National News - January 2007
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26/01/07 Credit where accreditation is due Geoff Gorrie, chairman of Australian Forestry ; The Age Business
22/01/07 Canberra cuts down timber standard, Michael Spencer, The Age, Business,
17/01/07 Forest policy needs a national prism, Michael Spencer, The Age, Business
16/01/07 Facts, furphies and bushfire management, The Age - Letters , Professor Ross Bradstock, Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, University of Wollongong and Dr Dick Williams, CSIRO Tropical Ecosystems Research Centre, Darwin
08/01/07 Need for the facts to fight deadly fires, The Age Letters, ATHOL Hodgson; Links
02/01/07 Locking up forests increases risk of fires, Catherine Murphy, CEO NAFI
02/01/07 Green kayaker attempts Sydney to Hobart, The Age
Credit where accreditation is due
Certification matters
.Geoff Gorrie, chairman of Australian Forestry ;The Age Business
January 26, 2007
Photo: Forestry Plantations Queensland
INCREASING numbers of discerning consumers, and growing awareness of the need to question the environmental credentials of products such as timber and paper, have resulted in the development of two major international schemes for forest certification.
These schemes are designed to provide criteria and requirements for forest managers to demonstrate that they have implemented sustainable forest management so that their operations can become certified as legal and sustainable, and reduce the sale of illegally sourced wood products in the market.
However, a gap has appeared between the robustness and transparency of the two competing schemes that is causing problems in reducing the impact of illegal logging worldwide. The schemes include the world's leading scheme, the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), which certifies almost 200 million hectares of forests globally, and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which certifies more than 80 million hectares worldwide. Both schemes have been made available to Australian forest managers and owners.
Australia's forest industry, together with the Australian and state and territory governments, developed a forest certification scheme for Australian forests, known as the Australian Forest Certification Scheme (AFCS). Recognised internationally as part of the PEFC, the AFCS has certified about 8.5 million hectares of Australian native forests and plantations in public and private forests.
The AFCS now certifies the government forestry operations in NSW, Tasmania, South Australia, and Queensland. The Victorian Government's forest manager, VicForests, is in the process of finalising its AFCS certification and it is hoped that Western Australia's forests will soon become certified under the AFCS.
A relative newcomer to the Australian forest industry, the Forest Stewardship Council has certified about 500,000 hectares of plantation forests.
The standards for forest management are quite different. The Australian Forestry Standard has been developed by Australians for Australian conditions, and is recognised by Standards Australia. The FSC uses two interim regional standards provided by international certification bodies and is yet to develop a standard specifically for Australia as a whole.
Internationally, the PEFC scheme (which includes the AFCS) is, judging by the size of the area it has certified, the preferred scheme. This may be because the FSC has been criticised for its lack of independence of the basic functions in its processes for setting standards and assessing conformance with them.
Each element of the certification process (standard setting, certification and accreditation) should be independent and transparent, as it is within the PEFC scheme. However, FSC manages all of these functions and thus compromises the credibility and objectivity of the certification standard.
PEFC is not an accreditation body. It uses independent third-party certification bodies that are accredited by national accreditation bodies, which are subject to peer review. Forests are then certified by these certification bodies according to the certification standard of the national certification schemes, allowing provision of the PEFC and AFS logo.
JAS-ANZ is the independent accreditation body for the AFCS. It is the recognised national accreditation system of Australia and New Zealand and is a member of the International Accreditation Forum, which provides the peer review.
Perhaps the root of FSC's inability to keep up with the PEFC is its framework for sustainable forest management, which was developed by the FSC membership. Thus, standards invariably reflect the values of the FSC membership, which is dominated by environmental non-government organisations such as WWF, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.
Its smaller size means less FSC wood is available. FSC Australia's Michael Spencer has recently lauded some Australian companies for starting to label products as FSC certified. Due to the lack of forests certified through FSC in Australia, the FSC has developed a mixed sources policy that requires paper products to contain just 10 per cent FSC-certified materials.
