VAFI: Timbre of assertions not quite right
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Yesterday, Crikey unfortunately gave space to Frank Campbell, who did the Crikey readership (of which I am one) a huge disservice by writing a factually incorrect article on the Victorian Government’s “Timber Industry Strategy” (TIS), our first industry strategy since 1986. Before I respond to some of his more ridiculous assertions, he first claims the Victorian Government released the TIS in April this year “but nobody noticed”. Nobody noticed because it did not happen. The Government did release a draft document as you can see from my timeline below, but the real McCoy is yet to see daylight. For the record, the timeline of events with the TIS is as follows:
Now either Campbell went to the Godwin Grech School of information dissemination or he hasn’t yet learnt to use Google, because if he had done a simple search with those three words “Timber Industry Strategy”, the very first search item returned is the Victorian Government department’s web page, which has all of this information available. Interestingly, there is a submission on the same web page from a Frank Campbell. Links to other submissions, including our own, are also available including the departmental comment that the TIS is to be released “later in 2009”. Believe me, the industry would have happily welcomed the TIS’s release in April this year and we would have been delighted if it had been released last year. Instead it been somewhat drawn out for the best part of 18 months and is still going. That along with the many opportunities for stakeholder feedback and submissions should demonstrate the absurdity of Campbell’s claims that the “democratic process was masquerading as public consultation”. The ancient Greeks would have been proud that this process had held true to the real definition of “demos” and “kratos” in decision making at every turn. However, Campbell does the industry and Crikey’s readership a significant disservice by his assertion that Victoria’s native forests are about to be carved up and also given to woodchippers. Less than 0.1% of our state forests are harvested annually and the primary reason for harvesting is, was and always will be, the production of high-value wood products. But just as cows produce various grades and cuts of meat, timber harvesting produces several different bi-products including woodchips, which Campbell attempts to demonise. Lets debunk the old woodchips-are-bad myth once and for all; woodchips produce pulp, which in turn produces products that are part of everyday life, such as high-quality printing paper, magazines, text books, paper plates, toilet paper and even nappies. These are consumer goods, and I for one feel a lot better knowing we are contributing bi-product from our own sustainably managed forests rather than wondering what would happen to overseas forests if Campbell got his way and locked up our own forests forever (I won’t even touch upon the negative impact his policy would have on our fuel loads and increased threat of wild fire to local communities and our flora and fauna). The TIS is not about providing more forest area for harvesting but how we can adapt to a carbon-constrained future, encourage new investment in innovation and technology and attempt to reduce our significant reliance on imported timber product (some of which is illegally sourced). Far from being concerned, the Victorian public should take solace in the Victorian Government’s attempt to finalise a strategy of which all sections of the community will hopefully be proud. |
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6 Comments
By “nobody noticed” I of course meant the media and the public. There’s scarcely been a single mention of the new timber policy.
As for the April “draft”, which according to this VAFI propagandist is not the “real McCoy”, let’s see if there is even a skerrick of difference between it and the final version. The draft is what the government wants, and the government has taken no heat on this matter whatsoever. Why would they change it?
The key question is- why has the new policy been ignored? One crucial factor is that the Greens and environmentalists generally are distracted by other things, such as “saving the planet”. The other is government dissembling. The government didn’t want a debate on forests, so it minimised exposure of the policy. There are hundreds of “media advisers” in Brumby ministries. They spin like silkworms from dawn to dusk. Yet not a word about this forest carve-up. If they thought it was good news, we’d never hear the end of it.
DPI described the 48 submissions received as a “good response”. “Good”?, 48 submissions on the fate of our most important environment, the eastern Victorian forests? And many of those were received AFTER public consultations closed. The phony phorum I attended in July was a sop to a handful of people who said they’d been ignored in favour of “stakeholders”. As if everyone didn’t have a stake in the forests.
To claim that “harvesting” (as if forests were a crop they’d planted) is for “high grade wood products” (think carpentry?) the vast bulk of it is “waste” and woodchips. Even by value, woodchips wins, in direct contravention of government policy which says sawlogs should be the driver.
As for “fuel loads”, the assertions above are dangerous nonsense. By stripping forests and replacing them with de facto plantations the forests are dried out and kept juvenile. New growth uses far more water, reducing runoff. Old forests are less fireprone than thickets of spindly regrowth. On Black Saturday this regrowth burned ferociously: check out the fireground.
Oh yeah, the other one plays jingle bells.
I gave a little legal help to Tony Hastings while others in Victoria gave alot in his successful litigation against the Victorian Govt for logging protected rainforest in East Gippsland. Just google Tony Quoll artist to see stunning and heartbreaking photographs.
Just google “Austlii” for the open source legal data base and view Hastings v Brennan; Tantram v Courtney (No. 3) [2005] VSC 228 (28 June 2005) in the Victorian Supreme Court.
