August 11, 2008
A Critical Review of ‘Green Carbon: The Role of Natural Forests in Carbon Storage’
Last week the Australian National University released a report** on “Green Carbon” claiming that un-logged native forests store three times more carbon than previously reported and this prompted a demand by The Wilderness Society for an urgent end to logging of the carbon dense native forests in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.
Alan Ashbarry, a Tasmanian with an interest in the social and economic benefit of value adding native forest timber from sustainable forestry and a member of Timber Communities Australia, has sent me his critique of the report.
It begins:
The report was funded by the Wilderness Society as part of its campaigns against the harvesting of native forest of high political value. This campaign includes opposing Tasmania’s approved pulp mill as it will use pulp wood from native forests at a time when the Wilderness society claims that their “carbon storage is critically important to combat climate change”.
So is it not surprising that the report recommends the banning of all industrial logging in Australia’s south eastern native forests.
This means closing down the native forest timber industry in Tasmania, Victoria and Southern New South Wales and stopping the pulp mill.
In the ultimate irony, if the industry is shut down, it is likely that Australia will import timber and paper products from tropical forests in developing counties as alternatives for the wood products created by sustainable forestry in these areas.
It is these tropical forests that are most at risk and are the target of the United Nation’s REDD program. This program aims to reduce emissions from deforestation or degradation of forests in the developing world.
According to data from the United Nations the REDD program does not target sustainable forestry in Australia.
All official statistics and reports show that deforestation has virtually stopped in Australia and all forest harvesting/ management is undertaken and measured against international criteria for sustainable management.
Unlike the Wilderness Society, the UN’s Intergovernmental panel of Climate Change (IPCC) recognises the value of our forest sector explaining:
“In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit”
But what about the new report published by the ANU and funded by the Wilderness Society? How robust is the claim that un-logged native forests store three times more carbon than previously stated in Australian government reports and by internal climate change experts?
The report itself states: "A technical paper that details the source data, the methods used and the full results is being prepared for a scientific journal."
In the absence of this data, I checked their maths and found the report also failed the common sense test.
The ANU report has used a new model to estimate the carbon in our forests, a model that is completely at odds with studies undertaken by the Australian Greenhouse Office, Professor Peter Attiwill, Forestry Tasmania, MBAC, and the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse accounting and they have significantly higher results than modelling by the Australian National University in 2003 and 2006.
The report’s lead author, Professor Brendan Mackey, who is a Wilderness Society volunteer on their Wild Country panel, last year in The Age demanded logging must be stopped to solve the global warming problem.
In The Age article he claimed “One hectare of mature, tall, wet forest can store the equivalent of 5500 tonnes of carbon dioxide” this is the equivalent of the large figure of total 1500 tonnes Carbon per hectare stored in the biomass and the soil [The conversion factor used for C/CO2 is 12/44 (0.273)].
Now this new ANU report in which he is lead author claims that forests “can store three times more carbon than scientists previously thought.”
The model used in the ANU report somewhat quaintly colour codes the carbon throughout the World: black is for charcoal, grey from fossil fuel, green is carbon stored in the biosphere, brown is carbon in “industrialised forests” and blue is carbon in the atmosphere and oceans. As green carbon is defined by the report as carbon sequestered through photosynthesis and stored in natural forests, the report can then ignore all that carbon that is stored in timber products from managed forests. This is extraordinary given that the carbon in managed forests is also manufactured through photosynthesis, yes even the carbon stored in the “brown” trees!
The ANU report selects only 14.5 million hectares from Australia’s forest estate of over 147 million hectares.
The new model created for this report relies on data of the ‘gross primary productivity’ and the report states: “The value of GPP used was the maximum annual value for the period from 1 July 2000 to 30 June 2005 (the maximum was used in order to exclude periods of major disturbance such as the 2003 bushfires).” This statement begs the question of why would you want to exclude bush fires surely this is “green” carbon.
Thus the model is all about potential not reality, and states on page 7:
"The difference in carbon stocks between our estimates and the IPCC default values is the result of us using local data collected from natural forests not disturbed by logging. Our estimates therefore reflect the carbon carrying capacity of the natural forests.”
The ANU report argues that "If logging in native eucalypt forests was halted, the carbon stored in the intact forests would be protected and the degraded forests would be able to regrow their carbon stocks to their natural carbon carrying capacity.”
Until this report it has mostly just been the forest sector that has stated the forest re-grows after harvest and can maintain both biological diversity and carbon carrying capacity.
The report authors then make a series of assumptions to determine the carbon sequestration potential of the logged forest area.
The report claims that an average carbon carrying potential of 360 t C ha-1 of biomass carbon (living plus dead biomass above the ground). It also claims the highest biomass carbon stocks, with an average of more than 1200 t C ha-1 and maximum of over 2,000 t C ha-1 are in the mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forest in the Central Highlands of Victoria and Tasmania.
These are the areas of highest political value and have constantly been in the middle of the debate about forest management for the last decade or two.
It is these figures that clearly demonstrate that the model fails basic maths and common sense. If the carbon volumes are converted to the actual volume of trees, it means that there would be trees growing on trees!
Carbon density of eucalypt wood is about 0.325 t C/ m3, this means at 2,000 t C ha-1, this is 6,153.84 m3 of wood, say 6,150 m3 per ha. If only half of this could be considered the timber available to the forest sector(exclude branches, litter, rotting wood, stumps), then this wood equates to a volume of logs of about 3,000m3/ha.
Therefore in an average coupe of 50 ha this represents 150,000m3 of log, it means based on the model that two average size coupes will produce over 300,000 m3 of log.
To compare just how big a figure this is, Forestry Tasmania has a legislated requirement to supply the whole of Tasmania’s saw milling industry 300,000 m3 of saw logs each year from the 1.5 million hectares it sustainably manages!
In 2006-07 Forestry Tasmania harvested over 11,500 ha of native forest for a harvest of 301,526 m3 of sawlog, 283,880 m3 veneer and peeler hardwood and 2,136,687 tonnes of pulpwood. By approximating a tonne of pulp to 1.5 cubic metre this would be about 330 m3 per ha or 16,500 m3 per average coupe.
Even The Wilderness Society used a completely different figure of only 225 tonnes pulp wood per hectare, when calculating the impact of the approved pulp mill on Native forests. Even allowing for harvesting residues this is a tiny fraction of the new model’s figures.
The report fails the common sense test but it was published by a reputable university and has been given all the credibility of an independent scientific report by the mainstream media including the ABC.
The Wilderness Society and the ANU chose to release the report to the media rather than first publish it in a scientific journal subject to peer review. Now the report is likely to be used to lobby the United Nation committee that current forest practices degrade the forest. This lobbying attempt is just after their failure to convince UNESCO over wild allegations about the Tasmanian World Heritage Area.
Until the data and the calculations supporting this report have been subject to full independent scrutiny, the reports status must be considered just another claim in the ‘war of words’ on forestry.
Alan Ashbarry
Tasmania
www.tasmaniapulpmill.info
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** The report's title is rather long: Green Carbon: The role of natural forests in carbon storage
Part 1. A green carbon account of Australia’s south-eastern Eucalypt forests, and policy implications
Authors are: Brendan G. Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra L. Berry and David B. Lindenmayer
Published by: The Fenner School of Environment & Society, The Australian National University
And you can download it from: http://epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon/pdf_instructions.html
Posted by jennifer at 02:56 PM | Comments (23) | TrackBack
July 08, 2008
No Extension of World Heritage Area into Tall Tassie Forests: Peter Garrett
In a media release Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, yesterday welcomed the World Heritage Committee’s consideration at its meeting in Quebec, Canada, of an expert report on Australia’s management of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
The report, prepared by an expert mission sent by the World Heritage Committee to Tasmania in March, was based on extensive consultation, field research and rigorous examination of many long standing issues.
“It is pleasing the experts concluded that the outstanding universal values of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area are being satisfactorily managed, as are potential threats from production forestry outside the World Heritage boundary”, Mr Garrett said.
The mission also found that the Regional Forest Agreement and Tasmania’s forest practices system provide an appropriate framework for managing conservation values outside of the World Heritage Area.
The World Heritage Committee suggested a number of additional measures to enhance protection of possible values outside the existing World Heritage Area. These include possible adjustment of the World Heritage Area to include 21 areas of national parks and state reserves that are already covered by the World Heritage management plan but currently outside the boundary, and enhancing resources and capacity for the conservation of archaeological and Aboriginal sites.