In contrast, the PEFC and AFS logo can only be used if the sum of contents of PEFC and AFCS-certified material, which is verified by a chain of custody certification, exceeds the minimum threshold of 70 per cent. Having 70 per cent or more of your product from PEFC and AFCS-certified material demonstrates a more credible position for a company on sustainable management than just 10 per cent.
Spencer also lauds the FSC in Britain but the PEFC and AFCS schemes are fully accepted by the British Government in terms of legality and sustainability for its public timber procurement.
There is room for two major forest certification networks in the world. FSC should get on the job with the intent of forest certification; ensuring that more forests are certified as legally and sustainably managed. This is just what the PEFC and the AFCS are doing.
Arguments in recent opinion pieces by the chief executive of FSC's Australian branch have criticised the Australian Government, while avoiding more detailed issues of accountability of its own certification schemes. If you want to look at FSC certification related issues, go to www.fsc-watch.org.
FSC Australia has focused on gaining the endorsement of groups such as the Green Building Council of Australia and the WWF, instead of providing a robust standard of forest management that includes checks and balances by independent national bodies.
The FSC is in danger of becoming focused on promoting a commercial brand name rather than providing a mechanism that provides buyers of forest products the option of buying materials that satisfy strict environmental guidelines.
The FSC should let its reputation and stringency do the talking and return to the original intent of forest certification, which is to reduce illegal logging and unsustainable forestry practices and acknowledge responsible and sustainable forest management.
Geoff Gorrie is chairman of Australian Forestry
Michael Spencer, The Age, Business,
January 22, 2007
Fragile environment.
Photo: Andrew Meares
THE failure of the Federal Government to respond swiftly and effectively to Australia's $400 million involvement in the international trade in illegal wood is symptomatic of a deeper malaise in Canberra over policies towards the forest industry.
The minister, Eric Abetz, recently released a "do almost nothing" response to an earlier report that identified the extent of Australia's involvement in the illegal wood trade — a trade that robs poor nations of income, causes deforestation and contributes to global warming.
The Australian industry needs leadership from Canberra on this issue. Apart from the impact in host countries, US research shows that the trade in illegal wood is depressing world prices for wood products by between 7 and 16 per cent.
Unfortunately, the Government has chosen to ignore the firm action being taken by European governments in Britain, Denmark and Belgium.
In these countries, Forest Stewardship Council certification is an important part of action being taken by governments through public procurement programs that ask for verification of legality and sustainability of timber supplies.
Canberra's problem with FSC certification was illustrated when Senator Abetz opened a forest growers' conference recently by criticising British Government ministers for "promoting the virtues of FSC" and for "suggesting Australia should adopt this standard".
The strength of his antipathy was highlighted on radio the next day when he attempted to disparage the FSC as a "Mexico-based" group, even though it has been based in Bonn with the strong support of the German Government for several years.
These churlish attacks appear to be driven by a desire of the Tasmanian senator to defend forest practices in his home state rather than an understanding of what is happening globally, and in the broader Australian industry.
The minister and his "me too" Opposition shadow, Tasmanian senator Kerry O'Brien, seem determined to establish Tasmanian practice as the benchmark for Australia rather than supporting the efforts of companies on the mainland to meet the global FSC standard.
In Victoria, the largest players in the forest products market, including Australian Paper, ITC, Hancock Victorian Plantations and Timbercorp, have adopted FSC certification. The industry association has also indicated its interest in the potential of FSC certification.
Western Australia has three tree plantations certified to FSC standards. In Queensland, the industry association recently joined FSC Australia. Nationally, more than half the privately owned tree plantations are FSC-certified.
One week after the minister's attacks on the FSC, about 70 people assembled near Melbourne to start developing an Australian FSC forest management standard. They included 20 corporate representatives, eight industry-association representatives and eight government representatives as well as the national environmental groups and people with industrial and community interests in forests.
