosystem...

Further reading:
EEG http://www.eastgippsland.net.au/
Environment Victoria http://www.environmentvictoria.org.au/
VicParks reports to the 2007 Bushfire Royal Commission http://vnpa.org.au/admin/library/attachments/SubmissionsNEW/VNPA%20FOPs%20submission+attachments.pdf
Forest Stewardship Council http://www.fscaustralia.org/
Flawed promises Environmental Organisations’ Investigation of Labor’s 2006 Election Old Growth Forest Commitments by TWS, VNPA & ACF 2009 http://vnpa.org.au/admin/library/attachments/PDFs/Reports/Flawed%20promises.pdf
United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) http://www.un.org/esa/forests/index.html
IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature http://www.iucn.org/
IUCN RedList of Endangered Species http://www.iucnredlist.org/
David Lindenmeyer, On Borrowed Time, Penguin, Australia, 2007
Judith Ajani, The Forest Wars, Melbourne University Press 2007
See also http://www.delicious.com/bimbimbi/eeg

Logging Victoria's Forests

ABS 2008 data on Native Forest Areas gives Victoria'a area of public owned forests set aside for wood production at 3,163,000ha, with a similar amount in Nature Conservation Areas, and 1,1025,000ha of native forests in private hands.

Vicforests clears 9,470ha (0.3%) annually - 26ha per day (the MCG arena is 2ha).
This figure has not changed significantly since sustainability levels were reduced in 1992.
So, in 18 years we have lost 5.4% of public owned state forest.

This annual harvest is accumulative - different hectares are logged every year.

The trees regenerating from forests harvested today will mature, develop hollows, and begin to support our threatened species sometime during the 23rd century. At current rates, by 2200
62% of publis native forest will be regenerating forest. But the logging will say it is still only logging 0.8% of the remaing forest area pa, even if held at today's 9470ha per annum.

That's the reality hidden in the statistics - forest data must be considered long term.

*********************

DSE's 2008 State of the Forests figures states that of 34,000ha in Victoria subject to regeneration between 1996-97 and 200-2001, 30,000 ha are successfully regenerating. In contrast, another DSE report, Monitoring Annual Harvesting Performance (MAHP) 2006-7, states that 7,191ha require additional effort for successful regeneration and 19,000ha are overdue for regeneration surveys. (Effects of 2006/7 fires were not included.)

Can both reports be correct?

?????????????????????!!!

Thinning is carried out approximately 20 years after logging.

The MAHP reports on the damage from thinning operations.

In this report it reveals that Vicforests provided damage reports from just 26 of the 52 couples thinned, and data supplied from those 26 was insufficient for effective assessments of the risks associated with excessive thinning.

Hmmmmm ...

Smallest seahorse discovered but bad news for bees

• See the 12mm long Satomi's pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus satomiae) at http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn17247-top-ten-new-species

• "Every million acres of forest that is cut releases the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere as 40 million cars do in a year"- this quote comes from Holly Gibbs, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford University.
  See http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=45643&src=eoa-manews

• And bees are having trouble possibly because of "a climate-driven mismatch between the times when flowers open and when bees emerge from hibernation,” says James Thomson, a scientist with University of Toronto’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.See http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/main/newsitems/decline-in-bee-pollination

Confirmed sighting of Humpback Whale and Eastern Grey Squirrel in Ringwood

Museum Victoria has a BioInformatics site at http://museumvictoria.museum/bioinformatics/

If you click on 'Mammals' you get to a very impressive web page.

Now go to the bottom right corner and under 'Map searches in Victoria' click on 'Compare'...

