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| Link | Title | Author(s) | Published | Excerpt |
| 7/11/2001 | Gippsland to feel real pain with job losses. Experts say logging over the past decade was unsustainable. | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | East Gippsland is bracing itself to lose up to 200 timber jobs due to anticipated reductions in logging rates and a downturn in the global woodchip market. The state member for Gippsland East, independent Craig Ingram, said the region, where one in four people is already unemployed or underemployed, was in crisis. |
| 5/11/2001 | Greens Support Gippsland Blockade (with photo of the Stump Truck) | Scott Kinnear, Peter Campbell | Media Release | Scott Kinnear lead Senate Candidate for Victoria said today “The Greens Victoria support the blockade in East Gippsland opposing logging in the Yalmy water catchments for the Snowy River. Both major parties have failed to protect all remaining Old Growth Forests in Victoria to the detriment of future generations.” |
| 5/11/2001 | Greens deal offers hope to ALP | Sophie Douez | The Age (article) | Labor has forged a deal that will see the Australian Greens give preferences to the ALP ahead of the Coalition in 37 marginal seats across the country, including five key Liberal marginal seats in Victoria, boosting its prospects of winning this week's federal election. |
| 4/11/2001 | Snowy’s 28% to be dried up by logging in headwaters | Jill Redwood
Morgan Boehringer Gavan McFadzean |
Media Release | This morning forest conservationists stopped logging in a controversial area of old growth forest, to highlight the plight of the Snowy River’s future water supply. |
| 4/11/ 2001 | Green: Labor's new color | Phillip Hudson, Perth | The Age (article) | The Greens will today unveil a deal to direct preferences to Labor
in key marginal seats, including knife-edge Victorian electorates, following
the ALP's announcement yesterday that it would halt the burning of
forest woodchips and stop two proposed uranium mines. Announcing Labor's
environment
policy on a visit to wetlands in his home seat of Brand, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, in Blundstone boots, also promised to do everything possible to cancel the contract to build a new $326 million nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, in Sydney. |
| 4/11/2001 | Why playwright Williamson won't come to the party | Mary Colbert, Sydney | The Age (article) | David Williamson, the nation's most celebrated playwright and the author of the seminal Australian social and political satire Don's Party, is undergoing a change in political allegiance. A Labor supporter all his life, Williamson plans to change his vote on Saturday. "Of the two parties I would much prefer a Labor win," he says. "But on humanitarian grounds as well as scientific and economic I'll be voting for the Greens in the house." Williamson has traditionally voted Greens in the Senate. The turning point for him was the Tampa incident. |
| 4/11/2001 | God save us all from strong leaders | Terry Lane | The Age (article) | There are weighty issues on our minds this week as we go off to the polls. Anyway, I am going to vote Green. I regret that they are not promising a baby bonus or even a knowledge nation, but they seem confused, hesitant, prudent and reasonable enough to suit my way of thinking. |
| 3/11/2001 | Greens, Labor make preference deal | Tom Allard | The Sydney Morning Herald (article) | The Greens will put Labor ahead of the Coalition parties in key marginal seats in a preference deal to be announced within days. Concessions from Labor on land-clearing, the commitment to ratify the Kyoto climate change treaty and the Coalition's environment policy released on Thursday secured the agreement. |
| 2/11/2001 | Bob Brown Stands Tall For The Trees | Peter Ellingsen | The Age (article) | There is something of the Jesuit about Bob Brown. You notice it as soon as you meet him. His grey suit, white shirt and sensible black shoes are more ascetic than aesthetic, his desk holds nothing but a telephone, and he says "ethics" without sounding like an early-morning evangelist. But the country's only Greens senator is not a monk or member of any order. |
| 31/10/2001 | Forest party branches out | AAP | The Age (article) | Victorians would be able to vote for a small-l Liberal party with a focus on the environment for the first time at the coming election, the Liberals for Forests said yesterday. |