In the same week, seminars in Melbourne and Sydney aimed at linking FSC-certified companies with architects and builders attracted more than 50 participants each.
Canberra needs to get over its mind-set that anything environmental groups support must be attacked and vilified.
The FSC provides neutral ground for economic, social and environmental interests to agree on what responsible forest management means on the ground. The FSC certification system is a market-driven tool for responsible forest management.
Strong growth in the FSC system globally is being driven by consumer concern about the environment and forests, and recognition by leading companies that dealing with this concern is important for developing their business.
Vince Erasmus, chief executive of ITC, said after the minister's attack on the FSC: "The vast majority of our end customers for both woodchip and sawn timber products demand FSC-certified product."
Erasmus went on to urge the Government to support the initiative to develop a national FSC standard for Australia because "certification delivers significant commercial advantage to our industry".
Academic research shows that consumers believe independent certification is helpful in verifying the origin of forest products and put most trust in independent non-government organisations such as the FSC to certify the products.
That is why the FSC has more than 5000 companies participating in its chain-of-custody system around the world and the number of Australian companies participating in this system has tripled in the past year from 10 to 30.
In Britain the nine major retailers now account for more than £1 billion ($A2.5 billion) in annual turnover of FSC-certified products. Many of them not only carry the products but are members and participate in the FSC system.
In the past two years, the presence of certified products in Britain has spread from major retailers down to smaller retailers.
The FSC system has also been picked up in government procurement policies and is the first global system recognised as verification of legality and sustainability in British Government public procurement policies.
It has spread to local government. The Greater London Authority has a policy that says: "We will purchase sustainably produced timber and timber products (such as joinery, fittings, furniture and veneers), specifying that products carry the Forest Stewardship Council certificate."
It has spread to the banking sector, where HSBC has published guidelines that state: "It is HSBC's preference to deal with customers in (the forestry and forest products sector) that are either operating managed forests that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, or equivalent FSC-recognised standard, or trade in products that are FSC-certified or equivalent."
In the Netherlands, 13 per cent of the wood trade is FSC-certified and one in four Dutch people look for FSC certification when buying forest products.
The picture in Switzerland is just as strong and FSC certification is spreading through Germany, Sweden and Italy and into the newly emerging countries of middle Europe while gradually picking up in Spain, Portugal and even France.
Across the Atlantic in North America, FSC certification is the issue for the paper industry, with companies such as Citigroup citing it in its policies. The green building industry is a major driver of demand for FSC-certified solid wood.
Of course Japan is another important market, where the FSC system is taking off, and that is having a big impact on buying decisions.
The same growth is taking place in Australia, where the biggest issues are the availability of FSC-certified papers and sawn wood.
Instead of trying to undermine the FSC system in Australia, Canberra politicians should be supporting efforts by the local industry to win a stronger share of global export markets through FSC certification.
A change in attitude towards the FSC would also give them more policy options to tackle Australia's participation in the global illegal wood trade and the opportunity to adopt the best-practice approach of the British Government.
Instead, both federal parties are obsessed with the local politics of Tasmania. Their obsession deprives the industry of genuine national political leadership.
Michael Spencer is chief executive of the Forest Stewardship Council Australia.
Michael Spencer, The Age, Business
January 17, 2007
Prime Minister John Howard and Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon see the wood and the trees.
Photo: Andrew Taylor
The imbroglio over political interference with an "independent" panel appointed to review the Tasmanian pulp-mill proposal demonstrates once again that Tasmanian forest issues are, it is hoped, different.
This latest controversy follows a recent Federal Court decision that found that Forestry Tasmania had engaged in operations that were contrary to the provisions of Commonwealth legislation.
And these issues are set against a background where Tasmania is the only state in Australia where widespread conversion of natural forests to plantations is permitted.
Yet it is unfortunate that accommodation of Tasmania continues to dominate and control the federal policy agenda.
