into THIS!!!
Help stop Forestry Tasmania turning this
Tasmanian Forests | Wollumbin | Ewingar | End Old Growth Logging | Bell Miner Associated Dieback
Tasmanian Forests
The situation in Tasmania is at a critical stage, so we have devoted a whole page to the issues involved.
For a full account of the situation in the forests of Tasmania, please go to Tassie Forests
Tasmania's forests are being razed at the greatest rate in history, for the lowest return in history, with the fewest jobs in history!
When woodchipping began in Tasmania in 1970, it was going to use only 'waste' from sawmilling, but today 90% of timber drawn from public forests goes to woodchip! Saw-logs and veneer have become the by-products of the low-earning woodchip industry, which since 1970 has seen the closure of more than 100 local sawmills and the loss of over 5000 jobs.
into THIS!!!
Help stop Forestry Tasmania turning this
Weld Valley News
The harvest plan for WR15F, a 40 ha old growth coupe adjacent to the world heritage area on the south side of the Weld, is almost finished so we are expecting operations to begin there very soon.
A new $30 million veneer mill has been announced for the southwood site( sawlog mill at the entrance to the weld valley). Plans for a chip mill and wood fired power station on the site to consume 600,000 tonnes of native forest each year have been approved for over three years with the government searching for an investor. The new mill is being funded by a Malaysian logging company which runs wood-fired power stations there, so there may be more plans in the pipeline? The mill is supposed to use only regrowth and plantation timber but given forestry's track record this is possibly bullshit.
Combat Wombat are playing on the pirate ship at Camp Weld on Saturday Feb 11th, and are playing a show in Hobart on Friday the 10th at Trout Bar in North Hobart.
Check www.huon.org/weldvalley or call the Huon Valley Enviro Centre on 03 62641286 for directions and details.
What You Can Do
Raise community awareness, get lots of media and put pressure on politicians
Write to your local and federal member expressing your concerns, as well as to the relevant environment and forestry departments, telling them that you will not vote for them unless they consider the will of the people and protect the forests for the benefit of everyone, not just the few who reap the rewards of unsustainable forestry practices.
Visit The Wilderness Society at www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/tasmania/
Tasmanian Forests | Wollumbin | Ewingar | End Old Growth Logging | Bell Miner Associated Dieback
The Save Wollumbin Forest Campaign (SWFC)
Wollumbin [Mt Warning] is sacred to all the tribes of Bundjalung.
The sacred land includes both Wollumbin State Forest and Mt Warning National Park.
Wollumbin Forest lies on the slopes of an extinct volcano and is a living museum. It is the last refuge of ancient rainforest from a time when Australia was part of the pre-historic super-continent, Gondwanaland.
For Aboriginal people throughout Australia Wollumbin Forest is part of the sacred mountain called Wollumbin and therefore is of considerable spiritual and cultural significance.
For scientists this area contains keys to origins of life itself (NP NSW). For others the area is one of great beauty and peace, a refuge for the spirit.
Australian governments have identified Wollumbin Forest as having one of the highest (if not the highest) conservation priorities in Australia (UNE CRA).(Upper North East Comprehensive Regional Assessment) It represents one of Australia's main centres of bio-diversity.
Wollumbin Forest is so unique that it supports an ecosystem unto its own - no other forest of its kind exists anywhere in the world.
The National Park Estate Reservations Bill was first introduced to the NSW Parliament on 29th April. On July 2nd the Bill was read for the second time in the Legislative Council where The Greens MP Ian Cohen tried gallantly to introduce an amendment to the Bill which would allow the remaining 368 ha of Wollumbin Forest to be included in the transfer to National Parks. The amendment was defeated because Labor and the Opposition would not support it. The outcome is that an area of about 1,662 hectares of Wollumbin Forest has now been transferred to the National Parks Estate under the name Wollumbin National Park but the remaining 368ha has become Wollumbin State Conservation Area which means that mining and mineral exploration could occur in this area.
The fate of Whian Whian Forest as a State Conservation Area also means that mineral exploration and mining will continue to occur in this Icon forests which is also of considerable Aboriginal significance.
Another issue bogged down in bureaucracy concerns the co management of Mt. Warning and Wollumbin National Parks with the Bundjalung. The mountain Wollumbin is sacred and is of great significance to all the tribes of Bundjalung. The Elders have been in negotiations with the National Parks & Wildlife Service for the last three years in an endeavour to see the management of the mountain come under two laws. That is Traditional Laws and Customs sitting side by side with Australian Common Law with the Traditional Laws and Customs having veto rights over all. At present the negotiations have reached a stalemate.
The Save Wollumbin Forest Campaign in collaboration with the Bundjalung Elders need the support of the wider community in securing from the NSW Government the recognition of the rights of the traditional owners and to transfer Wollumbin Forest to the National Parks Estate.
Phone 61 2 6679 5522
If you would like to know more info on Save Wollumbin please contact us on
Save Wollumbin Forest Campaign (SWFC) Headquarters
Uki Buttery
Kyogle Road, Uki
New South Wales
Australia
PO Box 308 Uki NSW 2484
Tasmanian Forests | Wollumbin | Ewingar | End Old Growth Logging | Bell Miner Associated Dieback
Ewingar Forest
Ewingar Forest, a warm, temperate rainforest rich in biodiversity, is once again being targeted for LOGGING!
After several protests from locals, including residents and local Indigenous people, State Forests NSW have decided to attack this forest again.
Harvest plans indicate that logging prescriptions have been watered down to allow damage to Riparian zones, what SFNSW call “drainage lines” which to the ordinary person translate to beautiful, high country creeks which form the high part of the catchment for the Clarence River. Streams of pure, highly energized water!
