Insignificant wins for East Gippsland

When Labor announced it would protect all 'significant stands' of old growth, they must have been using their special parliamentary dictionary. In Eastern Victoria, Mr Bracks protected only 5% of areas identified as critical to extinction-proof native species and protect domestic water catchments. The Forest Alliance had carefully mapped and scientifically validated these areas.

Wins -

The good news is that Labor has promised to add 37,000ha of Victoria's forests into National Parks. This includes East Gippsland's Goolengook, some parts of Yalmy, a 5,000ha link between the Snowy River and Errinundra National Parks, the remains of Dingo Creek, small extensions to Martins Creek reserve as well as small and oddly positioned spots on the map. The long-suffering Cobobbonee forest in western Victoria has 27,000 ha protected, but not a scrap of forest in the Central Highlands or Melbourne's water catchment.

And losses -

So it's great news for Dingo Creek and Goolengook. It's not so marvellous for other places though. After squinting for hours at the tiny map we were given, it seems that many of these newly protected areas have already had a good part of them logged, are existing protection zones anyway or have limited values.

Bracks gave the draft map to the logging interests within government for a final chop and hack. Not surprisingly many areas make no ecological sense. Other areas of importance have been cut in half such as Brown Mountain's old growth and Stony Creek catchment. Joy's Creek rainforest has been left in a logging zone.

No wonder the industry was so full of praise for the announcement - they got 90% of everything we wanted. Gippsland's important water catchments, unprotected old growth and endangered species habitat is still all there for the woodchippers. And Bracks gives the loggers another $1 million dummy to suck on!

His government chose to talk and deal with known industry sympathisers (Gooding and Steedman) and an ill-informed, easily pleased outsider who does not know Eastern Victoria's forests but loves to feel important while making compromises. They did not consult directly with anyone in East Gippsland.

Mr Bracks stated there would never be any more reserves created in East Gippsland after this. Also, that protecting these areas should be 'within the spirit and terms of the RFA'. Does he forget that environmental promises in that Agreement have never been honoured?

Liberal's offer on forests

The Libs made a very similar offer, but they also suggested that the Vic Environmental Assessment Council look at the feasibility of corridors and links between significant areas as well. That would be excellent if there was a moratorium on the studied areas meanwhile.

Government offer also included: $24.9 million over 4 years to expand the number of Park Rangers across Victoria by 15; $2.7 million for retraining workers when all logging in the Otways Forest ceases in 2008; $1 million investment for new mill equipment in East Gippsland to use smaller logs from thinning out regrowth; and $500,000 over two years to get the old Industry Transition Taskforce dusted down, to reassure the loggers that there really is a thing called job security and that the Tooth Fairy does exist. Oh - and give over $250,000 to the CFMEU to pay someone to tell the Government what it wants (commonly called 'shut-up money').

The new combined Errinundra and Snowy National Park is to be called the 'Great Victorian Alpine National Park'. We're not sure what colourless bureaucrat came up with that one in a hurry but everyone I know hates the name.

New tourist walks

However - long, unimaginative and unmarketable names aside, Bracks has offered $1.8 million to get new tourism plans happening. It's an insultingly piffling amount but it's a start. The Great Short Walks project for EG has $750,000 shared out between five new walks: an estuary walk near Marlo, Snowy River lookout walk, Mallacoota coastal walk, Lochend-Watt Watt rainforest walk and an old growth walk at Brown Mountain (yay!). Only problem with that one is that they have omitted the 'Valley of the Giants' on Brown Mt. from the new protected areas where the walk is planned. The foresters didn't realise that when they cut it off the final map. Then there is $250,000 - not to build - but to 'identify two eco-lodge accommodation sites'. Expensive consultants huh? These sites will then be offered to any private developers who want to build lodges at Lake Tyres south of Nowa Nowa and Tulloch Ard Gorge north of Buchan.

Tullock Ard and Buchan score again with $300,000 to build a viewing platform. That's good. Still no air walk for Errinundra though.

Bracks has also promised to put together a Biodiversity White Paper by an 'independent' Task Force, modelled on the consultation process for his previous Our Water Our Future White Paper (that did a fat lot of good didn't it!). No money or timeline was assigned to that one.

Jill

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IS LOGGING IN EAST GIPPY ILLEGAL NOW?

A landmark Federal Court decision last December prevented logging in Tasmania's Wielangta forests. Because the ruling questioned the ability of a Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) to protect threatened species, it also questions the legality of East Gippsland's logging.