This may be a tribute to the Tasmania lobbyists and a federal system that provides disproportionate representation to the island state, but it is also a cause of irritation to those promoting responsible forestry in the rest of Australia.
On the mainland, six forest-management companies with more than half a million hectares of forest and tree plantations and 31 companies operating in the supply chain are certified to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards.
These businesses are distinguishing themselves in local and international markets by adopting a system of social and environment standards that has the support of a wide range of national and international non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders.
And it is working. One FSC-certified company, Timbercorp, was reported last year to have achieved higher prices in export markets than its Tasmanian counterparts. While Timbercorp asserts it has "better wood", it also has better management.
Another company, Hancock Victorian Plantations, is receiving a premium for its FSC-certified product over its non-FSC-certified product and a stream of inquiries from local and international customers looking for FSC-certified wood.
Vince Erasmus, chief executive of another FSC-certified company, ITC, said last year that "the vast majority of our end customers for both woodchip and sawn-timber products demand FSC-certified products".
And Australian Paper is now promoting its Reflex office papers as combining the benefits of local production with recycled and FSC-certified new fibre as it battles a steady flow of cheap imports that lack environmental credibility.
Yet, against this backdrop, the federal Forestry Minister, Senator Eric Abetz — a Tasmanian — spent half his speech to the Australian Forest Growers (AFG) conference in Tasmania last year attacking FSC.
Erasmus commented soon after: "Attempts by some to undermine FSC is not a fair reflection of the number of companies in this sector, such as ITC, who view achievement of FSC certification as a commercial imperative to maximise domestic and overseas end-market access for our sustainable forest products."
Interestingly, AFG subsequently joined FSC.
Yet, while the Tasmanian senator has been so critical of FSC, he has praised, without qualification, the Australian Forestry Standard, whose first certificate recipients included the Tasmanian company Gunns and Forestry Tasmania.
A cursory look at the minister's statements over the past six months reinforces the perception that he is preoccupied with Tasmania — 14 statements about forestry in Tasmania, 11 about the forest industry generally and two about other states.
Last year, the minister travelled to London, berated British officials for supporting FSC and engaged the support of the Australian High Commission in a campaign to support AFS, even though Australian forestry exports to Britain are negligible.
But such is the dominance of Tasmanian issues in Canberra that it was the first policy area where new federal Labour leader Kevin Rudd was happy to fall into line with the Howard Government.
In his new shadow cabinet, Rudd matched the Prime Minister by appointing a Tasmanian senator as forest spokesman and was prepared to embarrass his new environment spokesman with a pre-emptive strike on forest policy in Tasmania.
This lack of diversity on forest policy no doubt owes its origin to the Tasmanian result in the 2004 election.
But what the Canberra politicians do not appear to have noticed is that attitudes have moved on since 2004. People want to see jobs, not rhetoric; dialogue not confrontation; and value creation working in harmony with value protection.
The Tasmanian industry, despite the support of Canberra and Hobart, is arguably the worst performing in the country, losing markets and jobs and delivering sub-standard returns.
It needs to be asked whether the business model adopted by the Tasmanians is sustainable, financially or ecologically.
The Tasmanian preoccupation in Canberra is affecting the rest of the industry.
The Tasmanian senator has been too slow to act on Australia's $400 million trade in illegal logging. This trade is not only depressing world prices for forest products by between 7 and 16 per cent but, also, it robs poor nations of revenue, funds criminal activity, causes deforestation and adds to global warming.
Canberra's preoccupation with Tasmania is holding back dealing with issues such as illegal logging that are important to the rest of the industry.
It is also failing to support those who are willing to be judged against the toughest standards.
In considering his cabinet reshuffle, the Prime Minister needs to consider whether he is happy to leave federal forest policy logjammed in Tasmania or reinvigorate this policy area and show leadership for the rest of Australia.