I chose regions 8623 'Bendoc' and 7922 'Ringwood' and discovered that not only had there been confirmed sightings of the Humpback Whale, Bottlenose Dolphin and Southern Bottlenose Whale, but also the Spot-tailed Quoll, the Brush-tailed Phascogale, Fat-tailed Marsupial Mouse, Eastern Pygmy-possum, New Zealand Fur Seal and also the Eastern Grey Squirrel, but sadly not the Long-footed Potoroo. See the Biodiversity report ...

http://flyaqis.museum.vic.gov.au/cgi-bin/texhtml?form=bio_mammalp2.sum&qrybutt=mammals&qrymaploc=v8623&&qrymaploc=v7922

Admittedly, the page is maintained by DNRE which was disbanded in 2002 but even so...

Where does this information come from and more importantly, where does it go?

Bastion Point - Mallacoota

East Gippsland Shire Council proposes a large scale breakwater and boat ramp development at Bastion Point, Mallacoota. The Save Bastion Point coalition works to protect the many values of Bastion Point, to promote safe and sustainable use of the area and to oppose inappropriate development on the Bastion Point headland (taken from http://www.savebastionpoint.org )

IMHO -
Given the dynamic nature of the ocean, the unpredicability of the ocean's reaction to change (as demonstrated in Port Philip Bay after the dredging and numerous other sites where human intervention has been buried or demolished by natural forces along the seafront) and the reports from independant investigators, the notion that this momentous redesigning of the beach and natural rock formations at Bastion Point can have measurable and predictable outcomes is gross human folly and the ultimate in human vanity.

This landscape has been sculpted over eons and is constantly reshaped by wind and water. Even if we cannot measure the changes over a few months or years, any beachcomber can see how sand responds to small changes on the beach - what changes will come from this monsterous project? Can anyone say with certainty?

It seems that the East Gippsland Shire Council has commissioned four reports - maybe they are hoping that they will find a team of investigators to agree to support the proposal. Why? What have they got to gain from going ahead with the proposal?

What have they got to lose? See here - http://savebastionpoint.org/bastion-point/gallery/

13 MCG Arenas

Vicforest's annual clearfelling of State Forest is equivalent to 13 times the MCG arena.
It's difficult to believe isn't it.
The figures are at Victoria's State of the Forests Report 2008.

UNFF Four Global Objectives on Forests Agreed Upon

In 2006, at its sixth session, the Forum agreed on four shared Global Objectives on Forests, providing clear guidance on the future work of the international arrangement on forests.

The four Global Objectives seek to:

* Reverse the loss of forest cover worldwide through sustainable forest management (SFM), including protection, restoration, afforestation and reforestation, and increase efforts to prevent forest degradation;
* Enhance forest-based economic, social and environmental benefits, including by improving the livelihoods of forest-dependent people;
* Increase significantly the area of sustainably managed forests, including protected forests, and increase the proportion of forest products derived from sustainably managed forests; and
* Reverse the decline in official development assistance for sustainable forest management and mobilize significantly-increased new and additional financial resources from all sources for the implementation of SFM.

Taken directly from The United Nation Forum on Forests

Australia's contact at the UNFF is given as Tony Bartlett, General manager, Forest Industries Branch, DAFF.
From the DAFF website...
Mr Bartlett is also resonsible for Sustainable Resource Management, reporting to Australian Govenment Land and Coast, which includes Landcare and sustainable production.
Also Assistant Secretary Finance and Community Grants, again reporting to Austalian Government Lands and Coasts.

Ultimately he reports to the Minister for Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts DEWHA (currently Peter Garrett).

80% of Australian voters don't believe in climate change!

There are tomatoes ripening on the plants that went into the ground last spring and the swallows didn't leave the park this winter.

Meanwhile, more than 80% of Australians have turned their backs on the prospect of climate change in this election, anxious about a few thousand refugees arriving by boat but oblivious to the 20 million climate change refugees currently in Pakistan.

Timber principals squeezing contractors - AFCA 2007

The following paragraphs are taken directly from the Australian Forest Contracters Association February 2007 Newsletter.
Five questions from the URS Forestry, Forest Contractor Information Survey, prepared for DAFF, are answered:

• Most contracts include a “force majeure” clause and contract principals typically construe the term in its widest possible form.
• As little as 10% of all contracts are properly negotiated … and … are heavily tilted in favour of the principals.
• Of six legal proceedings issued by contractors three found in favour of contractors, two of whom were never to cut another tree for the ‘offending principal.” Of the other three, one went bankrupt and the other two are eagerly awaiting an exit opportunity.