Attempts by the Commonwealth to hand over responsibility for protecting three federally listed species to the State have failed. This was the decision in Brown v Forestry Tasmania. It compels the Commonwealth to pick up the responsibility, by cancelling the bizarre loophole that allows logging of Nationally listed threatened species in forests that have been 'managed' under an RFA.

Normally, Commonwealth law requires an environmental impact assessment before any damaging act, such as logging, can take place. But the RFA exemption clause (section 38 of the EPBC Act) allows logging to occur in RFA areas without an assessment. An RFA supposedly protects environmental values, either by logging very carefully, or through a reserve system.

Bob Brown's lawyers argued, and Justice Marshall agreed, that three listed species were not protected by the RFA at all. This meant the logging wasn't "in accordance with" the RFA, so Forestry Tasmania (the equivalent of our VicForests/DSE) "does not have an exemption".

He said, "An agreement to 'protect' means exactly what it says. It is not an agreement to attempt to protect, or to consider the possibility of protecting, a threatened species . If the CAR Reserve System does not deliver protection to the species, the agreement to protect is empty". Elsewhere, he speaks of "a duty not just to maintain population levels of threatened species but to restore the species". Poetry.

The RFAs in Tasmania, Victoria and NSW are practically identical. The concepts the Judge relied on are present in each of the other RFAs. Listed species are threatened by logging in each RFA area. So the Wielangta decision applies to all of these states.

In East Gippsland, the Tiger Quoll is in a free-fall dive towards extinction. It relies on large tracts of old growth forest and we are logging it to death. The RFA offers no protection. So logging in most of East Gippsland is illegal.

Liz

 

Feds prefer to change the law

The Howard Government has conceded logging in Tasmania may be illegal, but is refusing to act against it.

The federal Forestry Minister, Eric Abetz, initially poo-pood the claim that there were national implications from the Tasmanian Wielangta court case. Now he's bemoaning the fact that the judgment could affect all sorts of land uses (and abuses). So - he'll work to change environmental laws to aid developers and exploiting industries.

The decision found that Australia's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, our one Federal environmental law, has teeth. So the Howard Government must uphold the law and enforce the protection and recovery of threatened species. But Senator Abetz wants to extract those teeth.

Soon after, Abetz said that the finding was wrong, then he said - well - okay, it could be right but we'll change the rules to get around that. He then told the Weekend Australian (13/1) he was unsure about it but trusted the Tasmanian Government would do the right thing! The very same Tassie Government that had just been found to be breaking the law. Even Forestry Tasmania wouldn't say whether or not its logging was legal or illegal. Tasmania's Premier, Paul Lennon, confirmed there was now "great doubt" about the industry's legal footing. Meanwhile they duck, weave and dither.

The Tassie Labor Government and the Howard Government have had a secret get-together scheming to change the law to allow the illegal practices to continue to drive threatened species to extinction.

Jill

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Bracks breaks his promise on day one

Despite a promise to protect old growth forests that link the Errinundra and Snowy parks, logging crews were clearfelling 30ha of giant trees in a protected area that Premier Bracks had promised would get "immediate protection".

Environment Minister John Thwaites was not willing to comment on the issue at first but later said that any newly protected areas that were being logged at the time of the election would finish being logged.

ABC 30.11.06

 

 

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A TEAM infilrates the ALP

The Exclusive Brethren's manipulation of election campaigns has been a major influence in politics. Now it's been revealed how companies infiltrate the political sphere to direct major decisions in their favour.

Multinational packaging company Amcor who owned the PaperlinX woodchip and paper mill in the Latrobe Valley, were involved in corporate spying on green groups in the 1990s. The current company "PaperlinX" (makers of Reflex paper) said the spy and lobby group, the "A team", was set up under previous management so denied any connection.

ABC's Four Corners program reported in November that the A-team was funded and supported by Amcor and the logging division within the CFMEU. It ran a decade-long "elaborate covert campaign to spy on and sabotage environmental groups, to infiltrate political parties and to damage Amcor's corporate competitors".

Documents show Amcor paid out $300,000 a year to fund the group, which ran public and secret operations out of offices supplied by Amcor at their paper factory site.

Forestry union secretary, Michael O'Connor, wouldn't answer questions about the group his union supported and his members staffed.