Facts, furphies and bushfire management
Professor Ross Bradstock, centre for environmental risk management of bushfires, University of Wollongong
Dr Dick Williams, CSIRO Tropical Ecosystems Research Centre, Darwin
The Age - Letters 16/01/07
ATHOL Hodgson's article about bushfire management (Opinion, 8/1) contains errors of fact. We take particular issue with Mr Hodgson's misrepresentation of the work of our colleague, Malcolm Gill, who is Australia's foremost bushfire scientist.
Dr Gill's work on prescribed burning was published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature in 1987 - not the 1960s as claimed by Hodgson. The study did not assume that prescribed burning cannot be carried out on weekends and public holidays as stated by Hodgson. Rather, it noted that predictions of the number of days suitable for prescribed burning will be constrained by a variety of factors including weather, and the cost of labour on weekends and public holidays. Prescribed burning is a very important component of fire management, but we must all recognise that it is subject to a number of critical constraints.
Contrary to Mr Hodgson's claims, the Canberra fire-tornado originated in the Pierce's Creek pine plantation - not native forest. Native eucalypt forests are not "doomed to degradation" by high intensity fires. Science shows that regeneration of new cohorts of trees is strongly dependent on high intensity disturbance - a fact well known to, and exploited by, commercial forest managers.
The scientific literature does not support his claim that major fires convert native forests from carbon sinks to carbon sources. Little wonder, as definitive studies of carbon balance in our native forests, subject to alternative fire regimes, are yet to be completed. There is also no scientific evidence for the claims that millions of birds and mammals died, or that forest diversity was reduced, following high intensity fires.
We advise readers to ingest the views of Mr Hodgson with more than the usual quota of salt.
Professor Ross Bradstock, centre for environmental risk management of bushfires, University of Wollongong
Dr Dick Williams, CSIRO Tropical Ecosystems Research Centre, Darwin
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Gavan McFadzean - The Wilderness Society’s Victorian Campaigns Manager
288 Brunswick Street Fitzroy 3065 mob: 0414 754 023
The Age Letters
Athol Hodgson’s response to my 27/12 opinion ‘Need for facts to fight fires’ 8/1 relies on facts based on old, superseded and politically motivated science. Mr Hodgson goes to great pains to legitimize the independence of his group Forest Fires Inc, but upon investigation its members read like a school of pro-forestry (read pro-logging) academics. From here their agenda becomes clear.
Like many who engage in this debate, Mr Hodgson chooses the convenience of treating the Australian bush as if it were a homogenous landscape in order to justify so-called fuel reduction burning any where, any time. For appropriate bushfire management to be adopted, this simplistic approach to the Australian bush has to stop. In reality, there are dozens of Australian forest types which respond to bushfire and forest management differently. For some, fuel reduction burning is appropriate, for others it is not. Plant species extinctions and range reductions have been recorded in all states, where inappropriate fire management been implemented.
Inappropiate fire regimes change the actual constitution of many vegetation ecosystems - this fact should not be ignored. In some areas, such as around towns and the urban fringe, we can and should undertake fuel reduction burning, in wilderness areas in many cases we can’t.
He also proposes that there are many more days where fuel reduction can take place, as if DSE sit around and watch day after day of appropriate conditions for fuel reduction sail past all winter. DSE should undertake fuel reduction on safe days to do so, but in pre el nino weather cycles such as last year, I share Mr Hodgsons frustration that there were few days to so.
Mr Hodgson also shows his ignorance of the role forests play in the carbon cycle when he says that forests are only carbon sinks when they are actively growing. This is what the logging industry says to justify logging old growth forests, supposedly because old growth forests have stopped growing and therefore do not absorb carbon.
It has been shown by independent scientists from the Australian National University that old growth forests contain an enormous amount of carbon and when they are logged, there is an immediate huge loss of carbon back into the atmosphere. In some cases up to 800 tonnes of carbon is lost per hectare when logging occurs.