Mr Garrett noted that both the Australian and Tasmanian Governments have responsibilities in relation to the World Heritage Area and would cooperate in carefully considering the implications of the World Heritage Committee recommendations.
The Australian Government agreed in-principle with the recommendations to extend the 1.3 million hectare Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area to include the additional 21 formal reserves recommended by the expert mission.
Mr Garrett also noted that the expert mission found no extension of the World Heritage area into tall eucalypt forests was warranted as the World Heritage area already includes a good representation of tall eucalypts. This contrasted with the World Heritage Committee’s request to consider, at Australia’s discretion, a further extension of the World Heritage Area in these forests.
The Australian Government has no plans to extend the current boundary into production forests.
Mr Garrett said that the Australian Government agreed in principle with the recommendations of the five yearly review of the implementation of the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement and is working with the Tasmanian Government towards this implementation.
The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area is one of 17 World Heritage properties in Australia. Inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1982, and extended in 1989, the Tasmanian Wilderness is one of the world’s largest World Heritage Areas and covers 20% of the entire Tasmanian landmass.
Posted by jennifer at 08:29 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack
May 27, 2008
New Premier, No Pulp Mill for Tasmania?
The new Tasmanian premier, David Bartlett, today said the future of the state's key project, the pulp mill, was in the hands of its proponents and their financiers.
His predecessor, Paul Lennon, tied his political fortunes closely to the mill, which appears to have failed to gain the backing of the ANZ bank.
Read more here: http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/article/777041.aspx
Of course there has been a sustained environmental campaign against the mill from the Tasmanian Greens and others.
Pulp mills are dotted across Europe but are to be excluded from Tasmania because of the prejudices of some.
I guess the same activists will soon be back to campaigning against the export of product to pulp mills in Japan?
Posted by jennifer at 08:17 AM | Comments (14) | TrackBack
May 26, 2008
Australia’s 2008 State of the Forests Report Released
Australia's State of the Forests Report 2008 was launched by the Hon Tony Burke MP, and Commonwealth Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on May 21, 2008. According to a media release from Forestry Tasmania:
“The Report is based on data from the public and private sectors and provides the most comprehensive review of the state of our forests ever undertaken,” said Dr Hans Drielsma, Forestry Tasmania’s Executive General Manager.
“There are many positive signs amongst the Report’s finding. For example, Australia’s forests sequester more greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than they emit and therefore help to offset Australia’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions.
“The Report shows that managed native forests offset about 5.5%, and plantations about 3.5% of total national greenhouse gas emissions in 2005. Additional storage in wood products offset a further 1% of emissions. This complements the preliminary research done by FT that shows State forests are sequestering carbon over the long term.
“According to the document, since the 2003 Report, the area of Australia’s native forest in formal nature conservation reserves has increased by about 1.5 million hectares to 23 million hectares, from 13% to 16%.
“There are a total of 8.5 million hectares of forest certified as being sustainably managed under the premium (and not-for-profit) Australian Forestry Standard, and about 600,000 hectares certified under the FSC system. Combined, this is an increase of approximately 2.5 million hectares over the previous year.
“The State of the Forests Report shows that over 30 million hectares of public forests (20% of the total forest area) is managed primarily for protection, including of soil and water values; most is in nature conservation reserves.
The Report also confirms the fact that the net loss of woody vegetation (mostly forest) estimated by the Australian Greenhouse Office was 260,000 hectares (0.25%) per year between 2000 and 2004, due mainly to clearing for agriculture and urban development, and not forest practices.
“The report uses the internationally-established Montreal Process framework for criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management and was done by the national-level Montreal Process Implementation Group for Australia (MIG)."
The 2008 report was prepared by the MIG, comprised of representatives from the Australian, state and territory governments. Production of the report was co-ordinated by the Bureau of Rural Sciences on behalf of the MIG.
In addition to the main report, a package of supporting materials will also be launched, comprising a stand-alone executive summary and a series of fact sheets on topical forest issues such as carbon, certification, conservation, employment, fire, sustainable yield, forest type and extent, and water.
You can download the report here: http://adl.brs.gov.au/forestsaustralia/publications/sofr2008.html
Posted by jennifer at 02:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 14, 2008
Campaign Against ANZ Forest Policy Disingenuous - A Note from Alan Ashbarry
The ANZ bank recently released it Forest and Biodiversity Policy as part of its corporate responsibility on the environment.
The bank developed the policy over the last few years in consultation with its customers and stakeholders.
The policy demands that its customers when engaged in the forest industry must meet extensive criteria including independent environmental certification and the protection of high conservation value forest. Forestry must be legal and not be undertaken in World Heritage Areas, National Parks and conservation reserves.
In terms of high conservation values the policy looks at international and national definitions. High conservation value forest is not defined by lobby groups such as the Wilderness Society or by the forest industry but by a fully open and transparent process. In Australian identifying HCV forest has its roots in the 1992 National Forest Policy Statement, defined in what is known as the JANIS criteria, and implemented by the Regional Forest and Community Forest Agreements.
In terms of sustainable practices, ANZ will engage customers involved in large scale forestry activities to advocate credible sustainable forest management (SFM) certification. However, the bank acknowledges it is the customer’s choice on which internationally recognised certification scheme is adopted.
Forest certification schemes provide a way of defining sustainable forest management as well as third party, independent verification that a timber source meets the definition of sustainability. Certification schemes include a mechanism for tracing products from the certified source forest to the end use.
A number of certification schemes operate throughout the world. Operating in Australia are:
• Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
• Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)
So it’s a bit surprising that our national broadcaster The ABC is running claims from the Australian Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) that ANZ's new forest policy is too broad. And that “the bank's new guidelines on providing funding for forestry and timber processing projects lacks detail.”
The FSC in Australia is run by a board of Directors including representatives from Timber Workers for Forests, Timber Communities Australia, The Wilderness Society, Australian Conservation Foundation, Friends of the Earth, Paperlinx, Timbercorp, Integrated Tree Cropping and one independent. It is chaired by Sean Cadman, the National Forest Campaigner of the Wilderness Society.
The other certification scheme is the Australian Forest Standard that is part of the PEFC. Its Board comprises 10 Directors, with representation being four from government, three from the Forestry and Wood Products Sector, one Employee Representative, one General and up to two Independent members, one of whom is the Chair of the company, currently Geoff Gorrie.
In light of these schemes it is difficult to understand the motive of such criticism by the FSC, perhaps it is due the inclusion of a competing scheme by the Bank or perhaps it is due to fact the Wilderness Society is currently targeting the ANZ bank about the Tasmanian Pulp Mill?
In Tasmania, Forestry Tasmania, Gunns Ltd and Forest Enterprises Australia have been externally certified as complying with the international standard for environmental management systems (ISO 14001) and have also been externally certified against the Australian Forestry Standard (AS 4708) rather than the FSC.
Gunns Ltd has received Commonwealth and Tasmanian approval to build a pulp mill to value add woodchips that would other wise be exported from forests covered by the Regional forest Agreement.
Alan Ashbarry
Website: http://www.tasmaniapulpmill.info/home
About: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001252.html
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May 12, 2008
Victorian Timber Industry to Pay for Water?
"IN A blow to Victoria's massive plantation industry, the State Government has moved to make thirsty timber plantations accountable for the water they use.
"Companies such as Timbercorp may face extra costs as Government documents show it is considering making them pay for the water the trees suck up...
Read more here: http://www.theage.com.au/news/environment/plan-to-make-timber-industry-pay-for-rain/2008/05/10/1210131335198.html
Posted by jennifer at 01:11 PM | Comments (30) | TrackBack
May 10, 2008
New Website on the Tasmanian Pulp Mill: A Note from Alan Ashbarry
Last year the Tasmanian Parliament and the Australian Government approved the pulp mill for the Tamar Valley.
They did so after the developer, Gunns Limited, published an Integrated Impact Statement comprising 7,500 pages of social, environmental and economic analysis representing a planning investment of more than $11 million and in excess of 350,000 hours of research, study, modeling and reporting.
A report that was debated examined and generated even more studies, reports and media attention.
Yet despite this, the general public throughout Australia is being asked to oppose the mill.
The latest campaign is to rally against the ANZ bank because the pulp mill will “be a disaster for climate change, It will be 80% native forest-based”.
