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Forests National 30/10/07 Native trees key to cooling climate, Dani Cooper,ABC, Science Online

Ex premier Bob Carr's push to protect his bush Saffron Howden, Daily Telegraph New South Wales, Oct 07

First ruinous fires of the season deliberately lit Jacqui Jones, The Age New South Wales, Oct 07

Cheap timber costs taxpayers $3.5m a year Wendy Frew Environment Reporter, The SMH; New South Wales, Oct 07

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Ex premier Bob Carr's push to protect his bush

Exclusive by Saffron Howden, Environment Reporter,

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22666937-5006009,00.html

October 30, 2007 12:00am
FORMER premier Bob Carr has returned from the political wilderness to protect his environmental legacy by helping to save forests in the state's southeast from logging.

Mr Carr this week went bushwalking with environmental activists from The Wilderness Society (TWS) through the forests of Deua National Park and Dampier State Forest near Moruya on the NSW South Coast.

Hugely proud of the 350 national parks gazetted during his 10-year tenure as premier, Mr Carr has agreed to help TWS protect 18,000ha of "icon" forests he, as premier, closed to logging.

The areas have now begun to be cleared under Premier Morris Iemma's leadership.

Mr Carr, accompanied on the walk by The Daily Telegraph, would not directly criticise his successor's environmental credentials, but is set to help TWS in its mission.

"(I'll) consider their submission and, if convinced, will take it to the State Government," he said during the walk.

He also admitted he did not want to see his work saving important bushland undone.

"No, I don't," he said.

The move is a slap in the face for Mr Iemma, who is under fire over pitiful public hospital conditions and for going soft on minor crime.

Prior to the 2003 NSW election, Mr Carr placed an informal moratorium on logging across 24,000ha of old growth and high conservation-value forests in the southeast.

In 2004, he agreed to protect 6000ha of that at Monga, Murramarang and Deua.

Now TWS wants the remaining 18,000ha safeguarded, but 13 of the 66 compartments encompassing the forest areas have this year been placed on the logging schedule.

TWS NSW campaign manager Tim King, who accompanied Mr Carr on Wednesday's forest walk, said the forests contained trees that were hundreds of years old and home to threatened species like the powerful and sooty owls, the yellow-bellied glider and the spotted-tail quoll.

"The . . . icon forests are the very best of the best native forests in southeast NSW," Mr King said.

A "brown bloc" in Mr Iemma's Cabinet was gaining power and the Premier needed to rein it in, he said.

"This bloc is unashamedly anti-environment and we are looking for Premier Iemma to stand up to this bloc and outline a positive vision for the environment," he said.

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First ruinous fires of the season deliberately lit

"We didn't get everything out … it just came so quick" … Mervyn Hartigan describes the fire which destroyed his home in Salt Ash, near Port Stephens.
Photo: Ryan Osland

Jacqui Jones, The Age
October 2, 2007

ARSONISTS lit the fires that ignited bushfire season north of Sydney yesterday, as NSW braced for worse to come.

One home was destroyed and several other properties were damaged at Port Stephens. Hundreds of fire fighters and four water-bombing helicopters battled to contain the blaze.

"We've got an arsonist running around this afternoon," said Rural Fire Service Lower Hunter group captain Bert Pipan, who commanded about 30 fire fighting units from across the Hunter region. "It's spread us very thin," Mr Pipan said. "The long weekend hasn't helped, either, in regard to getting crews here."

One of those fighting the flames around Oyster Cove, Mervyn Hartigan, was called back to his own home in Salt Ash, near Port Stephens, when it was threatened by fire.

Mr Hartigan only had time to make sure his son, Woody, 15, and his former wife, Catherine, who was staying with them, were safe, and grab a few possessions before the house burnt to the ground.

"We didn't get everything out … it just came so quick," said Mr Hartigan, whose property was not insured. Several sheds and a water tank on nearby properties were also destroyed.

Dozens of residents fled the flames. The Tilligerry RSL and Sports Club in Tanilba Bay was turned into an emergency relief centre to accommodate them.

Mr Pipan said last night that the fires were likely to have been started by arsonists, who were also believed to be responsible for a spate of recent small fires in the Hunter.

High temperatures and dry winds fanned the flames at Port Stephens, but by last night those fires and others at Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park and the Royal National Park were contained. But fire crews were preparing for further fires today, with temperatures expected to reach the 30s and further coastal winds possible.

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Cheap timber costs taxpayers $3.5m a year

Wendy Frew Environment Reporter, The SMH
October 1, 2007

NSW taxpayers are subsidising a Japanese woodchip mill on the South Coast to the tune of $3.5 million a year because the State Government is selling native timber to the mill too cheaply, industry experts say.

At a time when there are fears native forest logging is fuelling climate change, the Government is selling native timber from South Coast forests for between $6.90 and $16 a tonne to an Eden woodchip mill owned by Japan's South East Fibre Exports.

The Government says the operations "pay their own way" but environmentalists and forestry analysts believe it is under pressure from unions and Forests NSW to maintain industry jobs.

"It is actually costing the Government money to run this operation … but the CFMEU gives a lot of money to the Labor Party," said an anti-logging campaigner, Harriet Swift. "The bureaucracy of Forests NSW is very good at looking after itself, too."

The native timber prices for the 2003-04 year were so low they did not cover Forests NSW's own costs, leading to windfall profits for the mill, said a forestry analyst, Terry Digwood. The figures were revealed following a freedom of information application to Forests NSW.

The Government made a loss of $3.5 million in 2005-06 supplying native pulp logs to the mill, analysis done by Mr Digwood showed.

"The Eden chipmill has made windfall profits for 35 years as a result of paying low royalty rates for its pulplogs. All of these profits are foreign-owned and are a negative item in the current account in the balance of payments," said Mr Digwood.

The mill also buys cheap native timber from Victoria. Mr Digwood estimated the combined NSW and Victorian subsidies were worth about $9 million a year.

"Forests NSW is a very strong supporter of the chipmill on economic grounds," said Mr Digwood. "However, the employment at the chipmill is possible because logs are supplied at a loss by domestic interests."

NSW prices were midway between those received by Victorian and Tasmanian governments for native logs but all of them were substantially lower than the prices needed by private plantations to survive, Judith Ajani, an economist and forest industry expert at the Australian National University, said.

"The plantation resource is economically superior for the industry and is an environmentally superior way of sourcing our wood … why are we doing this?" said Dr Ajani.

She said selling the native timber so cheaply was subsidising pulp production overseas and undermining Australia's private plantation investors.

Forests NSW said less than one-fifth of the total volume of pulpwood was sold for $6.90 a tonne, reflecting the much longer distances and higher costs involved in hauling logs from forests north of Eden.

It said pulp-quality logs from forest thinning and harvesting residues were "legitimate products that pay their own way" but provided no information to back the statement.

The government agency does not publish separate profit and loss statements for its native timber and plantation timber businesses.

Asked by the Herald if it could make more money from the forests through other activities such as carbon trading, Forests NSW said because carbon was stored in wood and paper products, timber harvesting of sustainably managed native forests and plantations reduced net atmospheric carbon, helping reduce the impact of climate change.

Forests NSW's chief executive, Nick Roberts, defended the agency's environmental credentials. "We are not clear felling huge acreages, we are selecting single trees or thinning," he said.

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