Back to news archive

SNOWY SELL-OFF SCUTTLED

If you ever thought you can't make a difference to an arrogant government, the halted sale of Snowy Hydro should make you think again. The Greens legal advice showing that the sale was illegal really upset the PM's applecart. This was the main motivator that saw a turn-around, although the press gallery were not wanting to focus on this. A huge groundswell of older conservative voters getting outraged, evidence of files being shredded, farmers and rural lobby groups fuming, Alan Jones damning the PM and the sudden city ground-swell over a rural issue, added to the sudden back-flip from three governments on the 2nd June. Rarely has such a decision been reneged on so quickly. Only days before, the NSW, Victorian and Federal Governments were staunchly supporting the absolute need to sell Snowy Hydro. Now if only we can harness such public outrage for our forests, or at least to make the pollies stick to the promise of environmental flows for the Snowy River.

History of the scheme
In the 1890s Banjo Patterson made this river famous by a whip-cracking cowboy chasing brumbies. Sixty years later the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electricity Scheme started, adding to the river's fame. This scheme harnessed the river's might in the largest and boldest engineering project that Australia has ever undertaken.

The scheme's precious water enabled irrigated agriculture to start up in drier inland areas. The hydroelectric power it generated, rocketed industrial growth along the eastern seaboard.

It takes 99% of the Snowy's water to generate power, after which most is turned inland and emptied into the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers for use by thirsty irrigation farmers, who are now totally dependent on the Snowy's water. Instead of feeding the mid and lower reaches of the Snowy River in NSW and Victoria, its water instead covers over a million acres of crops and keeps the inland rivers from being sucked totally dry by agriculture.

Water - now the issue
Selling off power stations has happened before, but never have governments attempted to sell a precious river (having control of when and how much.is released is as good as owning the river). As time goes by, the fresh water that powers the hydro scheme will become much more critical to this nation than electricity ever will be. In the near future, water could be more precious than oil. This is not just a minor stream generating minor amounts of power; it is the lifeblood of the SE coast.

Snowy Hydro runs seven power stations, 16 major dams (containing up to 13 times that of Sydney Harbour!), 145km of interconnected tunnels and 80km of aqueducts. Yet was offered for peanuts.

Environmental flows
So with the sale scuttled, getting environmental flows back into the Snowy is the back on the agenda. In 2000, when Craig Ingram was voted in as East Gippsland's independent Member of Parliament, he tipped out the National Party candidate on the single issue of 'Save the Snowy². Ingram then managed to get the NSW and Victorian governments to promise an initial 21% of the Snowy's flow restored, rising to 28% by 2012 (actually a river needs 100% of its water for true environmental flows). What we have seen to date is a big fanfare around the release of 4% from the Mowamba Wier in 2002 that was shut off again in early 2006. Getting the Snowy its water back is not looking hopeful and Craig Ingram seems to have lost some of his passion and commitment since that agreement.

Jill / ABC Landline 21.5.06 / ABC 2.6.06

Back to news archive

THE WHEAT AND WOODCHIPS CONNECTION

Scruffy scruples
Readers will be aware of government and logging industry attempts to give wood products that come from destructive clearfelled areas a green tick of approval. This is to con both domestic and overseas buyers that the timber they purchase is from nicely logged forests. To achieve this, they invented the Australian Forestry Standard or AFS. The fact that this group has no conservation reps at all shows what a farce it is. What's even more telling is the list of AFS directors.

Stump-huggers inc.
1. First off we have Geoff Gorrie as Chair (Fed Govt). He is also responsible for providing policy advice to ministers on farming, fisheries and forests. Geoff resigned as a Director on the Australian Wheat Board in July 1999 but a week later was appointed as a member of the Wheat Export Authority to monitor and report back on the AWB. Mark Vale, Federal Agriculture and Forestry Minister who appointed Geoff Corrie said "The WEA will play a vital role in demonstrating the integrity of Australia's wheat marketing arrangements,"

2. Dr Hans Drielsma (Tas Govt). Executive General Manager for Forestry Tasmania and is a member of St Mary's Cathedral Parish where he and his wife sing in the choir each Sunday.