This is despite the IIS and the shed full of additional information showing that the majority of timber used during the mill’s life will be from plantations (64%) and that the reports detail that over 1 million tonnes of CO2 emissions will be saved each year in reduced shipping and the generation of renewable power.
With the passage of time, much of the information is hard to find, so a new web site has been started to look at the claims being made in the Media and to get to the facts behind the headlines. The Web site will link to a range of reports and information on the Mill and Tasmania’s sustainable forest management.
You are invited to bookmark my new web site http://www.tasmaniapulpmill.info/home and visit it regularly as it will be updated frequently. If you have a question or issue that you want more detail, there is a contact section.
Alan Ashbarry
Hobart.
Posted by jennifer at 05:33 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
February 04, 2008
Dead River Red Gums (Part II)
Yesterday I posted some photographs of healthy Blue Gums in the Grose Valley.
I suggested in the comment thread that followed, that River Red Gums are more suseptible to fire, and that a fire in October 2006 in the Barmah forest destroyed many trees.
River Red Gums are also susceptible to drought.
The following photographs were taken in the Murray Valley last November.
West of Koondrook before the Kerang turnoff, November 21, 2007
West of Koondrook before the Kerang turnoff, November 21, 2007
West of Koondrook before the Kerang turnoff, November 21, 2007
Trees along the Murray River were healthy, but this isolated stand of trees on a farmed section of the floodplain appeared mostly dead - I assume from drought.
Posted by jennifer at 09:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 03, 2008
Blue Gums in Grose Valley Healthy After Back-Burning
Just over a year ago media reports indicated the Blue Gum Forest of the Grose Valley was “hanging in the balance” because of a wildfire made “more intense, unpredictable and extensive by massive backburning operations”.
I trekked into the forest today and was surprised and pleased to see a beautiful forest with little evidence of fire damage.
The Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Blue Mountains, Australia, February 3, 2008. Looking to the south-east.
The Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Blue Mountains, Australia, February 3, 2008. Looking to the north-west.
The Blue Gum Forest, Grose Valley, Blue Mountains, Australia, February 3, 2008. At junction of Grose River and Govett Creek, looking to the north.
As I struggled up the steep escarpment on my way out of the valley, I passed a couple descending into the valley and I asked if they were planning to visit the Blue Gum Forest.
“Yes,” replied the women, “At least what is left of it”.
Like me, and so many Australians, she believed the media reports that the forest had been badly damaged. As we passed I suggested she would be pleasantly surprised by what she saw.
Why has reporting in the popular press been so negative? Was the state of this iconic forest misrepresented as part of a wider campaign against back-burning?
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Additional Notes and Links
Link to picture of burnt forest in Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-ghosts-of-an-enchanted-forest-demand-answers/2006/12/10/1165685553891.html
Link to earlier blog post with a question from Bill in Melbourne about the state of the forest:
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002620.html
The Blue Gums in the Grose Valley are Mountain Blue Gums Eucalyptus deanii, here are some links to the more common Tasmanian Blue Gum, Eucalptus globulus:
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s1702968.htm
http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Eucalyptus+globulus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus_globulus
Posted by jennifer at 11:27 PM | Comments (17) | TrackBack
January 15, 2008
Global Warming Hysteria in The West Australian: A Note from Roger Underwood
Over the last 6 months, readers of The West Australian newspaper have been subjected to a barrage of hysteria over global warming. Very bad news stories of one kind or another are published almost every day, all with the common theme that civilisation as we know it is about to be destroyed.
Some of these stories are simply laughable, like the article asserting that a rise in temperature of 1-2 degrees will result in the extinction of the karri forest. Another reported that rising sea levels (caused by global warming) will, amongst other calamities, lead to a killer increase in salinity in the Swan River. Many readers were surprised by this, since the Swan River is a tidal estuary in its lower reaches, and is fed by the salt-laden Avon River in its upper reaches.
Day after day The West Australian delivers stories unequivocally foretelling the melting of ice caps and glaciers, death of forests, disease outbreaks, the collapse of agriculture, social disruption, loss of coastal communities and beaches, catastrophic storms, floods, droughts and bushfires. All of this is based on an unquestioning acceptance of the theory that human-induced CO2 emissions are causing the world to heat up, and an unquestioning belief in the link between projected warming and ghastly consequences.
I am curious about this lack of editorial scepticism. When it comes to reporting politics or community issues, journalists generally pride themselves on pricking sacred balloons, cutting down tall poppies, exposing spin and highlighting hidden agendas, in short doing what journalists do. The West Australian is quite good in this area, even if their judgement is not always infallible. They have not been afraid to attack government Ministers or powerful Union bosses or to probe politically-incorrect issues, such as alcoholism and education in Indigenous communities. But on global warming their stance is one of uncritical acceptance of Worst Case Scenarios. The whole package of political game-playing and agenda-driven alarmism is taken at face value and delivered on to readers as if the newspaper was a propaganda pamphlet, rather than a mature organ of the Australian media.
It is not just The West Australian. ABC current affairs journalists to a man and woman are also promoters of Global Warming Apocalypse. A good example was the recent segment on The 7.30 Report which suggested that a slight projected increase in temperature would result in a regime of completely unstoppable bushfires. This proposition was put to the gullible journalist by a climatologist and an environmental activist, neither of whom had any experience in bushfire science or management. No one with this knowledge or experience was interviewed.
And just before the Global Warming True Believers launch their barbs at me, I assure them that I accept the idea of climate change - the climate is always changing. I am also concerned about air pollution from industry and vehicles. However, I regard as unproven the theory of ‘accelerated global warming” as a result of human CO2 emissions. And I consider the worst-case scenarios uncritically presented as fact by journalists to be unhelpful to a community struggling to make sense of a complex issue.
There are risks associated with constant promotion of Worst Case Scenarios. The first is that people will start to shrug their shoulders, feeling that the whole situation is beyond hope: the planet is doomed, so we might as well live for the minute. This leads to the second risk: doomsday projections becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.
The one-sided reporting of the global warming debate is perhaps explained by the fact that journalists are frightened of presenting both sides of the global warming story. They do not want to alienate those powerful sections of the community who will attack them if they do, i.e. environmentalists, academics and business interests profiting from global warming alarm. Alternatively we are just seeing another example of the professional immaturity of the Australian media. I have observed that they have always regarded dramatic disasters and fearsome calamities as more newsworthy than everyday life or good citizenship. Thus trees being chainsawed to the accompaniment of wailing protesters is a far “better” story than a forest quietly regrowing under the stewardship of dedicated foresters. I can see no solution to this.
Roger Underwood
Perth, Western Australia
PS: I sent a copy of this article to the Editor of The West asking for any comments before I posted it on this blog. He did not reply. However, a week later a short article appeared with the first positive comment about global warming I have ever seen in this newspaper. The journalist reported the view of a marine scientist that global warming would lead to extensive new coral reefs forming all along the Western Australian coast, perhaps as far south as Perth. That will be nice.
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In September 14, 2006, I posted a piece entitled 'Déjà Vu on the ABC' by Roger Underwood which went on to win a place in the On Line Opinion best blogs competition for that year. This article is also about inaccurate and misleading media reporting of an environmental issue. Read more here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001633.html.
Posted by jennifer at 07:25 AM | Comments (114) | TrackBack
January 14, 2008
Another Assumption in Trouble: No Convincing Evidence for Decline in Tropical Forests
Claims that tropical forests are declining cannot be backed up by hard evidence, according to new research from the University of Leeds.
This major challenge to conventional thinking is the surprising finding of a study published today in the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences by Dr Alan Grainger, Senior Lecturer in Geography and one of the world's leading experts on tropical deforestation.
In the first attempt for many years to chart the long-term trend in tropical forest area, he spent more than three years going through all available United Nations data with a fine toothcomb – and found some serious problems.
Read the entire EurekAlert write up here.
Philip Stott also has a good write up here.
The abstract from the paper is below:
Difficulties in tracking the long-term global trend in tropical forest area
Alan Grainger*
School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
Edited by B. L. Turner II, Clark University, Worcester, MA, and approved December 3, 2007 (received for review April 3, 2007)
The long-term trend in tropical forest area receives less scrutiny than the tropical deforestation rate. We show that constructing a reliable trend is difficult and evidence for decline is unclear, within the limits of errors involved in making global estimates. A time series for all tropical forest area, using data from Forest Resources Assessments (FRAs) of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, is dominated by three successively corrected declining trends. Inconsistencies between these trends raise questions about their reliability, especially because differences seem to result as much from errors as from changes in statistical design and use of new data. A second time series for tropical moist forest area shows no apparent decline. The latter may be masked by the errors involved, but a "forest return" effect may also be operating, in which forest regeneration in some areas offsets deforestation (but not biodiversity loss) elsewhere. A better monitoring program is needed to give a more reliable trend. Scientists who use FRA data should check how the accuracy of their findings depends on errors in the data.
