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...