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?