Posted by Paul at 03:07 AM | Comments (28) | TrackBack
November 10, 2007
After the ‘Top Island’ Fire in the Barmah Red Gum Forest
Aborigines managed much of the Australian landscape with fire. This management strategy favoured fire tolerant and fire resistant species – perhaps why gum trees dominate so much of the Australian landscape. But river red gums, Eucalyptus camaldulensis ssp., unlike most gum trees, are not particularly fire tolerant.
A boat on the Murray River in the Barmah Forest. Photograph taken last Tuesday.*
The timber cutters and cattlemen who live and work along the middle Murray (river) have gone to great lengths to keep fuel-loads in red gum forests low through controlled grazing and the collection of firewood. This, combined with a network of rural fire fighting brigades, has made it possible to stomp out fires started from lightening strikes or camp fires.
This may explain why some foresters and aboriginal elders call river red gums ‘white fellas’ weed’ and why areas which were once open woodland are now covered in dense red gum forests including at Barmah.
This area in Barmah Forest was once known as Duck Hole Plains
But the situation is changing. The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council (VEAC) wants more wood and grass on the forest floor apparently to increase biodiversity. This means higher fuel loads and according to some white fellas** the forests will ultimately be severely degraded by uncontrolled and uncontrollable feral fires.
A wildfire in the Barmah Forest, in an area known as Top Island, burnt out 800 hectares last October.
Burnt forest at Top Island in October 2006, photograph taken Tuesday November 6, 2007.
Old habitat trees are apparently the first to go when a hot wildfire burns through red gum forest. Last week the Barmah woodcutters showed me how the old trees ‘burnt like chimneys’ from the inside – out.
Parts of ‘Top Island’ look like they are regenerating. But I’m told that the green coppice growth will eventually fall off – that these fire-damaged trees will never develop as habitat trees. Habitat trees have hollows for wildlife.
Coppice and a burnt-out old habitat tree.
Where the forest has been completely burnt, for example after the sand-spit fire of the late 1960s, and where there has been no management, the red gum regrowth can be very dense.
Regrowth from the 1968 Sand-spit fire, Photograph taken November 6, 2007.
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* All the photographs in this blog post were taken in Barmah forest last Tuesday - on Melbourne cup day.
** I use the term 'white fellas' to refer to the guardians of traditional European knowledge in the Barmah forest.
Posted by jennifer at 03:14 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
October 07, 2007
Pulp Mill Gets Australian Government Approval with More Conditions: A Note from Malcolm Turnbull
Dear Jennifer,
Last week I imposed the world’s most stringent environmental conditions on the Tamar Valley pulp mill project [in Tasmania]. My decision was based solely on science and implemented the recommendations of the Chief Scientist of Australia, Dr Jim Peacock who had reported on all of the scientific issues which fell under my jurisdiction.
Critics of the mill have claimed that I should have investigated and imposed conditions on matters outside the Commonwealth’s environmental jurisdiction.
They overlook the fact that I have to act within the law and as I have set at greater length on my website the Commonwealth’s environmental jurisdiction is limited to categories detailed in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
See below for a summary of the decision. Click here for the media release and links to the complete documentation.
Given the extraordinary degree of misinformation about this matter, I would like to set down a few facts about the mill.
The mill will not process any timber from old growth forests. The timber sources will come exclusively from plantation timber and regrowth forests, ie areas which have previously been logged and have regenerated. Within five years it is expected the mill will be using 80% timber from plantations. All timber sourced is covered by the Tasmanian Regional Forestry Agreement which mandates sustainable forestry practices.
There will be no additional logging needed to support the mill. The economics of the mill are based on adding value to woodchips which would otherwise be exported to overseas pulp mills (all of which would have less stringent environmental conditions than those I have imposed on the Tamar Valley pulp mill.)
The site of the pulp mill is not in a pristine wilderness, but in a precinct zoned “heavy industrial” which includes the Comalco aluminium smelter that has been operating there since 1955 as well as a power station and other industrial operations. Check it out on Google Earth if you don’t have time to visit.
The pulp mill will not add 2% to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Australian Greenhouse Office advises that because the mill will use renewable wood waste for energy it is likely to be either carbon neutral or have a low emission profile compared with the “business as usual” base case of woodchip production and export to pulp mills overseas. Remember power stations fuelled with renewable fuels (biomass) qualify under the MRET scheme in many circumstances. That is why ethanol and bio-diesel are regarded as green fuels.
As you know, I resolved back in August that I would refer the scientific issues central to my assessment of the proposal to the Chief Scientist of Australia, Dr Jim Peacock, who assembled a panel of scientists toadvise him, each of them an expert in the relevant fields.
The Chief Scientist presented me with his report last week and I have made a decision to approve the mill which, consistent with the recommendations of Dr Peacock, imposes the world’s toughest environmental safeguards.
In August, the draft recommendations of my Department proposed 24 conditions be imposed on the proposed pulp mill. The number of conditions has now doubled to 48. The conditions I have imposed are the toughest to be placed on any mill of this type in the world. My decision was based on a rigorous, accountable and transparent assessment process under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
My decision, consistent with Dr Peacock’s recommendations, includes:
1. 16 conditions relating to the management of effluent from the pulp mill, including stringent levels which if exceeded will mean the mill must close until such time as an advanced (tertiary) effluent treatment process that produces high quality water is put in place.
2. maximum dioxin levels in the effluent discharged from the mill will be almost four times more stringent than world’s best practice and trigger levels (which will require immediate remedial action) will be more than six times more stringent.
3. the establishment of an Independent Expert Group, appointed by the Minister and drawn from leading national and international scientists to assist with the design, implementation, monitoring and approval of the pulp mill.
4. a requirement that Gunns prepare for the Minister’s approval an integrated Environmental Impact Management Plan, in consultation with the Independent Expert Group, to ensure no adverse impacts on Commonwealth environment matters. Some elements of the plan will be required to be approved before any construction begins and the final plan requires approval before the mill is commissioned.
5. the appointment by the Minister of an Independent Site Supervisor to monitor Gunns’ compliance with the conditions. The Independent Site Supervisor will have the full range of powers as an inspector under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 to ensure there are no impediments in terms of access to information or locations to the performance as supervisor.
6. 17 conditions relating to the protection of both listed threatened and migratory species, including measures to protect the Tasmanian Wedge-tailed Eagle, the Tasmanian Devil, fur seals, whales, dolphins and rare native vegetation.
7. requirements for around 400 hectares of protected reserve to be set aside for protected plants and animals.
8. a requirement for transparent and regular reporting by Gunns of compliance with the conditions, to be independently audited by an auditor agreed to by the Department. This report must be also be made available to the public.
My decision was based on the advice of the Chief Scientist, comprehensive advice from my Department, and over 36,000 public submissions received during the assessment process. To ensure as much transparency and accountability as possible in the decision-making process, I included three periods of public comment over the five month since the assessment commenced in April 2007.
The Australian Government’s assessment of the mill was restricted to a set of defined environmental matters, namely the marine environment under Commonwealth jurisdiction, and threatened and migratory species.
As has consistently been the case throughout this assessment, the majority of public concerns relate to issues beyond the Australian Government’s legal powers. The Tasmanian Government is responsible for many of the issues surrounding the pulp mill. These include emissions of odours, local air quality and impacts on Tasmanian waters. I should note the stringent conditions on effluent composition that I have imposed (in order to protect Commonwealth waters) will confer added protection to the marine environment within Tasmanian jurisdiction. .
Wood supply issues are not subject to assessment under the EPBC Act so long as the wood supply, as is the case here, is covered by a Regional Forestry Agreement.
I have been very critical of the Tasmanian assessment process. The decision of the Lennon Government to abandon the assessment by the RPDC unfortunately undermined the trust of the people of Tasmania. The RPDC was, as is the usual practice, considering both State and Commonwealth environmental issues in a bilateral process. When Mr Lennon abandoned that process, I had no choice but to consider the Commonwealth issues myself and I have run a transparent and consultative Commonwealth assessment. The outcome of that process ensures that the pulp mill meets world’s best practice in those areas protected under Commonwealth environment law.