A month ago, a scientific report authored by Chinese forest experts and published in the Journal Science showed that old-growth forests store and absorb huge amounts of carbon making their preservation the highest priority in carbon trading and other efforts to tackle global warming.
Old growth forests are clearly a sink, but you will not see the native forestry industry refer to this science. When one extrapolates the results of these studies, native forest logging lead to approximately 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, last year alone. This is the same as putting 2.4 million extra cars onto Victoria’s roads.
The assertion that old growth forests need fuel reduction because they contain high levels of litter is again simplistic. Unlike young, low to the ground, dry fire prone post logging regrowth forest, tall old growth forests generally have a damp, shaded, rainforest understory which is naturally more fire resistant. If you convert old growth, fire resistant ecosystem into a younger, dryer, fire prone ecosystem, the consequences of this in terms of bush fire is not surprising.
Native forest logging activities lead to more bush fires, species extinctions, and water loss. It is time for Victorians to make the native forest industry ‘pay’ for these activities.
Gavan McFadzean is The Wilderness Society’s Victorian Campaigns Manager
288 Brunswick Street Fitzroy 3065 mob: 0414 754 023
January 8, 2007, The Age Letters
Someone needs to sort out the mess in the fire management system, writes Athol Hodgson.
GAVIN McFadzean of the Wilderness Society ("Trees don't start fires", Opinion 27/12) peddles fiction as fact, a mass of half-truths, pseudo-scientific lies and emotional blackmail to suggest that anyone who criticises the fire management of our national parks is anti-national park and pro-logging.
Members of Forest Fire Vic together have 400 years of combined experience in forest management, fire control and research. We are a group of professional forest practitioners and scientists formed after the disastrous 2002-03 Victorian bushfires. We don't argue cases for or against any particular use of forests for logging, grazing, parks or wilderness.
Forest Fire Vic is interested only in vastly improving fire management, regardless of what the forest is used for. We totally disagree with the contention that active management equates with a more fire-prone forest.
McFadzean relies on emotive and incorrect statements.
"Controlled burning can reduce fire hazard around towns and urban centres, but may also create a fire time bomb in the bush."
If controlled burning can reduce fire hazard in one place, it can do so elsewhere. Years of experience and research have shown that hazard reduction by burning makes firefighting safer and easier.
There is no evidence anywhere to support the contention that it creates a "time bomb in the bush".
"We need to remember that (national parks) are huge carbon sinks."
Forests, not national parks, are carbon sinks, and only then if they are actively growing. Some Victorian forests are huge carbon sources. There will be a permanent loss of carbon to the atmosphere if these forests are not regenerated.
"Their (forest ecosystems) response to regular hazard reduction burns is for fire-tolerant plants to take over from fire resistant plants …"McFadzean does not explain the difference between a fire-tolerant plant and a fire-resistant plant. His implication is that fire-tolerant plants are more flammable and make the countryside more fire prone. All credible scientific evidence is that as fuels age after burning and build up to large quantities of litter, they become more hazardous — even after the pioneering plants have died out.
"Management burns are routinely made in most parks."Not so, according to figures published in successive reports by the Auditor-General, the Esplin report into the 2003 bushfires, and Department of Sustainability and Environment reports. These all show the abject failure of Parks Victoria and DSE to achieve annual burning programs in any year, spanning two decades.
McFadzean cites the Esplin report on the 2002-2003 Victorian bushfires to argue that there are only about 10 days a year when conditions are right for prescribed burning. That argument comes from a desktop study done in the 1960s by Dr Malcolm Gill, who has no practical experience in prescribed burning and was co-author of the Esplin report.
It used Melbourne weather data and the ridiculous notion that prescribed burning could not be done at weekends, on public holidays and during the summer fire season.
DSE debunked that notion and now finds more days to do prescribed burning than it is able to take advantage of.
