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Forest and wood body seeks growth - Philip Hopkins May 22, 2006

Government double standard threatens Murray’s future - EV Media Release - May 15, 2006

Taxpayer funds used to build new road into Upper Florentine old growth - The Wilderness Society of Tasmania - MEDIA RELEASE - May 15, 2006

12/05/06 Wind farms halted as help dries up, - By Nassim Khadem, The Age May 12, 2006

Red gum wetland forests clearfelled - EV Media Release May 11, 2006

FEDERAL BUDGET BOOSTS PUBLIC SUBSIDY OF PULP MILL - The Wilderness Society of Tasmania - MEDIA RELEASE May 10, 2006

More plants and animals join 'red list' of endangered species, By Stephen Cauchi, The Age May 6, 2006

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Forest and wood body seeks growth

By Philip Hopkins
May 22, 2006

The forest and wood products industry's research body will be privatised in a bid to give the sector more market clout and ensure its future.

The Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation, a statutory body funded by the Commonwealth and industry, has voted to become an industry-owned company. The new company will be called Forest and Wood Products Australia.

The corporation's members are plantation and paper products group A3P, the National Association of Forest Industries, Australian Forest Growers and the Australian Timber Importers Federation. A3P chief executive Neil Fisher said the privatised body would be able to market and promote timber as well as continue its research and development role.

The need for a more commercial structure to deliver both better R&D as well as marketing and promotion programs had long been apparent. "We will be now able to promote timber over our competitors like aluminium, concrete and steel," he said.

Current federal legislation only allows the corporation to undertake R&D. Marketing and promotion are forbidden.

Mr Fisher said new plantation growers agreed to levy themselves, and these funds would be matched by government, creating a more financially robust body. In the past, there had been a lack of funds to promote the advantages of wood, he said. The corporation has been funded by the Commonwealth and by levies on sawlog processors.

Mr Fisher likened the body to Meat & Livestock Australia, which had had great success in promoting red-meat sales.

After the necessary legislation is passed by Parliament, Mr Fisher said he hoped the body would be up and running by July 1 next year.

The move to privatise and increase timber promotion comes as the industry faces many challenges. An industry steering committee identified some of these as:

■ Increasing restrictions on use of native forest timber and difficulties in developing new plantations.

■ Competitive pressure from timber imports.

■ A lack of domestic processing to compete with imports, particularly pulp and paper, and supply growing markets overseas.

Mr Fisher said the industry was also concerned that it was poorly received in the market. "Industry is frustrated that wood's real environmental values are being largely overlooked by consumers," he said.

Mr Fisher said wood products from managed forests had many natural properties. These included recycling potential, sustainability and positive greenhouse impacts.

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EV Media Release : - Monday, May 15 2006:

The Victorian Government must commit to buying water to revive the Murray in the wake of a leaked CSIRO report showing the river needs five times more water than promised just to maintain its current inadequate health.

Environment Victoria and the Australian Conservation Foundation have criticised the Victorian Government for its double standards in refusing to buy water for the Murray while buying water for urban supplies.

Environment Victoria Healthy Rivers Campaign Director Dr Paul Sinclair said not one drop of the 500 gigalitres promised to the Murray River in 2003 has been returned to the river.

"The Murray is dying and desperately needs governments to stop stalling and start acting in the national interest . It’s time the Victorian Government bought much-needed water for the river and committed to a long-term plan to restore the once-mighty Murray."

Australian Conservation Foundation Healthy Rivers Campaigner Dr Arlene Buchan said current plans to return water to the Murray were clearly inadequate.

"It’s time for the Federal and State Governments to stop tinkering around the edges," Dr Buchan said.

"It’s not good enough to simply slow the pace of decline. We need a large re-allocation of water from irrigation to the environment to bring the Murray back to life."

The South Australian Government announced on Friday that a significant portion of their obligations under the Living Murray scheme would be met by buying water from willing sellers.

Meanwhile, the Victorian Government refuses to buy water for the Murray despite buying water from irrigators for urban use. In recent developments:

• Bendigo City Council has made a commitment to buy water from irrigators for urban water supply. The City of Bendigo will spend $250 000 a year buying 250 megalites of water.
• Coliban Water Authority has bought over 900 megalites for urban water supply.
• The Government’s plan for securing water for Melbourne includes voluntary buybacks of water.