Please visit my Department's website for more information on my decision, the conditions and a copy of the Chief Scientist’s report.
Yours sincerely
Malcolm Turnbull
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources
Posted by jennifer at 09:59 AM | Comments (54) | TrackBack
September 23, 2007
Global Warming and The Karri Forest: A Note from Roger Underwood
Articles in The West Australian newspaper on 15th and 17th September 2007 suggested that global warming will lead to the virtual disappearance of Western Australia’s iconic karri forest. The articles quote Dr Ray Wills, a research scientist at the University of Western Australia's Geography Department, who asserts that karri forests could be reduced to small pockets and marginal remnants in the years to come. He bases this view on projections that the southwest of Western Australia (WA) will become warmer by 2 to 3 degrees in the years ahead, and on the assumption that this warming will in turn lead to a decline in rainfall to the extent that karri will basically die out.
Karri forests are part of the so-called “southern forests” of Australia’s southwest corner. They comprise about 1.3 million hectares of pure karri and karri mixed with jarrah, marri and red and yellow tingle. Apart from several outliers, such as at Boranup (near Margaret River) and Porongorup (east of Mt Barker), all of the present karri forest is found in areas with a long-term annual rainfall of >1100 mm.
However, the present karri forest is also a remnant. Analysis of pollen in geological strata has demonstrated that karri once occupied a very much wider area; indeed it is still possible to find typical karri forest understorey in moist gullies in the northern jarrah forest. The shrinkage of the karri forest appears to have resulted mainly from a decline in rainfall many thousands of years ago.
Karri is well able to survive much higher temperatures than those predicted. The species is adapted to a present-day climate which every summer experiences well above the average temperature, including days over 40 degrees. I have successfully grown karri in Perth and the Darling Ranges, regions with much warmer average temperatures than the lower southwest, and I even succeeded in establishing karri in my arboretum in the Avon Valley where the temperature exceeds 40 degrees day after day from January through to March. Karri was unaffected by these high temperatures. What killed them was winter frosts not summer heat. A feature of the current natural distribution of karri is that frost is very rare and when it does occur it is relatively mild and short-lived.
I believe that a predicted rise in average annual temperature of 2-3 degrees per se will not worry karri, especially if this occurs as a result of milder winters rather than hotter summers.
The problem of lower rainfall is another matter, and already forests all over the southwest of WA (especially wandoo and tuart) are observed declining in the face of below-average rainfall in recent years. The karri forest has also experienced a similar reduction in rainfall, but is not yet showing the same drought symptoms as wandoo and tuart. If there is another substantial decline in the current rainfall pattern, it probably will, unless some action is taken by forest managers.
Luckily something can be done to ameliorate the impact on the karri forest of lower rainfall. This is a well-planned and professionally conducted program of thinning of overstocked regrowth forests plus regular (7-9 year rotation) mild prescribed burning across the whole forest area. Such a program will lead to a higher proportion of rainfall getting through to recharge soil moisture, and will ensure less competition for water at the root zone. Prescribed burning will also reduce bushfire fuels and render old growth forests less susceptible to conversion to dense rainfall-gulping regrowth by high intensity summer fires.
Opponents of thinning and prescribed burning will immediately rise up and condemn this strategy, claiming that it will cause “a loss of biodiversity”. There is no scientific basis for this fear. But if no action is taken and Dr Wills’ doomsday predictions are correct, the biodiversity is going down the tube anyway. Even a 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions will not stop the 2-3 degree killer temperature rise according to Dr Wills.
It is my understanding that the jury is still out on the link between a projected higher temperature due to global warming and a projected lower rainfall. Never mind. Even if “normal” rainfall patterns return to south-western WA, the forests will be healthier and more biologically diverse if overstocked regrowth stands have been thinned and mild burning undertaken to reduce fuels and thus minimise high intensity wildfires. And if the predictions of Dr Wills and his colleagues are right, well-managed forests will be better able to cope if a still-drier climate eventuates. The other good thing is that both thinning and burning are standard forestry operations which have been conducted for generations and subject to a great deal of research and monitoring. We know how to do it and that it will work, with no environmental downside.
Incidentally, Dr Wills is by not the first distinguished scientist to predict the extinction of Australia’s southwest forests. In the 1970s geography Professor Arthur Connacher predicted that logging for woodchip-quality logs would result in the “desertification” of the karri forest. Thankfully this has not occurred. And in the 1980s ecologist Dr Wardell-Johnson warned of the imminent loss of the tingle forests on the south coast due to “continental drift”. Australia was at that time thought to be drifting towards the equator at a rate of a few millimetres per century. It has also been too early to detect any evidence of this calamity.
Roger Underwood worked as a forester in the karri forest in the 1960s and 1970s.
Posted by jennifer at 04:56 PM | Comments (7)
September 12, 2007
Pulp Mill Should Go Ahead Says AEF Chair, Don Burke
"The proposed pulp mill at Bell Bay in Tasmania should go ahead if it meets environmental guidelines” said Don Burke, chairman of the Australian Environment Foundation [AEF].
Mr Burke was commenting after discussion at the AEF annual conference in Melbourne on the proposed pulp mill.
“This is best practice pulp production. We believe that it is essential to support best practice industries. Encouraging improvements in environmental behaviour of companies is the best way forward.
To refuse the mill a permit and continue to export wood chips to mills overseas that are not up to the standard of the Bell Bay mill is to show a breathtaking disregard for the environment” said Mr Burke.
“We have looked at Gunn’s operations in Tasmania, we have looked at the data and we have listened to the needs of the Tasmanian people. Based on the available science AEF supports this project as an example of best practice sustainable forestry.
Decisions on the environment must be based on science and evidence – not emotion – if we are to achieve the best possible result for the environment and the people that are part of that” concluded Mr Burke.
The AEF conference was addressed by Gunns Ltd Resource Manager, Calton Frame prior to discussion on the proposed mill.
-----------------------
The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) is a not-for-profit, membership-based environment organisation having no political affiliation. The AEF is a different kind of environment group, caring for both Australia & Australians. Many of our members are practical environmentalists – people who actively use and also care for the environment. We accept that environmental protection and sustainable resource use are generally compatible. For more information about the AEF visit www.aefweb.info .
Posted by jennifer at 08:06 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack
September 11, 2007
Saving Australian Forests and It's Implications: A New Book by Mark Poynter
A new book was launched at the recent Australian Environment Foundation Conference. 'Saving Australian Forests and It's Implications' by Mark Poynter is an important book for anyone wishing to make up their mind about the native forests question free from the emotional rhetoric that invariably accompanies its elevation onto the political stage prior to each state or federal election.
In particular, the book raises concerns that considerable and lasting environmental damage is resulting from the refusal of a fanatical core of activists to view the future of Australia’s forests from a holistic perspective.
For decades, the major focus of the Australian environmental movement has been ‘saving’ public native forests from timber harvesting. This continues to be a high priority for environmental activism despite Australia now having one of the world’s highest rates of forest reservation, while wood production in our public forests is sustainable and is acknowledged as having very low environmental impact.
Today’s campaigns to ‘save’ Australia’s forests have far less to do with genuine environmental need than with serving an ideological ‘lock-it-up-and-leave-it’ approach to forest and woodland management. This rejects the need to obtain any wood products, is at best ambivalent about active bushfire management and views government and business as impediments to environmental preservation.
This book charts the recent history of uncompromising and largely unprincipled ‘save-theforest’ activism, and examines the complicity of the media in shaping an ill-founded community view that is at odds with the reality of contemporary forest management. Written from the perspective of a long career caring for and managing forests, it challenges the conventional wisdom that ceasing local wood production and placing huge swathes of forest in national parks is the best way to protect the environment. It examines the implications of this in terms of climate
change, bushfire management, biodiversity conservation, water production and the rising level of rainforest timber imports.
Copies are available at $29.95 (including GST) from selected booksellers in Victoria and Tasmania, or can be obtained through the Institute of Foresters website, www.forestry.org.au, for $39.95 (including gst and postage and handling).
Mark Poynter has been a professional forester for 30 years and has extensive experience in all aspects of native forest management, fire management, plantation development and management, and farm forestry. Like most foresters, he has been frustrated by the public misrepresentations of forest management associated with the enduring conflict over wood production and forest fire management, particularly in southern Australia. He is a member of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and the Association of Consulting Foresters of Australia.