Why was this logging union pulling out all stops to oppose and publicly intimidate community groups? One of the A-team's plans was to split and weaken a local environment group in South Gippsland. Friends of the Gippsland Bush was trying to protect forests Amcor was trying to get access to. After a couple of carefully targeted members signed an agreement with Amcor, the CFMEU's lawyers, Slater & Gordon, sent the remaining group members a legal letter warning them not to use the name Friends of the Gippsland Bush, because it had been registered to others. That group then became dysfunctional.

The A-team also infiltrated the ALP, stacked and ran its environment policy committee in the late 1990s. A Labor source said it was no secret that the committee was bought and paid for by Amcor. The policy originally written by the committee would have opened up 40% of Victorian forests to logging. We have to wonder if this policy is still what the Bracks Government uses. The large paper company even now has easy and dirt cheap access to huge areas of valuable native forest in Melbourne's water catchments, the Central Highlands, South Gippsland and other important forests. The A-Team helped secure the company's supply of native forests for its woodchips. That licence is now legislated and long-term.

Jill / ABC

 

Strzeleckis still on the woodchippers' map

Before the election the Bracks government made a quiet little offering to get rid of the niggling pressure they were under regarding their long time promise to protect the Gippsland Strzelecki forests. Their offer was a compromise to protect the important central sites and its connecting links (called 'cores and links') but if you read the fine print, you'll see that it allows for some links to be logged, and other areas of native forest to be logged in exchange for this protection!

The government quietly signed an agreement with a select few from the Strzelecki Forest Community group with a stipulation that signatories are not allowed to complain about the logging of native forest and that councils must facilitate licenses to log native forest. This moves from an agreement to protect the cores and links to an agreement to facilitate the logging of Native Forest! With so little left this 'gentleman's agreement' just allows even more logging.

The fight for the Strzeleckis continues!

Catheryn Thompson

 

Rudd and Gillard - not the tree hugging types

After Beazley bit the dust, the shiny new Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd travelled to Tasmania. He stated that Mark Latham's rescue package for the forests back in 2004 was all wrong and Mark didn't properly take on board the loggers' wants.

Rudd rewarded Peter Garrett for lying about Greens preferences by making him Opposition Environment spokesman, so why didn't Garrett get invited to Tassie?

In 2004, Garrett described the Tasmanian logging industry as "logging gone mad" and "carnage in the forests." (Women's Weekly, 30 June 2004). Just a year earlier he said that "in the Tasmanian forests both parties currently share the shame of supporting ongoing destruction of old growth and rain forests" (Address to National Press Club, 19 June 2003). But what's he saying now?

As for Julia Gillard - it's no secret about her very close political ties with Michael O'Connor of the loggers union. Her clear pro-logging performance at the last Federal election has also given us no faith in her ability to make sensible decisions.

The Federal Election in October/November this year isn't one to get too excited about - although a few more green-minded pollies in Parliament to help the existing four might make a significant difference to many things that matter.

ABC News Online 18/12/06 / Jill / NAFI media release

 

Annual log truck tally

CHIPSTOP held its yearly log truck count last December at the Eden export woodchip facility, the week before Christmas.

	Number	%
Mature forest logs	111	72.5
Thinnings/regrowth	29	19
Chips (sawmill residue)	13	8.5
Total	153	100

Having spent the night of the 18th on site for a 4.30am start, we felt it was time to bail out at 5.00pm, so it is likely that the final tally would have been at least equal to the previous record of 163. Trucks were still rolling in as we left. One driver complained that he had to do a 650km round trip. Imagine how cheap the logs must be to make that trip worthwhile !?

Harriet Swift, Chipstop

34,000 woodchip trucks for 2006

The Japanese export woodchip mill at Eden in NSW held a celebration for all past and present staff and families in early December to mark the first time in the mill's 36-year history that it has produced one million tonnes of woodchips for export in one year.

Most of this was thanks to three main factors: the rampant and unchecked 'salvage logging' that was still going on in the 2003 fire affected areas, the generous concessions offered to the company to transport the wood, and officials turning a blind eye to good sawlogs going off to the chipmill.

Chipstop / Jill

 

CLIMATE CHANGE, FIRES and LOGGING, a deadly combination for Victoria's wildlife

Two hundred years ago the Sooty Owl was abundant and fed on 18 ground species of prey in Gippsland. Today they have two or three to choose from. Other wildlife's ability to thrive is similarly threatened by decades of habitat change.