This result is only indicative of the true state of affairs which goes like this:
Australia is a wide brown land. Natural forest is mostly on the coastal fringe. We had 20% land cover in 1788. After say 150 years clearing farming etc we had 10%. Then by mid 20C with bulldozer and chainsaw machines the industry got more industrial focus. They targetted the wet large volume trees. The biggest ones. Not because they are good for timber often being hollow inside but because the land could be transformed to defacto plantation or what you see now as mostly dry schlerophyll - which is also prime bushfire kindling. These massive trees are generally woodchipped.
The C’th RAC reported by 1992 a 40% increase in chip volumes and 40% decrease in jobs due to mechanisation, not reservations.
Right now at Brown Mtn in East Gippsland verified 800 year old monsters are on the chopping block.
There is hardly any of that big wet old growth left. Probably about 5% or less of the estate (itself 10% of land cover). It is often left out of national park because the loggers push hard for it, to annexe the rainfall qualities. Reservation is usually only after it’s been done over if at all.
Another reason to eradicate old growth methinks is that it’s the exemplar of what we had as a far more widespread forest landscape say mid 20C. Now it’s whole landscapes of dry schlerophyll and all that implies. People forget what they can’t see anymore.
Regarding that .1% logged per year claim by VAFI, it used to be 1% per year claim. Even if it were true which I doubt it’s the rarest landscape types and the motives are evil.
Just noticed your response Frank. Sight unseen when I wrote mine. But notice the echo.
Logging native forests in Victoria is woodchip driven.
The Melbourne Water Catchment Network submission to the Timber Industry Strategy (use the Frank Campbell link above to find it) used VicForests own data to show that 70% of all native trees cut down are woodchipped and 60% of VicForests income is sourced from the native forest woodchip industry.
So that makes logging in Victoria woodchip driven economically.
By far Australian Paper is VicForests biggest customer making it the biggest economic users of Victorian forests. Australian Paper is a processor of woodchips to make brands like Reflex paper. There is an Act of Parliament guaranteeing woodchips to Australian Paper till 2030.
So sawlogs are the by-product of the woodchip industry in Victoria. I agree with VAFI, woodchipping is an old argument. The old Timber Industry Strategy says logging should be sawlog driven but does not provide a definition of the sawlog driven concept.
The new Timber Industry Strategy will hopefully provide a definition of what a sawlog driven industry actually is. (Shock horror that means I am not against some level of native forest logging in Eastern Victoria).
Simon Birrell (name not withheld)
I imagine many people have been unable (like me) to log in to Crikey for the past couple of days because of tech glitches…
Reflecting on the VAFI response to my piece, what really strikes me is not the lack of substance but the explicit denial of free speech. Ironic, considering that Dalidakis is paid speech ( as timber industry spokesman). Twice he lambasts Crikey for the “disservice” to Crikey subscribers for publishing my “ridiculous” assertions.
VAFI and the government must be delighted with the virtual complete absence of public comment on their plan to give woodchippers 20 year contracts over native forests, not to mention the “as of right” imposition of plantations (i.e. planning regulations trashed: a fire trap may appear right next door to you without warning).
The other device used by Dalidakis is distraction: he doesn’t deal with the substantive issues raised. I was clearly referring to the “draft” policy released in April, which I’m claiming is a fait accompli. The only chance “the public” had of being heard was the phony forum I discuss in my piece, a forum which occurred well after the exemplary “democratic” process had finished.
What’s really at stake here is the perversion of the democratic process itself: “stakeholder” is narrowly defined (mostly those with pecuniary interest); The government wants to sort out potential conflicts between these interests before a policy is finalised. These interests are represented by paid lobbyists (like Dalidakis). The true motive of the government is to maximise extraction. The government is therefore a broker rationalising competing “development” interests. In recent decades, governments have institutionalised the manipulation of public opinion (“spin”) . Spin is the science of false appearances.
This is why the phony timber forum is so revealing- the bureaucrats’ task was (a) to select words and phrases which camouflaged extraction in Green imagery and (b) soak up criticism by parrying every single question with a meaningless response.
Dalidakis sounds exactly like the DPI bureaucrats- like a Green:
“we can adapt to a carbon-constrained future, encourage new investment in innovation and technology and attempt to reduce our significant reliance on imported timber product (some of which is illegally sourced).”
In fact he represents clear-felling, woodchips and the destruction of biodiversity. As does the government. The “draft” document states there will be no more forest national parks. Again, nobody noticed.
It is no hyperbole to say we have reached an Orwellian state, a state where direct repression is unnecessary because the appearance of reality is constantly changed to neutralise dissent.