| 30/10/2001 | Logging pressure on Labor | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | Minor parties are withholding crucial preferences from Labor's candidate in the marginal Victorian seat of Corangamite, despite the popularity of his call for an end to clear-felling of forests in the Otways region. |
| 28/10/2001 | Pain in lumber region as MP jumps the gun | Paul Heinrichs | The Sunday Age (article) | Labor's federal candidate for Corangamite is risking tension with the Bracks Government by releasing and backing a poll demanding the end of clear felling in the Otway Ranges. The candidate, Michael Bjork-Billings, who needs a 4.5 per cent swing to take the officially marginal seat, did not consult his party's Minister for Conservation and Environment, Sherryl Garbutt, before releasing the poll. But he said he believed her office knew about the poll results. |
| 28/10/2001 | Preference deals make Greens' hopeful see red | Liz Porter | The Age (article) | Around 7pm last Friday week, Victorian Greens Senate candidate Scott Kinnear was feeling quietly hopeful about his chances at the coming election, but the Democrats had just done a deal . . . . |
| 30/08/2001 | The forgotten forests' last stand
Effective conservation depends on a bipartisan approach, as the marine parks debacle showed. |
Editorial | The Age | How many Victorians have seen a regent honeyeater? A barking owl? A brush- tailed phascogale? How about a pink tailed worm lizard? In all cases, the answer is very few. The reason is simple: these creatures' habitat, box-ironbark woodland, is vanishing. |
| 14/08/2001 | Saving trees will save water | Katherine Selwood, Mount Waverley | The Age (letter) | Despite the obvious shortage of water supplies, the State Government is placing our precious water resources under threat from clearfell logging in the catchment area of Melbourne's water, the central highlands. |
| 12/08/2001 | Beazley blasts Howard and his 'drunken sailors' | Andrew Darby, Hobart, with AGENCIES | The Age (article), 12/08/2001 | Mr Beazley made no mention of a vocal rally outside the conference, where Oscar nominated actor Rachel Griffiths likened logging Tasmania's old-growth forests for wood chips to turning the Sydney Opera House into rubble for driveways. |
| 09/08/2001 | Forestry services chief goes | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | The head of Victoria's troubled forestry services, Gerard O'Neill, is leaving the job to take up a senior position with Parks Victoria next month. Mr O'Neill is departing at a critical point as the State Government struggles to regain public and industry confidence in its forest management following revelations of massive overlogging. |
| 11/7/2001 | Roadworks could harm rare possum | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | Efforts to protect Victoria's endangered fauna emblem, Leadbeater's possums, have suffered a setback with the State Government pushing a road through a known habitat site near Powelltown east of Melbourne. |
| 9/7/2001 | Forests: ever-greater subsidies no answer | Mark Cowie, Trentham | The Age (letter) | There is little doubt that the timber industry welcomes Sherryl Garbutt's recent efforts to prop up the ailing and outmoded logging industry in Victoria's native forests. But what is the taxpayer to make of the decision to fund the logging industry to the tune of $42.6 million to create just 100 new jobs? This equates to $426,000 per job created. |
| 6/7/2001 | Alarm at wood power stations | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | Burning woodchips from native forests to generate electricity produces five times more greenhouse emissions than coal, according to an engineering consultant. |
| 5/7/2001 | Native forests worth $1 .8b a year | Graeme Gooding, Victorian Association of Forest industries, | The Age (letter) | Jill Redwood's assertion (2/7) that logs sell for as low as nine cents a tonne from state forests is a gross misrepresentation. |
| 2/07/2001 | The truth about our logging industry | ]ill Redwood, Goongerah | The Age (letter) | Last week we were told the logging industry is making an $11 million profit for Victoria, in the draft report of a review of log pricing. We were also told that the government has handed over $43 million in direct grants to the same industry - taken from our taxes. |
| 26/6/2001 | A source of wonder not woodchips | Beverley Boucher, Belgrave | The Age (letter) | On Saturday The Age ran a story on page 9 about paying Victorian farmers to look after what's left of our native vegetation. On page 13 there was a story about the Styx Valley in Tasmania, where the tallest trees in the world are under threat from logging for woodchips. |
