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The end of Forestry in Tasmania
Published Wednesday November 2, 2005 · Permalink

I got you! This post is not about the end of forestry activity in Tasmania, but about the end of the Forestry in Tasmania web pages. After two years compiling materials and hand formatting HTML I have decided to stop updating the sub domain. The fact that I am leaving Tasmania at the end of the year—so I will not have time to keep up to date with what is going on—is just the drop that… you know.

I still need to decide what to do with the site; either I will leave it unchanged for posterity’s sake or pull the plug and delete the whole thing. Over these last two years I have received a fair amount of abuse and a few examples of praise for keeping the site and trying to present a ‘fair view’ of environmental discussion in Tasmania. However, whatever tries to pass as debate is so low quality that it is easy to get disheartened with what one reads in the media.

Will I start a ‘forestry in New Zealand’ page? I doubt it; my role will be completely different and forestry activity over there is much less contentious. I rather spend some time learning Maori—I am quite keen about this—and practicing the haka with Orlando.

del.icio.us tags: forestry+tasmania.

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Woodchips under threat
Published Wednesday August 10, 2005 · Permalink

The Tasmanian forest industry has lost contracts to supply 400,000 tonnes of woodchips to Japanese paper companies. This will certainly have an effect on industry and Forestry Tasmania already announced that it will be offering voluntary redundancies. They will most likely be targeted at non-essential jobs (trimming the fat of the organisation) so those positions will not be filled again. It would not make any sense otherwise.

While the forest industry was quick to blame Greens and other conservationists, they also have a good proportion of blame. It is true that conservationists have been tackling the customers of Japanese paper companies, in many cases with misleading information. This pushed companies like Nippon Paper to start public consultation on the issue. However, it is the Tasmanian industry’s fault to have mostly ignored this situation and clearly of being out of touch with their customers. This campaign did not happen overnight, but it has been going on for years.

There are also indications that the cost of woodchips from Tassie is becoming not very competitive. There may be some elements of hard negotiations too, with Japanese customers playing the environmental card mostly for obtaining lower prices.

Whatever the full reasons, it is clear that we have some very interesting times ahead.

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Extending the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement
Published Tuesday May 17, 2005 · Permalink

A few months ago Senator Bob Brown was complaining that nothing would happen with the government’s electoral promise on forests. Last Friday—Friday 13th, spooky—John Howard (Australia’s Prime Minister) and Paul Lennon (Tasmanian Premier) signed the ‘Supplementary Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement’ in a visit to the Styx Valley.

The extension to the RFA includes much more than just extra reserved land:

It is now clear that the delay of the anouncement (from December to May) was due to intense negotiations to provide a much more comprehensive package. This extra coverage comes at a cost though; where the initial budget was AUD50 millions from the Federal Government, it increased to AUD250 millions (160 millions from the federal budget plus 90 millions from state government). There will be AUD 115 millions for intensive forest management and AUD 42 millions for the hardwood industry. This is still a small number compared to Labor’s promised AUD800 millions.

If the sign of a fair deal is that everybody is a little unhappy, we are in the presence of a good deal. The Greens and other conservationists can not stand it—the Greens call it forest torture—but nobody expected that they would like any solution to the problem, which is key to their political position in Australia. Farmers do not like the deal because it imposes restrictions on land clearing. Part of the forest industry does not like it because it reduces—and in some cases eliminate—access to to specific forest resources.

It is clear that with a reduced available forest area, there will be an intensification of silviculture of the remaining land, particularly in plantations.

Some sources:

This post will keep expanding as I find more links to support the explanations.

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Kyoto: much ado about nothing
Published Wednesday February 23, 2005 · Permalink

Last week—16th of February to be exact—the Kyoto protocol entered into force. USA and Australia did not ratify the protocol—rightly in my opinion—making their governments highly unpopular with environmentalist groups.

Listening to Radio National while taking a shower there were reports of fundamental Christians flooding the White House switchboard with calls requesting the president to sign the Kyoto protocol. The news reminded me of the article What evangelical environmentalists do not know about economics.

Some people are surprised by a potential alliance between conservative Christians and atheist environmentalists, but they should not be. They are both expressions of fundamentalist beliefs, some considering a sacrosanct earth just by itself while others because it is God’s creation. I have to say that it was funny to hear a member of the Sierra Club, now full of biblical references, in an attempt to show how they share the same cause with conservative Christians.

The Lowy Institute for International Policy just released a document entitled Sensible Climate Policy (PDF, 686KB) by Warwick McKibbin. It makes an interesting reading and puts the problem in perspective.

The report states that we can be sure of two things: 1. emissions of greenhouse gases have increased and 2. an increase of greenhouse gases should increase temperature. Some big unanswered questions are: increase by how much, does the Kyoto target mean anything and how much will cost to implement Kyoto. McKibbin’s report points out some of the flaws of the protocol (including uncapped costs for unknown benefits and its rigid timetables approach) and proposes an alternative system: the McKibbin Wilcoxen Blueprint. The blueprint looks like a much more palatable option for countries, making its success much more likely than Kyoto’s protocol.

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Misleading in Liverpool Street
Published Tuesday February 8, 2005 · Permalink

Walking in Liverpool Street, Hobart, I was approached by a Wilderness Society (TWS) campaigner, who asked me if I wanted to help to keep Tasmania’s air and water clean and, ergo, protect the forests.

Of course I started questioning some of the information that she was giving me:
—‘But already forty percent of the forest is protected’, I said.
—‘No, only forty percent of the land it is’, she said.
—‘No, you are wrong in this’ and I started giving her some figures, but she kept repeating her mantra and that the Society has scientists that keep track of these figures.
—‘And what about poisoning with 1080 that causes cancer in people and the Tasmanian devils’, she insisted.
—‘May cause’, I corrected, ‘there is no proven link or any shred of evidence linking pesticides and Devil cancer’. Even further, ‘Forestry Tasmania will stop using 1080 (by law) in December this year’.
—‘We need to keep campaigning to put pressure on the government so forestry really stops using 1080…’

I kept asking questions and she kept pointing at a map in a plastic folder, saying that ‘we need to protect biodiversity, clean water, clean air and the future of our children’. Then I commented that a big chunk of what she was pointing at the map was already protected. And then she went on ‘we need to protect biodiversity, clean water, clean air and the future of our children’.

After struggling to show some knowledge of basic facts and statistics, she explained that she did not need to know the all the numbers and facts behind the problem. Her conviction of doing the right thing was enough, and other people from TWS could answer for her. That reminded me of religion lessons at school, when a priest told us what to reply in case we did not know what to say: ‘doctores tiene la iglesia que sabrán responderos mejor’. This can be loosely translated as ‘the church has doctors (sensu people that know the scriptures) that will be able to give you a better answer’. In summary: one does not need to think, but only to believe. A sad situation I would say.

She asked several times if I wanted to join with a contribution, and each time I said no. She then started saying that she could not continue talking with me, because she needed to convince other people to contribute (so I was a lost cause, I assume). She let me wondering, do campaigners work on commission?

By the way, I am not suggesting that the forest industry has a perfect record or anything similar. It is only that I find impossible to reason with people that regurgitate a mantra, without thinking or checking the most basic information freely available.

PS. 2004-02-08. Added the antepenultimate and last paragraphs. Incidentally, I do not know if this type of campaigners are volunteers or if they actually receive a payment. The comment about working on commission refers to her unwillingness to continue the discussion.

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