The real reasons DSE has not achieved its burning programs were identified after the fire in Wilsons Promontory National Park in 2005, in a second Esplin report.
Systemic and cultural shortcomings and the separation of entities such as Parks Victoria and VicForests from DSE disrupted the management of firefighting resources.
In short, DSE is dysfunctional and, with too few permanent staff accredited for fire-line work, is neither able to achieve its burning programs nor aggressively attack multiple fires in their incipient stages successfully.
Until someone sorts out the mess and makes the system work better, wilderness, national park and other forest values are doomed to degradation.
McFadzean also seems to know very little about the geography of Canberra or the fire that caused deaths and damage in 2003.
"The Canberra suburbs of Duffy and Curtin, which were razed in 2003, were surrounded by pine plantations and grasslands. Pine plantations are managed forests with plenty of roads and easy access, yet these forests created a firestorm".
The suburbs were not surrounded by plantations and grasslands but had sections with plantations, nature park and pasture on their western boundary.
A forensic analysis of the fire shows that the intensity of fires burning in the Namadgi and Brindabella national parks was so high that it created a tornado that carried fire 14 kilometres across eaten-out pasture and plantation alike, and the damage to the suburban houses was just as high where they were next to eaten-out pasture as where they were close to the plantation.
Victorians continue to pay too high a price for bushfires.
For what result? Built assets lost when bushfires burn with the wind and saved when the fires burn downhill or against the wind, water yields nearly halved for decades, millions of birds and mammals dead, forest diversity reduced and forests reduced from carbon sinks to carbon sources.
Melbourne Water is showing the way by recognising the importance of early detection and rapid, aggressive deployment of its highly skilled initial attack crews in protecting Melbourne's catchments.
Athol Hodgson is president of Forest Fire Victoria Inc, and a former chief fire officer of Victoria.
27/12/06 Trees don't start fires - More management of forests does not necessarily make them less fireprone. Gavan McFadzean. The Age Opinion
By Catherine Murphy, chief executive officer of the National Association of Forest Industries.
January 2, 2007, The Age , Opinion
The past months have been a catastrophe for the Victorian environment. Almost 900,000 hectares, particularly in national parks, have been devastated by bushfires, with hundreds of thousands of birds and animals killed or injured amid enormous losses of vegetation.
At a time when the issue of climate change has never been more important, these fires have released millions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. Given the environmental catastrophe, it is incongruous that we have heard little from the environmental movement. Australian conservationists are the first to applaud the locking up of more forests into reserves, but refuse to acknowledge the often negative environmental consequences.
Tasmania's Wielangta Forest is an example. It was the focus of a court case by Greens leader Bob Brown against sustainable forestry operations. He wanted to see the area placed into a reserve, ending forest management practices that have been occurring over decades.
While the forest's future was pursued through the courts, a moratorium on harvesting was in place, which effectively locked up the forest and resulted in reduced access and increased fire risk during the current fire season. Large areas of the Wielangta Forest were destroyed in recent fires.
Environmentalists continue to decry the need for active park management through controlled burning, yet are silent on the massive loss of biodiversity resulting from fires. Once productive forests are locked up, the passive management approach adopted by national parks bodies becomes the norm.
One of the major contributors to the destruction of forest areas by fire is the loss of access for fire crews. Previously developed roads in commercial forests are not maintained, with the result that they become overgrown and impassable. Some park managers have placed padlocked gates across roads.
Passive management of national parks is a recipe for environmental disaster. The destruction caused by the 2003 bushfires in NSW, Victoria and the ACT is still evident. More than 3 million hectares of forest were destroyed and the damage to biodiversity was enormous.
It is estimated that 130 million tonnes of carbon was emitted into the atmosphere in the few weeks that those fires blazed, equal to one-quarter of Australia's annual greenhouse emissions.
The Kosciuszko, Alpine and Namadgi national parks were devastated in the 2003 fires. Thousands of hectares of alpine ash forests were reduced to blackened remnants. There has been almost no regeneration in much of the area.