The conversion of habitat to farmland, decades of mining, logging and grazing, as well as altered fire patterns over the last 200 years has seen many species die out or become extremely rare. This means many once common native animals like forest owls and quolls are unable to recover from bushfires as they once would have. Our bettongs have disappeared and some, like the Southern Brown Bandicoot, are now isolated in small 'island' populations which are dangerously close to extinction mainly due to threats from fire and predation. Fires destroy understorey cover, making it easy for foxes and dogs to wipe out small populations of ground dwelling animals. In 1994, fires burnt 97% of the Royal National Park and bandicoots no longer survive in this area. Post bush fires, the situation in Eastern Victoria will be similar.

The 2003 and the more recent summer fires have destroyed habitat and ground cover in over 2 million hectares of Victoria's forested country. This will have had a catastrophic impact on ground mammals, birds and hollow dependent species.

Quolls Gliders and Honey-eaters

Scientist and quoll expert, Dr Chris Belcher, has calculated that Victoria's total Spot-tailed Quoll numbers were reduced by 33-45% as a result of the '03 fires. The December '06 fires will have reduced this again to even more precarious numbers. The fragmented nature of their preferred habitat now means they are less likely to recolonise from other areas, causing regional extinctions of this and other species.

Fires that burnt around Gippsland's Mitchell River in 1965 wiped out the local population of Yellow Bellied Gliders; a species which requires large hollows for nesting. It's taken 40 years for them to begin to recolonise after that fire. With more frequent fires predicted, every effort must now be made to consider wildlife in land management or it is likely that whole classes of animals will not return in our lifetime, or ever.

Another example closer to Melbourne is the Helmeted Honeyeater. The1983 fires wiped out four of their five small and isolated populations. With the impact of climate shift and more frequent and intense fires, their last sanctuary at Yellingbo is not guaranteed. A fire could wipe Victoria's faunal bird emblem off this planet in a day.

Natural vs 'managed' fires

Wildfires have always taken out large old trees with hollows, ground cover that shelters and conceals small mammals, and leaf litter which provides invertebrate food for many species. A natural fire also leaves pockets of unburnt country, gullies and wetter slopes untouched which act as natural refuges for wildlife. From these sanctuaries they can recolonise the burnt forests when vegetation recovers.

The ability of our native species to recover from fire is even further diminished with added pressures of drought and intense weather patterns. Combine this with fire management practices which deliberately burn out any unburnt areas within a control line and back-burning thousands of hectares of forest to meet the fire front, and wildlife which is fleeing or taking refuge are trapped and burnt to death.

Salvaging - one too many injuries

To further add to this ecological tragedy, governments are under pressure from logging interests to allow post-fire clearfelling of forests. Native vegetation has evolved to recover from fire. Many trees resprout, tree ferns send out fronds quickly covering the fragile soils and landscapes begin to heal over. What forests can't cope with is the additional severe disturbance of clearfelling and bulldozing while it is in its frail recovery stage. This is like subjecting a sever burns victim to brutal assault while in the recovery ward.

The word 'salvage' implies something is being saved or rescued. But the term 'looting', would be more appropriate to this type of post-fire activity. It is making convenient profit from a disaster .

Even without a fire, clearfelling ecologically diverse forests favours the regrowth of simplified tree crops such as silvertop and stringybark. Forests with gum and box mixed throughout can have 20-50 times higher animal densities. Vegetation changes due to clearfelling makes endangered species recovery from fire even more unlikely. Clearfell logging is the largest catchment disturbance that governments approved on public lands.

Tipping point for species

Just as climate change is at a tipping point so are many of our native species. As the recovery of wildlife after a fire is now very different from 200 yrs ago, it is critically important to protect as much of our original forest and ecosytems as possible if we are to avoid further extinctions. The government is bound to protect these endangered species under various Federal and State Acts.

Species which are fairly general in their roosting, nesting and feeding needs can often survive a regular bushfire but the many specialist species which rely on large areas of diverse and dense forest are highly likely to vanish forever. East Gippsland generally supports a wetter environment and has much higher plant and animal diversity. It is the last stronghold for many of our rare and endangered wildlife.

The Great South Eastern Ark

In the 1990s, East Gippsland supported seven times more threatened species than elsewhere in Victoria. This made the region seven times more important for endangered species protection. Since the '03 and '06 fires, it is not unreasonable to suggest that East Gippsland is now the last refuge for many animals. Extinction can happen very quickly.

This is why it is essential that the new forest reserves in East Gippsland that were hastily mapped out before last year's state election be carefully reassessed and refined. The needs of the state's threatened species must now take top priority. Independent biologists and ecologists, not foresters, must finalise the new reserve boundaries. The long-term impact of the recent fires are now the major consideration.