| 11/5/2001 | Lawyers gather in forests fight | Darrin Farrant, Law Reporter | The Age (article) | There are already Liberals For Forests and Doctors For Forests. Now there are also Lawyers For Forests after a group of Victorian barristers and solicitors launched a pro-green group in Melbourne last night. |
| 7/5/2001 | Hill rules out logging | Annabel Crabb, Canberra, | The Age (article) | The Federal Government will not allow logging in national parks, Environment Minister Robert Hill said yesterday, a rebuff to Forestry Minister Wilson Tuckey, who has argued that selective logging is necessary for forest survival. |
| 5/5/2001 | Enchanted forest | Jill Hocking | The Age (article), Extra, Travel | Otways timber has been cut for well over a century but that makes the felling no easier to bear, says Jill Hocking. |
| 3/5/2001 | Forest consultations: minister should listen | Alexander Chapman, Doncaster | The Age (letter) | Sherryl Garbutt (1/5) reminds us of the widespread community consultation process that was used when formulating Victoria's regional forest agreements. She fails to mention that the vast majority of submissions called for an end to logging in the Otways. |
| 2/5/2001 | PNG: loggers face new claims | Kevin Ricketts, Port Moresby | The Age (article) | New claims have emerged of fraud, incompetence and corruption in rainforest logging areas in Papua New Guinea. |
| 1/5/2001 | To save forests, end ALP factions | Peter Robertson, Kensington, | The Age (letter) | Let there be no mistake as to why Sherryl Garbutt is allowing logging in fragile environments. Garbutt is a minister who owes her position to her factional membership within the ALP. |
| 1/5/2001 | Seeing the wood and the trees | Sherryl Garbutt, Victorian Environment Minister | The Age (letter) | Claire Miller's article (Perspective, 27/4) mainly represented the views of anti-logging protesters and did not provide the whole of the context for the forestry debate. |
| 29/4/2001 | Who needs logging? | Chris Trueman, Blackburn | The Age (letter) | Mark Poynter, commenting on John Elder's 'Battle for the Otways' (Your say, 22/4), omits the most important, and central, point in this logging dispute: that the planned annual rate of native forest-timber harvesting in the Otways will have an economic benefit for the region that is very much less than a third of 1 per cent of the total economic benefit that the: region derives from all other activities. |
| 27/4/2001 | Sparks threaten to ignite Victoria's forestry tinderbox | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | A downpour doused a political spotfire over logging deep in the Otways last weekend, just before it threatened to rage out of control. If only for a moment, embattled Environment Minister Sherryl Garbutt was saved by the rain. |
| 26/4/2001 | Plunder in the rainforest inflames hard-won truce | Cathy Prior | The Australian (article), | Tree poaching in the wet tropics is like a poison for the timber community, Cathy Pryer writes |
| 24/4/2001 | Deluge stalls logging in Otways | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | The weekend's heavy rain has put an end to any prospect of logging in the near future at the contentious Ciancio block in the Otways, where conservationists have blockaded for the past two weeks. |
| 21/4/2001 | Dissent grows in ALP over Otways | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | Opposition in ALP ranks to the State Government's forest management is hardening, with members of a suburban branch voting this week to end clearfelling in the Otways and appealing to Premier Steve Bracks to show leadership. |
| 21/4/2001 | Sarawak lost as a land of plenty | Mark Baker, Asia Editor, Bakun, Central Sarawak, Malaysia | The Age (article) | The old man remembers a better time when the wild rivers of Sarawak ran clear and fish were abundant, when the grand forests stretched across the vast interior of the island of Borneo, teeming with deer and boar, leopard and rhinoceros. |
| 19/4/2001 | Logging stopped | Stephen Cauchi | The Age (article) | The Victorian Government was forced to halt logging in the Otway Ranges yesterday "in the interests of public safety", sparking calls from the timber industry and unions for harsher penalties against protesters. |
| 19/4/2001 | Clearing inquiry | Greg Roberts, Brisbane | The Age (article) | Tree-clearing levels in Queensland are unsustainable, the Federal Government has said in response to new figures showing the Beattie Government issued permits to fell 23,000 hectares of threatened native vegetation and 19,000 hectares of bushland in river catchments adjoining the Great Barrier Reef. |