"If it’s good enough to buy water for Bendigo then it’s good enough to buy it for the Murray," Dr Sinclair said. "The Victorian Government needs to make a long-term commitment to return at least another 1500 gigalitres to the Murray with enforceable targets to make sure the promises are kept.’’

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The Tasmanian Government may have made a liar of federal Forestry Minister, Senator Eric Abetz, by using taxpayers’ funds from the $250-million forests package on building a new logging road into pristine oldgrowth forests in the Upper Florentine.

Yesterday, Senator Abetz denied that taxpayers’ funds are being used to prop up oldgrowth woodchipping.

However, the Wilderness Society’s Tasmanian Campaign Coordinator, Geoff Law, said that he has been told by Forestry Tasmania that money from the package will be used on a new logging road into pristine oldgrowth forests in the Upper Florentine.

"Taxpayers’ funds are being used to build a new logging road into an area the Prime Minister promised to protect," Mr Law said. "Most of the oldgrowth logs extracted will go to woodchip exports."

"This contradicts Senator Abetz’s denial that taxpayers’ funds are being used to financially prop up oldgrowth woodchipping."

"Today’s Mercury has reported that the Governments will not financially assist redundant contractors to leave the industry will dignity. Yet the Governments are prepared to pour taxpayers’ funds into propping up oldgrowth logging in places such as the upper Florentine."

The Australian Government promised to protect 18,700 hectares of oldgrowth forests in the Styx and Florentine, but failed to keep that promise, protecting only 4730 ha. Only 10 days after the March state election, Forestry Tasmania began constructing a new logging road into the upper Florentine. This prompted protests by the Wilderness Society. Forestry Tasmania’s logging plan says that 70% of the logs extracted from this oldgrowth forest will go directly to woodchipping.

A transcript from yesterday shows Senator Abetz denying that taxpayers’ funds are being used to prop up oldgrowth woodchipping:

 Law: Millions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds to fight market forces and prop up old-growth woodchipping at a time when that industry would otherwise be unsustainable.

 "Senator Abetz has got it wrong," Mr Law said. "His Government is using taxpayers’ funds to log oldgrowth forests."

For The Wilderness Society (Tas) Inc

130 Davey St, Hobart TAS 7000

Phone 03 6224 1550 Fax 03 6223 5112

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By Nassim Khadem, The Age
May 12, 2006

WIND farm developments in Tasmania and South Australia worth $550 million have been halted because the Federal Government will not increase incentives for energy retailers to invest in wind energy.

Mark Kelleher, managing director of wind power venture Roaring 40s, said it had suspended two big projects because the Government refused to extend the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target. The scheme encourages electricity suppliers to invest in renewable energy and is almost fully subscribed.

Mr Kelleher said unless the scheme was extended, or a similar one introduced, the wind industry was doomed.

Roaring 40s had suspended its $300 million Heemskirk wind farm project on the west coast of Tasmania and the $250 million Waterloo wind farm 100 kilometres north of Adelaide.

Mr Kelleher said plans for another 10 projects also had been stopped.

Roaring 40s, a joint venture of Hydro Tasmania and Hong Kong's CLP Group, operates three wind farms in Australia and others overseas.

Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell has refused to extend the target scheme, saying it was still not fully subscribed. Senator Campbell wants to introduce a national code giving local councils greater powers to block wind farms if there is community opposition, a move that all states have rejected.

Mr Kelleher said that unless the scheme was extended, all wind farm proposals would be scrapped. Labor environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said the Government was ignoring clean energy. "Roaring 40s announced a $300 million deal to provide three wind farms to China," he said. "They're welcome in China, but not in John Howard's Australia."

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EV Media Release

National Parks Association of NSW, while congratulating the Federal Government for its commitment to river health, has called into question the NSW Government’s continued mismanagement of Murray Darling floodplain State Forests.

Conservation groups this week found a series of massive clearfell operations, including one 200m by 120 m, only metres from the banks of the Murray near Tooleybuc in NSW. The logging can be seen from the Murray Valley Highway on the Victorian side of the River.

National Parks Association of NSW Red Gum Icons Project Officer, Jacquie Kelly said, "This clearfell is so big that it looks like they wanted to put in a stadium the size of the SCG".

"If the destruction of the Red Gum forests continue this will put the water dependant ecosystems back years and do nothing to improve water quality", Jacquie Kelly said.