Commercial use of our forests should be weighed up against the biological consequences, including soils and water impacts. In 2007 this reality must be recognised.

Regional Forest Aggrievements

When the RFAs were drawn up, they bound the state government to carry out research into the impact of clearfelling on threatened species, to identify sustainability indicators, carry out five yearly reviews and ensure threatened species are protected. These commitments have never been honoured, yet the tenth anniversary of the signing of East Gippsland's RFA fell on the 3rd February! The Bracks Government must urgently honour this long overdue obligation.

Species rescue is legislated

The recent Federal Court ruling regarding the powers of the Commonwealth EPBC Act should also give the state government the needed incentive to rescue the many Federally listed endangered species in Victoria.

This government must not put several sawmills ahead of a large suit of species. The ability for wildlife to cope with the escalating impacts of climate shift and fires are more important than 'mates games' within politics. These species have survived in Australia for hundreds of thousands of years. Clearfelling has been around for less than 40. Logging is much easier to limit than fires. This government has an obligation to the state's native wildlife. An urgent decision is needed. Will Mr Bracks choose to preside over the extinction or the survival of our endangered species?

Jill

CSIRO predicts fires will be more frequent and intense in SE Australia. Just as Governments are starting to account for this reality for agriculture, water and energy, it must also adapt its management of natural areas to consider the impacts of climate shift on native wildlife.

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RFA - ten years of lies

Ten years ago, on the 3rd February 1997, the $830 million Regional Forest Agreement process signed over its first casualty - the much sought after forests of East Gippsland. Other areas around Australia followed suit.

Gazillions of dollars profit have gone into the pockets of overseas woodchip and paper companies and a few of their middlemen here in East Gippsland. We can only guess what amount goes into various officials' and unionists' pockets.

Let's compare the grim 2007 reality with the 1997 promises. It wasn't just a "no job losses", but "400 new jobs" and more mills on top of the 20 or so that existed. The "$150 million investment" would provide "new industries ranging from particle board to veneer production" with shiny new patented value-adding machines sending vital building material to an anxiously awaiting public. So where are we now? We have ever more precarious populations of threatened species, 50,000 ha of old growth, mature forests and rainforests all bulldozed and burnt to oblivion, a sawlogging industry that has all but collapsed, woodchip volumes skyrocketing to Pluto and a government that is finding it more difficult to keep up the charade of the RFA's 'balance'. There's no point wasting more expensive polish on a tarnished turd.

Jill / Liz

 

SHAMELESS SALVAGE BANDITS

Many astute observers are starting to question the fires that have enveloped Victoria's east since 2003. This may sound like a conspiracy theory but the evidence seems to be mounting. Many of these areas were deliberately left to burn for a day or two before fire-fighters were sent to attack them or that the back burns were deliberately positioned to include large tracts of the most sought after forests. The ash forests in particular have been heavily targeted by unchecked salvage logging operations after large areas were either lightly or heavily burnt. The ash forests are favoured logging grounds, especially for woodchippers. However access had been reduced in the late 90s after the DSE realised they had historically been over-logged. Putting a 'salvage' tag on these favoured forests allows the industry to get back in and go hammer and tong with even fewer regulations.

The area pictured was part of the Moondarra fire and was lit by an arsonist in February 2006. It burnt over 15,000 hectares. Soon after, salvage logging took place in this forest, which is recognized as a Site of State Botanical Significance.

David Lindenmayer and other scientists have publicly spoken against the current practice of salvage logging after a fire. Clearfelling disturbance following wildfire can essentially be more ecologically damaging than the fire itself. It was not the 1939 fire the threatened the Leadbeater's Possum with extinction, but the 20 years of salvage logging that followed.

The DSE and VicForests have identified 30,000 ha that can have the "salvage" treatment following the recent 06/07 fires. Over 1 million hectares of habitat will be trying to repair itself, only to have massive mechanical disturbance and compaction to further injure the landscape.

Jill

Burnt forests are not 'degraded' or 'wasted' and in need of 'salvaging'. They have been subject to disturbance that falls within their ability to cope and restore themselves. Salvage logging destroys the forests' ability to heal when they are at their most fragile.

 

GOVT LOOTS PUBLIC FORESTS AS FIRE CONTROL

At the time of going to print, there are FIVE CREWS working on a GOVT SANCTIONED 70 mts x 256 kms CLEARING that cuts across the Thomson catchment.