| 18/4/2001 | Otways logging gets the chop | Anon | ABC News Online | The State Government has suspended logging in the Otways State Forest Chancio coupe for today. The move follows clashes between protestors and police yesterday, in which up to ten people were arrested. |
| 17/4/2001 | Who will save our environment? | Stuart McCallum, Bannockburn | The Age (letter) | On Sunday we visited the disaster scene that is the Ciancio logging coupe on Wait-a-while Road near Lavers Hill. |
| 16/4/2001 | Protests aim at Japan chip imports | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter, Canberra | The Age (article) | Japanese Green politicians, appalled by the extent of logging in Australian native forests, will campaign at home against Japanese woodchip imports. |
| 15/4/2001 | Battle of the Otways. Dawn in the forest, and adversaries share tea and wonder why it had to come to this. | John Elder | The Sunday Age (article) | Thursday morning, a week into the war. John ''Bluey" Andrew drives up the Wait A While track with his dogs, knowing he'll find people sitting in the trees, knowing the greenies have taken the forest again. He knew it would be so when he went to bed last night. |
| 12/4/2001 | Anger over water flyer | Claire Miller | The Age (article) | The State Government has launched a campaign to persuade Geelong residents that logging in the Otways is not affecting their water supply. |
| 11/4/2001 | Police break up Otways blockade | The Age (article) | Eight conservationists were arrested yesterday near Lavers Hill in the Otways when Environment Minister Sherryl Garbutt sent in police to break up a five-day blockade. | |
| 10/4/2001 | Resident's Support Otways Protesters | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | Business and resident groups along the Great Ocean Road are rallying to support protesters who yesterday succeeded in halting logging for a fourth day in a block bordering endangered myrtle beech rainforest in the Otways. |
| 14/3/2001 | Internal feud hits ALP over forests | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | Victorian Conservation and Environment Minister Sherryl Garbutt has written to ALP branches in a bid to quash rising internal dissent over the government's handling of forests. Ms Garbutt wrote to branch secretaries this month after ALP head office distributed offers from the ALP Otways Ranges Interest Group to provide speakers at meetings. |
| 19/3/2001 | Experts to assess forest overcutting | Philip Hopkins | The Age (article) | The State Government is to set up an independent expert group to investigate the extent of overcutting in Victoria's native forests in a bid to minimise damage to the $1.4 billion hardwood timber industry. The Minister for Environment and Conservation, Sherryl Garbutt, said last week the expert group would be established to review the information on volumes of timber available for harvesting in Victoria. |
| 2/3/2001 | Forest policy lost in the wood | Editorial Opinion | The Age (editorial) | At its starkest, it is a see-sawing struggle between conservationists who can't see the wood for the trees and loggers who can't see the trees for the wood. Each side is convinced of the justice of its cause and at times the passionate partisanship has led to violent clashes. Those with a clearer view of the complex political, economic, environmental and social issues involved find it harder to come to a balanced conclusion. There are compelling interests to reconcile and daunting implications to confront. The Victorian Government has tried, with Commonwealth financial help, to restructure the timber industry under five regional forest agreements. This compromise has satisfied neither of the main protagonists. |
| 27/2/2001 | Workers call for forests inquiry | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | Sawmillers yesterday joined conservationists in calling for an independent inquiry into the State Government's management of Victoria's native forests. The call came after a timber industry document circulated in the Department of Natural Resources and Environment this month warned the forests were being extensively overlogged. |
| 26/2/2001 | Too much logging 'risks jobs' | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | Thousands of timber jobs will be lost because Victoria's forests are being extensively overlogged, according to a confidential State Government document. The Department of Natural Resources and Environment briefing paper says logging rates are unsustainable and volumes need to be reduced by 20 per cent if the industry is to survive. It says a "corresponding impact on employment" will result, but doing nothing means the industry will collapse in time because of overlogging. |