Posted by jennifer at 01:08 PM | Comments (21) | TrackBack
September 05, 2007
Greenwashing River Red Gums
Ecotourism Australia has thrown its weight behind the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council’s River Red Gum Forest Draft Proposal, claiming that it will open up important new ecotourism opportunities for the region.
However, another NGO, Timber Communities Australia, argues that as many as 400 families, whose livelihoods are dependent on access to these forests, will be adversely affected by the proposals.
Ecotourism Australia's foray into the debate represents an expression of its mission to contribute to conservation solutions and projects; involving and providing benefits to local communities, but will those 400 families be the targeted beneficiaries?
My dubiousness reflects the pre-existing capacity of genuine ecotourism to access an already existing superb environment. Change of tenure to National Park is not prerequisite. What is does provide though, is subsidisation of the full costs of conservation and commercial operator relief of the requirement to improve the well-being of local people.
Genuine ecotourism is internationally defined as:
Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.
Ecotourism Australia is a membership-based organisation that is strongly representative of protected area managers and holders of commercial activity permits. It has adopted a different definition to the international standard:
Ecologically sustainable tourism with a primary focus on experiencing natural areas that fosters environmental and cultural understanding, appreciation and conservation.
The Oslo Statement on Ecotourism was recently produced at the Global Ecotourism Conference held in Norway 2007.
‘Ecotourism’ was recognized as being widely used, but also abused, as it is not sufficiently anchored to the definition. The ecotourism community, therefore, continues to face significant challenges in awareness building and education and actively working against greenwashing within the tourism industry.
Posted by neil at 07:33 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack
August 30, 2007
Stopping Logging Won't Stop Global Warming: A Note from Norman Endacott
Save the Forests: they are crucial to reducing CO2
This is the call to arms which we get from Professor Brendan Mackey, Professor of Environmental Science at the ANU, in the Opinion Section of the Melbourne's The Age of August 7, 2007. The heading was followed by a sub-heading which makes the unequivocal assertion that “Stopping Logging Will Help Solve the Global Warming Problem”.
He gives us a farrago of nonsense about the capability of the world’s forests in turning back the tide of man-made CO2 emissions, provided mankind will but leave those forests alone, without fire protection, unmanaged, un-logged, unharvested, and un-regenerated.
He focuses on Tasmania, and complains about the recent Labor endorsement of the status quo, wherein the Forest Management Agency (Forestry Tasmania) manages Tasmania’s public forests on Multiple Use and Sustainable bases.
On August 1st, Jon Faine who conducts ABC’s popular morning talkback radio programme, anticipated the doomsday scenario of Prof. Mackey concerning Tasmania and CO2 emissions. In an interview with Kevin Rudd on Labor policy, he accused Rudd of propounding a contradictory policy – on the one hand supporting the Government’s stand against Global Warming, and on the other hand commending the forestry status quo in Tasmania.
Professor Mackey and Jon Faine have acquired the same mindset, most likely from such sources as the Greens and the Wilderness Society, with all the accompanying anti-forestry baggage.
I will endeavour to tease out some of the falsehoods embedded in the Mackey article.
These are my counter-arguments:
(1) Tasmanian land-use statistics, present and past, indicate that today’s forest boundaries embrace land which stands at 66% of the hectares of forest that existed in 1803. Virtually no forest diminution occurred in the 20th century or later
(2) Furthermore, within Tasmania’s late 20th and early 21st centuries we have seen a prodigious area of Public Forest landscape dedicated as National Parks, Wilderness, Valleys of the Giants, so-called “Old Growth Forests”, Cool Temperate Rainforests, and “Forests of High ConservationValue”, also forests with romantic-sounding names, like “Tarkine”. These areas have been excluded from timber utilization in perpetuity.
(3) These swashbuckling logging exclusions occurred under the auspices of the Helsham Enquiry , the RFA Agreement, Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement 2005, and the 2004 pre-Federal Election horse-trading between Howard, Latham & Paul Lennon . This all happened within the span of a couple of decades. The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania has produced a set of progress maps which show the cumulative extent of reservations, as percentages of total forest. The cumulative % figures are : 1982 – 14%, 1992 – 21%, 2001 – 40%, 2006 - 47%.
Considering the situation on mainland Australia :
(4) If Prof.Mackey is advocating a vast Australia-wide plantation programme, as a supplement to the “saved” native forest, where is the productive land to be found? From compulsorily acquired farmland? If so, has he studied the problems of agricultural macro-economics on the national scale?
(5) Prof. Mackey claims that one hectare of mature, tall,wet forest can store the equivalent of 5,500 tonnes of CO2. This seems an extraordinarily large figure, and takes a lot of believing., especially as he blithely tosses it into the ring seemingly as an Australia-wide average. Probably he has this figure embedded in one or more published peer-reviewed “scientific” papers. If so, one would be interested to see how such an enormous figure matches up with the fact that cool temperate rain forest with a tall eucalypt overstory is seriously atypical of Australia’s forest landscapes. The land occupied by our overall forests is generally much less propitious to biomass production than his model. Low and unreliable rainfall( less than 800 mm), shallow and infertile soils (less than one metre depth) and low productivity are the norm. He further confuses the lay community by comparing all this with 1300 cars emitting exhaust fumes over one year, presumably continuously.
(6) Has Dr Mackey compiled a stratified map of Australian forests and potential forest areas, giving himself guidance in factoring hectares and biomass productivity classes into his computations? That would seem to be a sine qua non, to an expert on this subject.
(7) He does not appear to give any credit to the foresters of our country in their pursuit of Multiple Use and Sustainability. To him, their mission in life is simply to flog woodchips off to Japan.
(8) He manages to convey to us that the diminution of a forest is a greenhouse crime, but to do so with the alleged objective of producing pulpwood or woodchips would seem to be infinitely more reprehensible than any other usage. This gratuitous and unfavourable mention of woodchips divulges his covert philosophical linkages with green activist groups.
(9) In his baseless conviction that UNDISTURBED Australian forests are the answer to Australia’s alleged greenhouse problem, Prof. Mackey has lost the ecological plot and fails to grasp the myriad of complexities, constraints , limitations , roadblocks, perils , even stubbornness of Nature,which stand in the way of his masterly “green solution”.
Any forester worth his or her salt, is familiar with the manner in which a tree or forest stand passes through its life cycle (or in forester’s jargon, it’s rotation). Here are the stages in the cycle, starting from the initiation of an Australian afforestation event (natural or artificial), assuming eucalypts, and focussing on biomass (carbon) accumulation :
a) Juvenile phase - insignificant biomass production, grading through to significant and accelerating.
b) Sapling/ Pole phase - rapid growth in height volume and carbon content
c) Middle Age phase - maximum rate of growth in biomass
d) Mature phase - plateau effect, extending over decades.
e) Overmature phase – rate of growth of biomass in decline, verging on the static
f)Senescent phase- absolutely static growth, and tree health now a consideration, plus attack by insect and fungal parasites and saprophytes, leading inevitably to the forest giving up its store of organic matter to the atmosphere as CO2.
g) The first symptom of this disintegration of the forest overstory is the progressive shedding of the dead branches. The last stage is gravity consigning the mortal remains to the forest floor, to join the invertebrates, microbes, and of course the CO2 stream.
h) The question arises – what does Nature have in store for this “residual” forest area, which will have bitterly disappointed Professor Mackey by not retaining its carbon store and forest cover for more than a miserable couple of hundred years. No mention of the word “PERPETUITY” anywhere . That concept seems to be the preserve of Foresters !
i) If we search diligently for the evidence of this failure of our forests to perform to Prof. Mackey’s greenhouse aspirations, we could find the above ecological drama playing itself out in its final phase, in some veteran Eucalyptus regnans stands in Victorian Central Highlands, or Tasmania’s Florentine, Styx & Weld Valleys.
Norman Endacott.
(Retired Forester)
Posted by jennifer at 07:43 PM | Comments (4)
Geoffrey Cousins Should Visit Us: A Plea from Timber Workers in Tasmania
High profile Sydney business man Geoffrey Cousins is running a campaign against a new pulp mill proposed for the Tamar Valley in Tasmania. His campaign appears to haver resulted in the federal government deciding to delay their decision by at least six weeks. But how much does Geoffrey Cousins really know about the forestry industry?