The Clarence is one of the only rivers on the east coast which has not been domesticated by dams, weirs etc; Ewingar part of its catchment is on the south side of Timbarra Creek where a Gold Mine was stopped on environmental grounds primarily being that the river would be poisoned by cyanide, arsenic and caustic soda run off.
Logging practices at Ewingar are quickly compromising the forests ecological integrity and accelerating land degradation by exposing rainforest topsoil to the effects of high U.V. radiation, destroying threatened species habitat, and opening the forest to weed and feral animal invasion. Fires which swept through protected areas from fires lit by State Forests at the commencement of logging have badly damaged Habitat trees and caused nutrient levels to increase beyond the natural balance maintained in an undisturbed forest.
WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT TO STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING
CONTACT THE NIMBIN ENVIRONMENT CENTRE 02 66 891 441
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW YOU CAN HELP.
THE FOREST NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT
"Those in power have scarcely any sense of justice for its own sake.
They care for maintaining and magnifying their position.
Had it been a question of justice, pure and simple, it would have been decided long ago."
Gandhi
Tasmanian Forests | Wollumbin | Ewingar | End Old Growth Logging | Bell Miner Associated Dieback
End Old Growth Logging
October 20, 2005
A project of Ecological Internet
Contact: Dr. Glen Barry, +1 920 776 1075
Forests.org
It has long been known that first time selective logging of ancient forests - be it illegal or "certified" - is not sustainable in any meaningful ecological sense; as sunlight dries out the forest floor, which along with roads causes more forest fires, while heavy equipment damages the soil. Selectively logged ancient forests are diminished forever; containing different species in different abundances, changed size classes, differing forest structure, loss of genetic diversity and reductions in important soil microbes.
Climate change is one of the biggest concerns when primary forests are selectively logged, as forest debris left behind decomposes and releases an estimated 100 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year in just the Amazon. This carbon release just by selective primary forest logging is enough to alter climate change forecasts on a global scale.
"The science on primary forests and selective logging is now clear, and Forests.org calls upon those pushing ancient forest 'sustainable logging' to heed the science, and start working to fully protect ancient forests which are the foundation of the global ecosystem."
"As climate change, habitat loss, water scarcity and ocean decline spiral out of control, the mainstream environmental establishment is guilty of a dangerous lack of imagination, vision and policies sufficient to address the crises. In regards to rapidly diminishing forest and climatic systems, this new research indicates conclusively that more selective logging of ancient forests is certainly not an answer."
The point is that some day relatively soon there will be no ancient forests to log. The question is whether there will be any large ancient forest landscapes remaining or not at that time. Do you really think that after 80% is logged the industry is not going to go after the remaining 20% that is "protected"? The Earth is not going to be sustained by "saving what we can" - this is not adequate to maintain ecosystems upon which we utterly depend for life. It is going to be saved by confronting and ending practices which are destroying it. To be continuing to log ancient forests at this late date is literally killing us.
Ultimately what we want is for the formerly ground-breaking and effective campaign organizations to stop negotiating acceptable levels of ancient forest harvests, and to work to end ancient forest logging by disassociating themselves from the "consensus" and resuming their market campaigns.
END OLD GROWTH LOGGING
Tasmanian Forests | Wollumbin | Ewingar | End Old Growth Logging | Bell Miner Associated Dieback
Bell Miner Associated Dieback
MEDIA RELEASE 28/09/05
North East Forest Alliance
Minister Rejects Call For Logging Moratorium
As Forests NSW rush in to cut dying forests.
Primary Industries Minister, Ian Macdonald MLC, has rejected a call for a logging moratorium on eucalypt forests suffering and at risk of dieback associated with high levels of human disturbance.
The call comes from peak conservation groups, the North East Forest Alliance (NEFA) and the North Coast Environment Council (NCEC) and is among the recommendations identified at the Bell Miner (bellbirds) Associated Dieback (BMAD) Working Group National Forum earlier this year.
BMAD, an insect induced tree decline, is associated with high levels of human disturbance and tree stress in both wet and dry eucalypt forests.
"Over a million hectares, the heart, of our Eastern Seaboard Hardwood forests are at risk from this dieback," said Michelle Richards, NEFA representative on the BMAD WG, "and Forests NSW, instead of repairing the damage already done, are still over-cutting."
"Contrary to Ecological Sustainable Forest Management (ESFM) Forests NSW have recently highgraded parts of Toonumbar and Ewingar State Forests. Highgrading is the last grab for the best trees: everything millable is cut, mostly young trees, and the substandard stems are left."
"Both these forests already had dieback and now face the tumble into total decline." Ms Richards said. "In a race to cut the last millable stems Forests NSW are leaving forests of dead and dying trees for the next cutting cycle giving these forest communities the last shove into total collapse." said Ms Richards.
"We have witnessed successive explosions of this dieback spreading through increasingly degraded forests. These struggling forests appear sucked dry. There is too little canopy, there is too little water for dense regrowth and dense understoreys, they have been burnt too often, have an oversimplified biodiversity to control insects, are often off-site species and have just hit the stress wall, unable to control their own biological processes." said Ms Richards.
"This is a sustainability issue, we won’t have public native forests or forest jobs in three to four years if we don’t manage for the one in a hundred year drought." Ms Richards said
The BMAD Forum also identified adaptive management as a way forward. " Waiting for all the science to come in, sadly necessary in this highly contested industry and conservation issue, would see these forests out. So we need to, stop degrading these forests now as well as trial treatments." said Ms Richards
For further comment:
Contact Michelle Richards
NEFA BMAD rep 02 66 227569
Email: woowei@nrg.com.au
Tasmanian Forests | Wollumbin | Ewingar | End Old Growth Logging | Bell Miner Associated Dieback