(Request for Proposal (RFP) process)

• The RFP process matches the best ideas with the cheapest rates and the first proponent to agree the low rates ends up with the job.
• In the most recent tender/RFP conducted by a major processor the six proponents “short listed” were assembled and told to reduce their submitted rates by about 25% if they were to stay “in the mix”.
• Many of the current tenders/RFP “peg” the rates ... with the effect being that sawlog users pay a higher rate and effectively subsidise profits of both growers and pulpwood customers. This is neither (1) fair nor: (2) transparent - despite claims by the contract principals.
• Many of the incumbent contractors are forced to “bid for their survival.”
• Some forest owners have yet to learn that there is no such thing as a “sustainable over cut”.
• The “new” buzzword – OPTIMISATION – has seen the practice emerge whereby forest owners want to optimise the bush
• Pulpwood, instead of being viewed as a “by-product”, now has to justify itself as a profitable product in its own right.
• Some contract principals are reluctant to pass on the full extent of fuel surcharges that they themselves can charge their customers.
• With mechanism, 80% of contractor numbers do 20% of the volume.
• Most contractors survive on “over quota” and when that is lost – or reversed – they don’t last long.
• The practice of “decimation” … is rife in the industry with no less than five contractors being specifically targeted in the last three major RFP processes undertaken in the past twelve months.
• One contract principal/manager has gone on public record to say that unless he has at least one contractor falling over every five years then his rates are not keen enough.
• New players enter the industry using either second hand gear or with payment terms that far exceed the useful economic life of the gear. When financial problems are encountered the contractor is then “propped” by the principal.
• We have here in Australia, the lowest stumpage, harvest and haul rates in the western world but the dearest milling costs and – despite that - some of the highest processing returns in the world.

Well! Principals without principles and the environment is the scapegoat.

Letter to The Age - Friday 13th August 2010

Those asserting that thousands of jobs will be lost and rural Victorian towns decimated should ask the forestry industry and state governments why they did not heed the recommendations of the Land Conservation Council review into East Gippsland in 1986.

This review stated that the industry was operating at twice the level required to ensure sustainability of the industry, that the biggest threats to employment within the forestry industry were unsustainable practices and the development and implementation of methods aimed at greater efficiency.

The LCC report also said that the best ongoing and increasing employment opportunities were in the environmental education and tourism industries provided they were properly supported. These opportunities are being threatened and undermined by logging activities as noted in RAVC's Royal Auto in 2009.

My father says 'When one door closes, another one opens.' Maybe this decision will open the door to an alternative future for Gippsland.

Victoria's State of the Forests Report 2008 - Production

The table on page 16 shows the annual area harvested is 9,470 ha, or 1% of the "total area available & suitable for timber production."
25.94 ha per day, 365 days of the year.
In Melbourne terms, this is 13 times the area of the MCG arena.

In 2001/2 this included 730 ha of old growth forest.
In 2005/6 this was just 50 ha - have there been any significant ill effects on the timber industry, or the population of rural town? Would the removal of the last 50 ha quota be so bad?

It seems that 9470 ha produced just under 2 million cubic metres of wood product in 2006 with sawlogs including salvage making up 0.5 million cubic metres.
Pulpwood comprised almost 70% of Victoria's forest harvest.

Old growth forest attracts even higher percentages of pulpwood - why bother goinig to all the effort of plundering a few ha of old growth forest fo pulpwood???

Next - Employment...

New threads

It's late but I've set up the blog again - this time it will be a bit of a journal, but mostly a way to keep myself in order and share some info.
It'll also be a list of things to do.
And a place to collect photos.
But now it's late...