Timber Communities Australia extends a public invited to Mr Geoffrey Cousins to visit and meet with Tasmanian timber dependent families.
Tasmanian timber families are only to willing to share with Mr Cousins their pride in being part of Tasmania’s sustainable forest and timber industries and provide him with the opportunity to see both sides of the picture.
“Mr Cousins admitted on local talk back radio this morning that he had not meet with timber dependent communities and we what to help him over come this failing” Barry Chipman Tasmanian State Manager Timber Communities Australia said today
“So far he has only heard outrageous claims, and we are very willing to assist him in seeing for him self just where the proposed pulp mill will be and how well our forests are managed”.
Mr Cousins Insurance Company sponsors the WWF Climate Change program, and this will be an opportunity to learn how Tasmanian forests are removing greenhouse gasses and that the proposed pulp mill will reduce greenhouse gasses.
“If Mr Cousins is prepared to meet with both sides, we are convinced he will be a supporter not a critic of the proposed pulp mill”
As a businessman he should know how important it is for Australia to reduce its deficit in trade of timber products.
“The Bell Bay Pulp Mill has the potential to reduce this balance of trade deficit by $400 to $450 million each year (20 to 25%).”
TCA would endeavour to assist him to visit Five Mile Bluff the site of the ocean outfall, as we wonder if he is aware that the Federal Department of Environment and Water “has not identified any likely significant impacts on the marine environment in Commonwealth waters from the proposed pulp mill.” [Recommendations Report Paragraph 36]
TCA also wonders if he is aware of how ECF pulp mills and for example wineries, co-exist in harmony in other parts of the world including France, Portugal and British Columbia, in fact right around the world with no adverse impacts.”
“We hope Mr Cousins will accept our invitation before he further puts at risk the social and economic well being of timber dependent families throughout Tasmania.” Mr Chipman concluded.
Posted by jennifer at 07:31 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Already an Aluminium Smelter in the 'Pristine' Tamar Valley: A Blog Post by Graham Young
If you were planning a pulp mill there could hardly be a better spot [than the Tamar Valley in Tasmania]. What's more, the area is so settled that only an idiot, or someone who hadn't even bothered with the minimum of research, could call it "pristine"...
Read the full blog post here which shows that the proposed site for the pulp mill in Tasmania is next to an established aluminium smelter in the supposedly pristine Tamar valley: http://ambit-gambit.nationalforum.com.au/archives/002259.html
Posted by jennifer at 06:17 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
August 29, 2007
Pulp Mill Debate getting sillier by the Minute! A note from Cinders.
Just when the ALP Leader Kevin Rudd and his Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett AM, MP, are being urged to bury the Ghost of former Environment Minister Graham “Richo” Richardson we see for Liberal leader John Hewson enter the fray.
Rudd and Garrett have been warned that the preference deal stitched up by Richo with the greens came at a huge cost to the Nation including “Two of the most noticeable Labor government pay-offs were the banning of a promising mining project at Coronation Hill, an area located within the boundaries of Kakadu National Park but in reality a patch of rubbishy wasteland, and of a paper pulp mill in southern Tasmania, opposed by a NIMBY coalition including hobby farmers who joined Bob Brown's burgeoning state Green party temporarily to push their interests:.:
The Australian Article quoted warned that the ALP must not fall into the same trap.
Now on the ABC’s 7.30 report told of how former Liberal leader John Hewson thinks “Turnbull's mad not to just set up an inquiry that kicks the issue off the election agenda.”
He of course is referring to Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in effect he is urging John Howard’s Liberal Government to do a “Richo” when the ALP “killed off “ the Wesley Vale pulp mil just before the 1990 Federal Election. By doing so according to the Institute of Public Affairs he created sovereign risk and economic hardship in Tasmania.
Let’s hope Minister Turnbull will take notice as the greens will never give their preferences to the Liberal National Party coalition as their state aim for this election is to defeat the Government.
Of course the 7.30 report couldn’t resist the misty vision of the Tamar Valley to portray it as ‘wonderful, beautiful wine growing area, wonderful sort of tourist area, and so on’. They did not show that the proposed mill is to be located in Tasmania’s largest industrial estate.
But perhaps that just par for the course for the National Broadcaster on the 5th of July they claimed the pulp would taint fish (http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200706/r148708_526664.asx) that featured vision of scallops being caught when the ABC was aware the vision was from 1999. That the fact scallops had not been caught in Bass Strait west of Flinders island since then is confirmed in public government /fishing industry reports.
More myths are flying about but will history repeat itself?
Cinders
Posted by Paul at 04:20 PM | TrackBack
Tasmanian Forests – The Wildcard in Australian Politics (Part 2)
According to Caroline Overington from The Australian, political aspirant Geoffrey Cousins’ inspiration is attributed to The Monthly’s Out of Control - The tragedy of Tasmania’s forests, by Richard Flanagan.
It is certainly a powerful lot of words that draw heavily on reader-environmentalism. Reference to Tasmania mortgaging its future to the woodchipping industry, reminded me of a contrary allegation from the Prime Minister in 2005, who described his offence to the idea that the extreme greens have a mortgage on concern and compassion for the forests or for the environment of this country.
No doubt there is as much cynicism from both sides of the debate, but in this mounting electoral issue: of national conservation significance versus state economic opportunity, Australia will be further divided unless political integrity prevails.
In matters such as these there is no doubt that corruption represents the greatest obstacle to the achievement of political propriety. Whether the iconic forests of Tasmania are quarantined from logging or their availability for woodchipping is secured, federal and state intervention is vulnerable to corruption without:
• the effective integration of economic and environmental considerations;
• maintaining or enhancing the productivity of environmental assets, as well as their health and diversity,
• ensuring that environmental actions are cost-effective and not disproportionate to the significance of identified problems, and
• ensuring that consumer pricing is consistent with the full life cycle costs of providing environmental goods and services.
Posted by neil at 02:19 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
August 25, 2007
The French Mix Pulp Mills & Wineries: A Media Release from Barry Chipman
The Australian media has been in a frenzy over a proposed pulp mill for the Tamar Valley in Tasmania. Most recent objections have included the idea that the mill should be located away from wineries. Yesterday, Barry Chipman from the NGO Timber Communities Australia had the following response:
Following claims that the proposed Bell Bay pulp mill could impact upon the Tamar Valley’s valued wineries Timber Communities Australia conducted its own research looking at the economic make up of other major wine producing regions.
“That research commenced at what TCA saw as the top of the tree in wine producing regions; being the Bordeaux region in South West France, The region is promoted as the Fine Wine Capital of the World and our findings where quite amazing in light of what’s being claimed here.” Barry Chipman Tasmanian State Manager Timber Communities Australia said today
The Bordeaux region produces 800 million litres of the highest quality wine annually, the region also attracts 3 million tourists annually.
Along side of this world leading fine wine and tourist industry is a very devise cultivated forest industry producing, Kraft pulp (Smurfit Kappa Cellulose de Pin pulp mill) glazed Kraft paper, Liner Kraft paper, Fluff pulp, and the full range of sawn timber products. (Including many wine crates) This wood products industry generates 2.5 billon EUR annually.
The Bordeaux region is also internationally recognised as a major scientific and technical centre for wood, product research including a major focus upon pulp and paper in particular ECF technology, the centre employs 200 researchers.
Then over in the neighbouring North East is another major fine wine and tourist region of Probence, and within the region surrounded by fine wine vineyards, is the Tarscon-sur-Rhone ECF pulp mill. (This is the same technology as the proposed Bell Bay pulp mill.)
Upon learning how, French wine producers and wood and paper products producers appear to prosper in harmony with each other it is hoped that this can also translate to Tamar Valley.
Perhaps those that seem to have doubts about this could just as a starter follow TCA’s lead and “Goggle” Bordeaux then follow up with ECF pulp mills Bordeaux France
Tasmania should not be left behind by the French we to can be a world leader in demonstrating harmony between all industries. Mr Chipman concluded
Posted by jennifer at 10:30 AM | Comments (27) | TrackBack
August 23, 2007
Tasmanian Forests – The Wildcard in Australian Politics
Over the last decade or so Tasmanian forestry issues have emerged as the predictable wildcard in Australian federal politics. I say predictable because the issue is always there but tends to manifests itself in unpredictable ways.
At the last federal election unionists rallied for John Howard, a Liberal Prime Minister, when Mark Latham, the Labor challenger went ‘too green’ in his forestry policies. Neither political party released its forestry policy until the last week of the campaign. Then a few days out from the election, television images of blue-collar workers cheering John Howard at a rally in Launceston stole momentum from the Labor party in the final days of the campaign.