3. Michael Bullen (NSW Govt). Acting General Manager, Forest Policy & Programs, State Forests of New South Wales.

4. Matthew Dadswell (Fed Govt). Manager, Industry Development and Private Forestry, Forest Industries Branch Dept. Ag, Fisheries and Forestry.

5. Ian Miles (Vic Govt). Director, Forest Information and Management Services, DSE.

6. Les Baker - Gunns pulp mill General Manager.

7. Malcolm Tonkin - Manager of Environmental Services, Hancock Plantations.

8. Warwick Ragg - Australian Forest Growers.

9. Michael O'Connor (logging union). CFMEU Assistant Secretary.

10. David Fisken - Executive Officer, Central Victorian Farm Plantation Committee.

Elsewhere in the world, forest certification schemes have compulsory participation of community and environmental groups. AFS has neither. Not only are overseas timber and woodchip buyers realising the 'untruths' of the AFS claims, but even large companies such as Paperlinx and ITC are not interested in AFS. They are instead looking at the more honourable global group, the Forest Stewardship Council.

Also - despite giant woodchipper, Gunns, having been given AFS accreditation, they aren't proudly displaying their AFS logo to us.

In early June, the National Association of Forest Industries claimed that the Japanese government is accepting AFS as credible. Now we all know how credible Japanese government claims are on things like scientific whaling. In the end it'll be the consumers who demand the truth behind claims and the goodwill of companies that will bring about real change. Not the Japanese Government's buying policy.

Sarah Rees / Jill

Back to news archive

A small win for Red Gums

The Victorian Government plans to use gauge convertible concrete sleepers in the upgrade of the Mildura rail line. This was a solution green groups were putting to our government years ago to save thousands of old Red Gums from being cut down for replacement sleepers on railway lines. The East Gippsland upgrade used thousands upon thousands of Red Gum sleepers to make the tracks safe for the trains to take the Tambo forests to the export woodchip mill at Geelong. The riverine forests and wetlands along the Murray in NSW should have a few less chainsaws working in them now - although firewood and fence post cutters are still major threats.

Concrete outlasts wooden sleepers by up to 30 years, does not rot, is termite and fire proof and requires less maintenance.

Jill / VNPA 29.5.06

Back to news archive

JAPANESE START TO SPURN NATIVE FORESTS

Japanese paper factories are now demanding their woodchips come from trees that are less than 15 years old , either from plantations or young regrowth, rather than natural forests.This has caused the recent 40% drop in woodchip sales from Tasmania's forests.

Regrowth please
In East Gippsland there's been a substantial increase in chipping young trees that have regrown from the clearfelling of forests 20 and 30 years ago. These operations are called 'thinnings', supposedly to make the sparsely spaced trees remaining, grow faster and fatter (see photo). This is a convenient way to cut thousands of tonnes of the high quality trees perfect for fussy Japanese paper companies.

Young trees are white, uniform and easy to process into paper. Those from plantations in Chile and Brazil are even cheaper than Tasmanian woodchips. But even so, the Japanese are still prepared to pay $17 more a tonne for the cleaner plantation woodchips. This has caused a crisis within the logging industry down there but East Gippsland is slower to feel the impact. It could be that the Eden woodchip mill, despite its own parent company in Japan using the high quality young trees, also sells to less fussy customers like Taiwan.

There's also a move by paper companies to use 'eco-certified' wood. Now that they are getting much of their wood from plantations anyway, it makes sense to cash in on this fact. This gives them the to opportunity to brand their paper as environmentally friendly. They can choose between two certification systems, the genuine item or the cheap and nasty industry look-alike (see article previous page). Paper companies that are serious about their eco-credentials will shy away from native forest woodchips and the tacky AFS certification label. Organisations such as The Wilderness Society have scared off many Japanese customers further down the paper chain, like printers and publishers.