The DSE claimed it learnt from the squandering of the Yalmy Road and the Snowy National Park in the 2003 fires. Now we understand how! The Minister has approved an even longer broad and lifeless band of dirt to encircle the entire Melbourne water catchment! And hey - just look at those logs coming out of the Yarra Ranges National Park!

If this so-called firebreak is finished, it will destroy a site of Global Zoological Significance for the Baw Baw frog. It will impact on the Nationally Significant Montane Fens (found nowhere else) and it will go up onto the Baw Baw Plateau and destroy several other sites of National Botanical Significance. Of note - there were proposals to build a road across the Baw Baw Plateau a while ago but it was scrapped as it would severely degrade the ecosystems there (!).

Fire fighters say it won't stop a fire as embers can spot 5-15kms in front of a fire. They would be trapped if they sat at this clearing waiting to give the fire front a squirt.

A 70 mt clearing creates a beaut hoon highway though. Mr Bracks wants it to remain as a permanent clearing. A 256 km dirt or even grassed break will cost millions to maintain, probably require thousands of gallon of herbicide and tree killer sprayed around the catchment's edge annually, but achieve bugger all in a fierce fire. Meanwhile it will dry out the forest edges, cause erosion and untold impacts on biodiversity.

The standard planning processes for this type of vegetation clearance have all been ripped up and pissed upon. Every government regulation in the book has been ignored. This wacky, simple-minded solution to a fire is the brainchild of either a panic-stricken infant or a bunch of greedy manipulators that should be in jail. For the Minister to approve this shows he's gone round the bend. The atrocity was started off after the fire threat had passed. But what a massive haul of logs from parks and otherwise 'locked up' areas!

Oh, and by the way - bulldozer owner/operators can earn up to $4,000 a day.

Jill

 

LOGGERS FOR FORESTS

In October last year, a group of timber workers started a lobby group called Loggers for Forests. The group wants to stop woodchipping in old growth forests and to use trees taken from forests more efficiently.

Mick Harris is a timber contractor from Fernbank in East Gippsland and he says most loggers think woodchipping is wrong.

The spokesperson for the logging and woodchipping industry attacked Mick Harris as being non-existent despite Mick's grandfather and father having also worked in the local industry. Scott Gentle from the pro-logging lobby group Timber Communities Australia admitted that although TCA was a front group for loggers, he irritably told the ABC radio "the greens .use dirty tactics a lot more than we do."

Mick Harris has spoken with us, but is not the sort of person who would let anyone tell him what to do or think.

ABC Radio 16.10.06 / Jill

 

CHEAP AS CHIPS

A History of Campaigns to Save Victoria's Native Forests

This 340-page book documents for the first time major Victorian forest campaigns from the earliest times up to 2005. It was written and collated by Dr Rod Anderson, a past Environment Victoria forest campaigner, (disappointingly, EV no longer supports a forest campaign).

This book looks at colonial and early twentieth century logging through to the beginnings of large scale community conservation campaigns in the early seventies, warts and all.

Later chapters document accounts by current activists of the detail and lessons learned from local campaigns, and a perspective on higher level campaign strategies from a key campaigner.

Cheap as Chips endeavours to give an historical perspective to Victoria's forest campaign, both as an important part of our history that should not be lost and so that future campaigners may learn from past actions.

Cheap as Chips is available from the author for $47 (includes postage) and $40 for each additional copy.

Send details and cheque to Rod Anderson,
Clayton Road Doctors,
291 Clayton Rd Clayton 3168.

 

The world's average footprint is calculated to be 2.2ha per person, but only 1.8ha of each person's consumption can be regenerated by the planet each year.

Wildlife Bytes 30/10/06

 

OLD GROWTH DOES SOAK UP CARBON

Old growth forests store massive amounts of carbon but have been accused of just 'stagnating' and not actively absorbing any. Quite the opposite is true.

Old-growth forests continue to remove far more carbon than previously thought, making their protection a high priority in tackling global warming.

A new study found that a 400-year-old forest in southern China is soaking up carbon from the atmosphere faster than expected, most of which is being stored for the long term in the top levels of the soil. This seems very logical. Recent studies have also shown that selective logging of ancient forests releases extremely large amounts of carbon and forever damages carbon removal mechanisms. This casts doubt on compromises that depend on 'environmentally sensitive' logging of forests for certification of the timber.

Dr. Glen Barry,
Ecological Internet www.climateark.org

Climate Ark Portal 2.12.06