There is another federal election likely sometime before the end of the year and it initially appeared Tasmanian forestry would not be an issue. Both parties have similar policies including on a proposed pulp mill.
But a now former prime ministerial adviser has decided to very publicly attack the environment minister for apparently supporting the pulp mill.
Geoffrey Cousins says he will campaign against Malcolm Turnbull because he is appalled the Minister has fast-tracked the approval process for the proposed $2 billion Gunns pulp mill in northern Tasmania.
As far as I can tell the pulp mill has not been fast tracked. Rather the greens have thrown as many obstacles in the way as they can over many years, and every time one is lifted out of the way, someone is accused of being undemocratic or fast tracking approvals?
And who is Mr Cousins anyway. Why is the media making such a big deal out of his bully-boy tactics?
Previous posts on this issue include:
Tasmanian Pulp Mill assessment process vindicated by the Federal court http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002209.html
Tasmanian Pulp Mill at Crossroads: A Note from Cinders
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001972.html
Posted by jennifer at 10:48 AM | Comments (16) | TrackBack
August 22, 2007
The Great "Illegal" Logging Swindle
In a note from Gavin, attention is drawn to Tim Curtin and The Great “Illegal” Logging Swindle.
It appears that the primary issue concerns the propriety of Australia’s (and other OECD countries including USA and UK) criteria for establishing the ‘illegality’ of import logging.
Australia’s Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation (Senator, the Hon. Eric Abetz), relies largely upon its commissioned Jaakko Pöyry Report (JPC), which ranks source countries of Australia’s timber products, first by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (TICPI) and then by its own assessment of their governance and managment capacity (GMC).
JPC deems the total timber exports to Australia, from countries with high TICPI and medium or low GMC, as illegal or at best “suspicious”.
Under its own environmental policies, Australia has acknowledged that to achieve sustainable economic development, there is a need for a country's international competitiveness to be maintained and enhanced in an environmentally sound manner. Unfortunately, there exists no compliance requirement to its own Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment and as a consequence there is often no accountability.
Posted by neil at 11:40 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 16, 2007
Different Emotional Responses to Mining and Logging in Jarrah Forests: A Note from Boxer
The response by our society to mining on one hand and logging on the other in the jarrah forests of Western Australia could not be more in contrast. Alcoa’s bauxite mining is met with silence, but to oppose logging of virtually any sort (even of plantations in some cases) has become a normal part of the moral foundation for all well-informed citizens. Yet if we look at other forms of economic activity that covers large tracts of land, only well-managed tourism could be said to have a similar or less environmental impact than well-managed commercial native forestry.
As Roger Underwood recently explained, bauxite mining causes total removal of all organisms from large tracts of the forest and removal of several metres of soil (bauxite ore), material that is the foundation upon which a forest exists. This is followed by re-establishment of the forest back onto the irreversibly altered soil profile. The changes that are imposed by mining are permanent in terms of geological time scales – these soils/ores were formed on-site by many millions of years of weathering of the underlying granite basement rock. Roger’s post gives additional important information.
Logging on the other hand is a short period of harvesting that occurs within a process that takes many decades: the forest is regenerated, managed by thinning, controlled burning and other practices, leading to the maturing of the overstorey trees over a period of between one and several human generations. Harvesting occurs again, followed by the same regeneration and management process. Many Australian native forests have been through two or three such cycles, yet they are now considered “high conservation value” forests by the greens and the public.
Harvesting may be either clear felling at one extreme to selective (individual tree) logging at the other, and there is a continuous spectrum of logging practices between the extremes. But most importantly, the soil is left almost undisturbed compared to mining, and the understory is not stripped away. No species has been recorded as having been driven to extinction by logging in Australia, though this is not a reason to be complacent. It does indicate that the commercial use of native Australian forests since European settlement has had less impact upon biodiversity than urban expansion or farming, or indeed the first arrival of humans tens of thousands of years ago.
Possibly the paradox arises because of three factors and our normal emotional responses to these factors. They are our perception of order versus chaos, a sense of time, and a sense of space.
Order versus chaos
Order and chaos are easy to recognise. In this context, logging is chaotic. The jumble of smashed limbs and small trees presents a confronting image. Furthermore, as timber has a relatively low economic value and the yields per hectare are relatively low, the logging debris is left in place for a year or so and then burnt (more chaos), which means that chaos interacts with time to create the impression of lasting destruction. There is plenty of time for Bob Brown to get up on top of the biggest stump (“big” being related to our sense of space) for photo opportunities.
In contrast mining demonstrates a good deal of order. After logging, the debris, stumps, and all the understorey is heaped and mulched and removed promptly. Access to the entire mining “envelope” is prohibited for safety reasons. Some of this biomass debris is sold for renewable energy and charcoal, whereas native forest logging residues from normal logging are ruled to be non-renewable. This is known as “painting with the Alcoa brush”, because this is all it takes to change a commodity from dirty and undesirable to green and renewable. This simple self-deception occurs at senior corporate and political levels, as well as at the general public level. I maintain that it makes more sense to consider all the biomass residues from logging and mining to be renewable, as occurs across Europe and North America.
The sense of order in mining continues because after the removal of the biomass residues the open mine area looks like a ploughed paddock. The boundary of the surrounding forest is clearly and cleanly defined and looking into a tall forest from the side is an emotionally pleasant experience. As the site is stripped, drilled, blasted and the ore removed, there is little confronting imagery of chaos, though many people find the instant of blasting very confronting if they can see it. By the time the public are allowed back (after the mining envelope moves away through the bush) the pit has been rehabilitated and order continues to reign – smoothed contours, curved parallel rip lines, young plants germinating under-foot. It’s a positively pastoral image.
The importance of time comes up in several ways. During the time of public exclusion from a mining envelope, the public is unaware of the time passing for this particular point in the forest. A tour of Alcoa’s operations takes you from one point in the process to the next by bus: this step is followed by this step, by this step etc, and then ... here is the rehabilitated pit. The emotional response of the viewer is influenced by the rapidity of the tour. You’re back home in time for tea. The same occurs if foresters take you on a tour of forest operations, but the demand for such tours is non-existent. The public do not wish to be further informed about commercial forestry and the political arm of government would be reluctant to fund such public relations exercises for an industry that the public tells them should be closed down.
In contrast, the campaigns against forestry always leave the observer with the impression that this smashed up post-logging condition is the end result, rather than the end of one week’s work in a cycle that spans many decades. You are never shown photos of the stump Bob Brown stood on ten years after the logging, because the regrowth at that stage is so thick, it would tend to detract from the message of “devastation, forever”. Bob wouldn’t even be able to find the same stump.
A sense of time
Time can also be influential in other ways; telling people that the devastation in this photo will look like the young forest in that tourist brochure in three decades has little emotional impact. A trivial immediate benefit is of much greater emotional consequence than a major benefit in the next decade. So long periods of time can make it harder to portray the concept of an environmental impact now (logging) being followed by a positive response a human generation in the future.
It is interesting how green activism often involves the use of photos taken in regrowth forest. In this case, the beauty of the tall evenly-spaced trees (the sense of order again, but did you realise they are spaced that way because of thinning?) is used to convey the impression of permanence, and the permanence of a good thing being desirable. Senescing forest, with it’s dead tops and crooked old trees, is rarely used for this type of publicity, because to do so would disrupt the sense of order and implies decay, and so undermines the association between the attractive forest and permanence. However if you take people to that same patch of regrowth forest and show them a photo of what the exact same spot looked like immediately after it was last logged, or killed by wildfire, they are astounded and often excited. In this case it is possible to use a long period of time from the past devastation to convey the understanding that the forest is a vibrant dynamic system. I find young forests uplifting.
A sense of space
Space is critical. Big is always better in emotional terms if you are contemplating an object of which you approve, but the reverse applies if you are contemplating something of which you disapprove. (If you want to minimise the effect of a traumatic memory, you repeatedly visualise it and then make the image smaller in your mind.) A tall dominant tree species is generally much more emotionally influential than a dumpy sub-dominant species. A tall straight tree is more valuable than a crooked or heavily forked tree, which comes back to the sense of order and possibly the perception of beauty being related to symmetry.
Selective, or single-tree logging is widely perceived to be more benign than clear-felling, because the area of chaos is smal