Unlike commercial forestry operations, which must regenerate all species harvested, there has been no active program by national parks bodies to reseed the forests, and no management or environmental requirements for them to do so.
As we witness one of the worst periods of drought on record, of equal concern is the effect that the 2003 fires and the latest fires will have on water supply. As forests regenerate, their need for water is enormous. CSIRO studies have shown that the Melbourne water catchment has only recently recovered from the effect of bushfires in 1939. The effect of the 2003 fires is likely to be of the same order, with studies predicting a reduction of up to a fifth in water flowing into the Murray-Darling Basin because of regeneration. It has been estimated that the regrowth will absorb 430 billion litres of water a year for the next 50 years. This will have a significant impact on the availability of water for communities, irrigators and environmental flows.
State governments and environmentalists applaud themselves in continuing to convert sustainable and productive forests into national parks. But limited resources are made available to ensure proper forest management, with the result that there are worse environmental outcomes.
We have many wonderful national parks of which we can be justifiably proud, but proper forest management practices are essential. The damage caused by catastrophic wildfires permanently changes landscapes, creating bare and blackened scenes, and open once well-managed forests to scrubby undergrowth. Noxious weeds and pests are able to flourish and the original environmental values that national parks are designed to keep for future generations are lost. Feral animals, weeds and pests are also unwanted problems for neighbours of national parks such as farms and townships.
We need to question the locking up of well-managed forests into poorly managed national reserves, including national parks. Otherwise the environment and Australian communities neighbouring these areas will continue to be the major losers.
Catherine Murphy is chief executive officer of the National Association of Forest Industries.
January 2, 2007 - 5:04PM, The Age
The crews of Sydney to Hobart casualties ABN Amro and Maximus - who had to pull out of the famous race when both were dismasted - would be shaking their heads in bewilderment.
On a wet Sydney Tuesday morning, environmental activist Simeon (Simeon) Michaels pushed off from Manly Cove, trying to do what the two super maxis could not - reach Hobart.
But Mr Michaels won't be sailing the treacherous course, he'll be kayaking the 2,000 kilometres - to raise awareness of the environmental dangers of a proposed pulp mill near Launceston.
Concerned by logging company Gunns Ltd's proposal to build a pulp mill in the Tamar Valley in northern Tasmania, the avid kayaker and environmental businessman decided he needed to make waves if he was to stop the project going ahead.
His trip will take two months, with stops at coastal spots along the way, and Mr Michaels hopes to raise $100,000 to establish a Tasmanian round table for sustainable industry.
Mr Michaels, from Byron Bay on the NSW north coast, said Gunns should be investing in sustainable alternatives to logging, such as tourism and agriculture.
The 35-year-old lawyer is vice president of the Ethical Investment Association and a former adviser to the United Nations Environment Programme.
He now runs two businesses involved in sustainable development.
"The Gunns mill will consume five million tonnes of forest a year, it will pump 30 billion litres of dioxin-laden effluent into the Bass Strait, and it will pollute the air," he said.
"There are other people who depend on clean air and clean water for their livelihoods - the fisherman, the farmers and the tourist industry.
"What we've got here is the case of a big company making money at everyone else's expense.
"There are some absolutely crucial environmental issues which I want to raise awareness of."
Mr Michaels, who has previously kayaked 800km from Byron Bay to the Barrier Reef, was unfazed by what lay before him, including the perils of Bass Strait.
"I think that I'm going to get some great days and I'm going to get some absolutely shocking days, and I'm going to take it as it comes," he said.
"They [the Sydney to Hobart fleet] copped it. But a kayak goes between the waves rather than through them, so hopefully I won't get caught in conditions as bad as that.
"Fingers crossed I do a little better than they did."
Mr Michaels will be joined along the way by a land crew, and the occasional kayaker providing moral support, he said.