Frank Campbell’s intimate appreciation of forestry and its bullies, spin doctors and snake oil salesmen like Dalidakis is a breath of forest, fresh air. His observations are as keen as his wit and as I have received Campbell’s columns from several Crikey readers so I can assure Crikey that Campbell is much appreciated.
Our organisation, like several others, were invited to participate in the Timber Industry Strategy, our small, regional non-profit declined on the basis that we were not prepared to give our name to yet another, expensive remake of an industry that should have been scrapped along with the hydrogen blimp. The biggest impediment to native forestry has never been its critics like conservationists or ex foresters, its been itself. No commercial industry can survive without innovation and the logging industry has vehemently opposed innovation in forestry and wood products as the woodchippers would have invariably lost out.
The lack of competition in the wood sector has also contributed to the smooth sailing of native forestry. Woodchips are provided to Midway and Australian Paper, now owned by the Japanese giant Nippon, for as little as $2.50 per tonne and in some cases we have been informed through FOI that one of these companies received the logs for free due to the distance they traveled to the mill. The plantation sector however are compelled to sell their woodchips for a base price of $30.00 per tonne pushing them out of legitimate competition.
The native woodchip sector also languishes in a piece of legislation called the Wood Pulp Act 1996 that provides wood from Melbournes water catchments for as little as $8.50 per tonne over 30 years - FIXED! Thats a windfall gain from the tax payers pockets to Australian Paper of around $250 million. We essentially pay Dalidakis to abuse Frank Campbell and we can’t do a thing about it because the perversity is legislated so Dalidakis’ lobby group gets funded and he keeps his job.
To deny that woodchips are the main cash cow is to call the governments own studies a lie. In last weeks release of the State of the Forests Report (SOFR) 2008, The report made the following statement in repsonse to the value of wood and wood products ‘ Sawlogs had the highest value per volume, however, pulpwood had a higher total value due to the larger volumes produced’. So that being the case, Mr Dalidakis needs to review his spin messaging and stop lying to Crikey readers.
Now lets adress Mr Dalidakis claims on ‘sustainability’. The basis for his logging industry and their claims of sustainability are predicated on the fulfillment of a range of criteria established by the Montreal Process of which Australia was one of 12 signatories. The Montreal Process dictated that Governments produce a Sustainability Charter that measures the impacts the logging industry has on species, ecosystems, communities and to asses whether the products were viable. The Charter underpins the Sustainable Timber Act 2004 that permits the logging of our forests in Victoria.
The SOFR was authored before the Feb 7 fires so it is gravely inadequate and cannot sensibly inform forest management, but it does demonstrate that VAFI, DSE and VicForests can no longer honestly, nor scientifically, call native logging in Victoria ‘sustainable’. The empirical gaps in the SOFR are staggering. In reporting the health of forest dependent species subject to logging, the government have gingerly responded with ‘NO DATA’! Not to just one indicator, but to every key indicator on the health of species and ecosystems in response to forest management and also on their provisional dollar value. That is, despite the millions of tax dollars awarded to DSE to monitor forest values and millions more handed over to Vicforests to slaughter them, neither are measuring the ramifications of their decision to log forests nor the financial impact of logging ecosystems, which may prove to have far greater value than woodchips (just maybe).
The only indicators the report provides on the impacts of forest management on species are revealed in 49 newcomer’s to the threatened species list and the decline of a further 23 species, as measured in 2006. The Leadbeaters Possum, Victoria’s faunal emblem, is also a leading loser this year achieving ‘critically endangered’ status.
In Mr Dalidakis’ comment ‘…won’t even touch on the negative impact of Campbell’s policy on fuel loads, wildfire and threatened species’ is another piece of emotional rhetoric that opens the gates for criticism. The Feb 7 fires all started on cleared land. Additionally, the fire severity mapping just released by the DSE reveals that the fires moved through cleared property, logged forests and plantations with greater heat intensity than the National park system where they cooled considerably - intact healthy, resilient forests. Again Mr Dalidakis is using emotive language not factual research.
Fire experts have publicly said that NO amount of fuel reduction burning would have made a difference on the day of Feb 7. My home is a testimony to that.
Mr Dalidakis’ skills in human relations are poor. He attacks people in the same fashion a guilty child denies theft. Instead of exuding the cool temperament of a leader of an industry with their base camp comfortably mounted on the high moral ground VAFI respond to acceptable democratic debate with vitriole and hyperbole that has been flogged so hard it resembles a mule with crippling gout. As a tax payer, fire survivor, mother and ten years as a regional environment coordinator I am so sick of VAFI and other politically affiliated lobby groups playing dirty tactics to prevent the truth being known, I, like others, live daily with the impacts of the logging industry. Thank goodness Campbell and others have the courage to call a spade a spade and thank goodness Crikey enjoy hosting such a debate….if there really is one?