Great Southern Plantations in WA has swiped two of Gunns' woodchip customers already. It is selling blue gum chips to Daio Paper in Japan, and has just signed a new deal with Oji Paper. Mitsubishi has also said it will look at less controversial sources for woodchips. Nippon is the biggest paper manufacturer in Japan and owns the Eden woodchip mill - where the mass rally is on July 2nd. It is moving a bit more slowly.

Jill / Hobart Mercury 15.5.06

Back to news archive

NEW ZEALAND GETS IT RIGHT

NZ has no logging industry that cuts down public native forests and yet employs 23,000 people, produces 11% of the country's total exports being 4% of their GDP, has annual sales of $5 billion with $3.5 billion of that being exported.

New Zealand has one of the largest areas of protected natural forest in the world - nearly 6 million hectares.

Their plantations cover 1.8 million hectares. It's important to note that New Zealand's economy is about the same size as Victoria's.

The cornerstone of the modern NZ logging industry is the New Zealand Forest Accord signed in 1991. This ties environmental and commercial interests and is a model unmatched elsewhere in the world. It includes the following key points:

Defining areas inappropriate for plantation forestry.
Valuing, protecting and conserving natural forests.
Recognising the commercial importance of plantation forests

Plantation management is very intensive and no doubt has a few ecological problems, as all intensive agriculture does. This gives them quality logs in 25 years - that's nearly 20 times faster than can be achieved in many Northern Hemisphere countries.

The current annual pine harvest is about 20 million cubic metres. This is expected to almost double by 2015. This means plantation wood is the country's highest earning export commodity.

Jill / Marcus / Luke

Back to news archive

FIRST PRIZE - FOR LANDCLEARING

Victoria has the worst land clearing record in the country. In 1869 we had 88% of the state covered in forests. In 1972 it had shrunk to just 36% of the state. That's about 60% of the forest cover being wiped off the land in about 100 years. In the 34 years since 1972, more has been destroyed.

The government has lightly touched the brakes in an effort to show concern, but clearing is still continuing. No wonder 78% of our bushland types and 44% of our native plants are not just rare but threatened with extinction. Hardly a situation that allows for any more dithering by Mr Bracks. In just the last four years this shilly-shallying has lost another 2,500 ha of native vegetation - annually!

The laws to enforce vegetation protection are currently ambiguous, weak and even allow species on the endangered list to be destroyed if in scattered numbers. The remnants around metro areas could be cleared without any offsets to compensate.

Jill / The Age 13.5.06

Back to news archive

BASSLINK ... Engineers' wet dream turns to a nightmare

A giant underwater electrical umbilical chord now joins Tasmania and Victoria. As of late April, we can now buy Tasmania's 'clean Hydro power', or if their wood fired electricity generators get going, power from their incinerated old growth forests. They can also buy our cheap, off-peak, dirty coal power and save their own to sell to us at times of high demand.

As part of the approval process, a marine monitoring program had to be carried out to determine any impacts during its operation, but that's been changed and watered down. Basslink's owner, UK company National Grid, still can't say if its operation affects the marine environment, such as changing the migration route of whales in Bass Strait. Also, the extra demand put on Tasmania's hydro system will mean more cold water down the Gordon River at the wrong times, altering its ecosystem.

They said...
The cost of Basslink increased from an original $500m to about $800m. The precise final cost was never released. We were told that Basslink would be viable but Tasmanian Hydro will pay $94 million per annum for the use of Basslink with returns from selling power unlikely to reach anywhere near that amount. The Tasmanian Government has admitted that the project will run at a huge loss. Where would these hare-brained projects be without compliant tax-payers and voters.

We were told that the Gippsland commercial fishermen's anchors wouldn't affect the cables, which are 'safely buried' in the reef and seabed. Just when Basslink was to be opened for business, National Grid announced that the fishermen would be provided with new anchors so as not to damage the cable.

They said the overhead cables were safe but landholders are now being advised that fences running parallel to the cable may give off induced electric shocks that could be fatal. The Victorian government didn't insist on underground cables once it hit land. The viability of the project was so touch and go, short cuts were taken thus allowing overhead pylons.

We can only wonder what other corners were cut.

Jill / Basslink Concerned Citizens