"The Murray River forests are seriously stressed, with swathes of Red Gums dead and dying, yet the NSW Government is allowing clearfell logging to further degrade them, threatening endangered species like the Regent Parrot", Dr Kelly said.

"The Millewa forest and Koondrook-Perricoota forests between Barham and Moama on the Murray, are part of the biggest Red Gum wetland forests in the world and Icon sites under The Living Murray, but are being clearfell logged."

"To save these floodplain forests a linked system of National Parks and Reserves along the Murray and its tributaries must be created".

The Red Gum Icons project is a cross border campaign of the Victorian National Parks Association and the National Parks Association of NSW who are pushing for the Governments of both States to stop logging and grazing in the high conservation Red Gum forests.

See www.vnpa.org.au for more information.

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 The Wilderness Society of Tasmania - MEDIA RELEASE - 10 May 2006

Last night’s federal budget held a further $60 million of public subsidy for the proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill. The money, to be spent on the East Tamar Highway, adds to the eight plus million dollars of taxpayer money already pledged in the form of public relations funding and corporate welfare.

 The highway upgrade of the main road transport route to the proposed pulp mill would prop up what is already a heavily subsidised project.

 "The $6 million funding pledged for the PR campaign run by the Pulp Mill Task Force and a $2.4 million paid as a first installment of $5 million promised by the federal government are precious taxpayer dollars already spent on giving this pulp mill a public leg up," said The Wilderness Society spokesperson Vica Bayley.

 "Taxpayer funds are being thrown at a mill that will drive ongoing forest destruction and pollute both the air and marine environment," concluded Mr Bayley.

Further information: Vica Bayley 0400 644 939 , (03) 6224 1550

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More plants and animals join 'red list' of endangered species

By Stephen Cauchi, The Age
May 6, 2006

THE World Conservation Union's "Red List" of threatened species shows more of the planet's plants and animals are becoming endangered.

While the great extinction events of prehistory — the death of the dinosaurs, for example — were caused by asteroids, volcanoes, or some other natural catastrophe, the extinction of species in our current age, while less deadly, is unique in one regard: it is man-made. And Australia is host to 639 threatened species, ranking eighth in the world.

Polar bears, hippopotamuses and several species of Saharan gazelle have joined the list, which was released yesterday. In Australia, the giant kangaroo rat, hairy-nosed wombat, southern bluefin tuna and orange-bellied parrot are among the animals that will go the way of the dodo unless something is done.

The statistics make for sober reading. More than 16,000 species are threatened with extinction, including one in three amphibians, a quarter of the world's coniferous trees, one in eight birds and one in four mammals.

Union director-general Achim Steiner said: "Biodiversity loss is increasing, not slowing down. The implications of this trend for the productivity and resilience of ecosystems and the lives and livelihoods of billions of people who depend on them are far-reaching."

The union — a network of government and non-government agencies from around the world, with headquarters in Switzerland — lists hunting, overfishing and climate change as the chief villains. The latter is set to claim the polar bear as the Arctic icecap melts over the next century.

The union's report said: "Dependent upon Arctic ice-floes for hunting seals and highly specialised for life in the Arctic marine environment, polar bears are expected to suffer more than a 30 per cent population decline in the next 45 years. Global warming is set to become one of the main threats to biodiversity if current predictions are correct."

The decline of the hippopotamus, notes the union, has been "catastrophic". In 1994, the Democratic Republic of the Congo had 30,000 hippopotamuses. Now it has less than 2000, thanks to unchecked hunting for their meat and ivory.

The union's chief scientist, Jeffrey McNeely, said: "Regional conflicts and political instability in some African countries have created hardship for many of the region's inhabitants and the impact on wildlife has been equally devastating."

He said Queensland and Western Australia were most vulnerable to species loss in Australia because of climate change. (The report notes that countries in the tropics are home to most of the world's species and therefore shoulder a higher burden of endangered species.)

The report said: "The status of certain species has improved: proof that conservation does work." It named the Christmas Island seabird, the Western Australian whiskery shark and the humpback whales off eastern Australia as success stories.

During the week, federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell said the Government had an "integrated package … for delivering biodiversity recovery" and pointed to an increased number of bilbies as a success story. He said the Government had also stopped construction of a wind farm in Victoria to save the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot. But, the Australian Greens says there is no Government intervention in Tasmania where logging threatens the wedge-tailed eagle and the swift parrot. Nor, despite the threat posed by rising temperatures to vulnerable species, did Australia sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

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