| 23/2/2001 | How green is my clinic | Claire Miller | The Age (article) | DOCTORS Andrew Ramsay and John Hodgson don't want to ram any messages down their patients' throats, but they do think the public should at least know when it is not getting the best in preventive public health care. That is why they and their colleagues at the Coolaroo Clinic, on Melbourne's northern plains, have put up a poster in the waiting room alerting patients to the hazards of clear-fell logging. They hope it will give people staring at the wall something to think about. |
| 15/2/2001 | Logging may put state funds at risk | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article), 15/2/2001 | A report raises questions about logging subsidies. Victoria risks losing millions of dollars in Commonwealth payments because it is subsidising logging in public native forests, according to a report released yesterday. |
| 14/2/2001 | Forget the hype, green vote was crucial in WA | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | Despite the preoccupation with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, the environment vote is emerging as the critical factor in Labor's sweep to power in Western Australia. |
| 12/2/2001 | One Nation over-rated: Beazley | Karen Polglaze, Shoal Bay | The Age (article) | One Nation's vote in the West Australian election had been over-rated and would mean little for the federal poll later this year, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley said today. Mr Beazley said just one seat could be described as changing hands on the basis of One Nation preferences. |
| 12/2/2001 | Howard blames Court for defeat, WA poll fallout | Canberra | The Age (article) | Prime Minister John Howard today blamed the defeated Court coalition government for driving many West Australian voters to One Nation. Labor swept to power in Western Australia at the weekend with the help of One Nation preferences, sending a warning to the federal government of a growing disaffection among coalition voters. |
| 12/2/2001 | Science forges a new timber era | Philip Hopkins | The Age (article) | Ground-breaking technology being developed in Victoria is poised to revolutionise the manufacture of timber products and add billions of dollars in value to Australia's timber industry. |
| 13/2/2001 | More lessons than one in WA's vote | The Age (editorial) | The Age (editorial) | Labor's victory is not only due to One Nation. Australia's
party system is unravelling |
| 4/2/2001 | Water logged | Ralph H. Lewis, Canterbury | The Age (letter) | It is most encouraging to read that the Environment and Conservation Minister has deferred logging at the headwaters and proximity of the beautiful Sabine Falls in the Otway Ranges pending the deliberations and recommendations of a committee of interested parties |
| 4/2/2001 | Owls of protest | Geraldine Ryan, Montmorency | The Age (letter) | I was about to turn the page of The Sunday Age (21/1) when this line
caught my attention: "If those owls are so powerful, how come they need
protection?" In a few words, the answer is loss of living space. |
| 3/2/2001 | Timber product exports fall far short of imports | Claire Konkes 3/2/2001 | The Weekend Australian (article) | AUSTRALIA exported less than half of what it imported in forest products last financial year, according to government analysts. Imports of timber products were $3.797 billion and exports $1.576 billion, says a report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics. |
| 29/1/2001 | Victorian woodchip exports down but far from out | Philip Hopkins | The Age (article) | Victorian woodchip exports dropped slightly in value to $133.46 million in 1999-2000, according to the latest figures. |
| 29/1/2001 | Sabine Falls win a reprieve | Claire Miller, Environment Reporter | The Age (article) | The Victorian Government has put on hold controversial plans to clearfell the forest surrounding the Sabine Falls in the Otway Ranges this summer. |
| 18/1/2001 | Powerful owl spurs protesters to forceful campaign | Dorothy Cook | The Age (article) | Two grandmothers chained them- selves to a door during a protest yesterday against logging in the Wombat State Forest near Trentham, which threatens to destroy the habitat of a pair of rare owls. About 40 environmentalists picketed outside the Daylesford office of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment |
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