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last updated 13 January 2004
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Green Labor: can it hold water? |
Melissa Fyfe, Environment Reporter |
The Age (article) |
John Thwaites has the onerous task of formulating an environmental policy that pleases greens, farmers, loggers . . . and Steve Bracks. Melissa Fyfe reports. Despite being new to the environment and water portfolio, John Thwaites expects to be able to balance the various competing interests. How green is John Thwaites? Well, he had admitted that his wife Melanie prods him |
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ALP forest plan angers unionist |
William Birnbauer |
The Age
(article) |
A senior forestry industry union official has quit the
Labor Party's main organisational body in protest at the Bracks Government's
logging policy. Michael O'Connor
last night told the powerful ALP administrative committee that the
government's election policy was devised by unelected staff member who were
"unaccountable to anyone". |
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Easy harvest of urban greenies |
Andrew Barnham, North Carlton |
The Age (letter) |
Warm praise for The Age's coverage of Steve Bracks' logging pledge in the Otways and Wombat forests, exposing it for what it really is - little more than an easy harvest of urban environmentalist votes. |
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8/11/2002 |
Desperate signs |
Oliver Raymond, member, Institute of Foresters of Australia, Tyers |
The Age (letter) |
Steve Bracks recently signed an agreement with the Federal Government to set in concrete the forest industry's access to the very forests he is now going to close to logging. |
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8/11/2002 |
Promises, promises |
Michael Josem, Glen Iris |
The Age (letter) |
Bracks' promise to stop logging in six years is just like his promise to build the Scoresby Freeway, his promise to have a four-year term of government, his promise to reduce unemployment to 5 per cent, and his promise to not introduce legal prostitution areas. They're just on show for the election |
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Lest we forget |
Rob Buttrose, Port Melbourne |
The Age (letter) |
Whether it is just politically expedient or not, the State Government's decision to protect the Otways and Wombat state forests is a win for the environment and the community. |
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8/11/2002 |
Doleful decision |
Brian Edwards, Gellibrand |
The Age (letter) |
Dear Mr Bracks, I always thought Labor was for the worker. But after your announcement about the Otways, I'm not sure. I have decided that I'll quit work, grow dreads, have mega kids and let the government provide for me, OK? See you in the dole queue. |
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Who's fooling who? |
David Flinn, Templestowe |
The Age (letter) |
I wonder whether the global rainforests, unlike the Greens, are thanking Steve Bracks for closing down sustainably managed logging in the Otways? All this will do is reduce the couple of minutes that it takes to destroy - not sustainably harvest - a rainforest the size of the MCG somewhere on our planet to satisfy the lefties' appetite for wood and wood-based products. |
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Victory for trees, but more is needed |
Gavan McFadzean, Victorian campaigns manager, Wilderness Society, Melbourne |
The Age (letter) |
Premier Bracks' pledge to protect the Otway forests and phase out woodchipping in the Midlands is a major step forward in bringing Labor's forest policy in line with majority public opinion, which strongly opposes the woodchipping of our native forests. However, most of Victoria's biodiversity and wilderness values are located in the |
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Green - or just greenish |
Andrew Walker, Lawyers for Forests, Parkville |
The Age (letter) |
Brian Walters (Opinion 1/11) has hit the nail on the head regarding Environment Minister Sherryl Garbutt's "moratorium" on logging the Goolengook Forest. While the moratorium is a positive move, Garbutt has indicated the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council will be asked to advise whether other already protected forest can be swapped for Goolengook and logged, if Goolengook is saved. This perpetuates the myth that the government is bound to find replacement forest if |
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Getting it wrong on logging |
Mark Poynter, forestry consultant, Alphington |
The Age (letter) |
As logging is restricted to the less than 15 per cent of Victoria's native forests that are legally available and suitable for timber production, Brian Walters' statement that "our forests are being seriously overlogged" is fundamentally incorrect. His call for more forests to be protected also demonstrates a lack of understanding of "overlogging", which is the harvesting of these available forests at a rate faster than the optimum required for sustainable production. Recognition that the available |
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Qantas quits plan for logging poster |
Brendan Nicholson |
The Age (article) |
Qantas has withdrawn from a plan to sell conservationists space on a billboard at Melbourne airport showing the impact of logging on a Tasmanian forest on the grounds it was too political. A similar poster erected at Sydney airport was removed by the airline on Friday, just hours after it went up. |
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Trees fall and the state's greenwash continues |
Brian Walters |
The Age (article) |
The Government knows Victoria's forests are seriously overlogged, but does nothing - to taxpayers' cost, writes Brian Walters. The announcement by Environment Minister Sherryl Garbutt of a moratorium on logging in Goolengook will be viewed with scepticism by an environment movement sick of greenwash from the State Government. |
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Bracks' forest policy proving to be a sham |
Actively Conserving Trentham |
Media Release |
A conservation group opposed to unsustainable logging and woodchipping in central Victoria is calling upon the premier, Hon. Steve Bracks MLA, to explain to the community the reasons why his government is about to log and woodchip forest coupes around Trentham. |
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Brown backs off on Telstra |
Paul Heinrichs |
The Age (article) |
Australian Greens' leader Bob Brown has been rolled by his party and its national council on his impromptu conditional offer to trade support for Telstra's privatisation for government action to save the environment. |
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Old growth forests traded for the privatisation of Telstra |
Various |
The Age (Your Say) |
Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown has denied he is selling out the people of rural and regional Australia by proposing to back the privatisation of Telstra. Senator Brown has proposed supporting the sale in the Senate in return for firm government undertakings to end land clearing and logging of old growth forests. |
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Minister rules out Greens deal on logging |
AAP |
The Age (article) |
Federal Forestry Minister Warren Truss today rejected the prospect of a deal with the Greens to sell Telstra and said the government would make its decision based on services in the bush. Greens Senator Bob Brown said his party would consider backing full privatisation in exchange for promises to end land clearing and logging of old growth forests. |
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Greens prepared to negotiate Telstra sale |
AAP |
The Age (article) |
Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown today denied he was selling out the people of rural and regional Australia by proposing to back the privatisation of Telstra. |
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Democrats shocked by deal |
AAP |
The Age (article) |
Democrats leader Natasha Stott Despoja today condemned Greens Senator Bob Brown's conditional support for the sale of Telstra. Senator Stott Despoja said Senator Brown was not only going against Greens policy, he was also breaking a core election promise. |
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Brown's Telstra plan savaged |
David Rood |
The Age (article) |
Environmentalists and opposition parties today condemned a proposal that would back the full privatisation of Telstra in return for environmental concessions. The criticism came after Australian Greens senator Bob Brown proposed backing the full sale of Telstra in return for government undertakings to end clear felling and the logging of old growth forests as well as taking further action on preventing salinity. |
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$9m to help towns switch from timber to tourism |
Melissa Fyfe |
The Age (article) |
Thirty Victorian country towns will be beautified under a $9 million "confidence-boost" announced by the Bracks Government yesterday. The money will speed up town centre improvements and tourism initiatives in timber communities facing job losses from reduced logging yields in Victoria's forests. |
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Over 5000 at Melbourne Rally Puts Forest Protection on Election Agenda |
Gavan McFadzean, Victorian Campaigns Manager, The Wilderness Society |
The May 18 Rally for the Forests at Batman Park in Melbourne was an outstanding success, bringing more than 5000 people from the bush and city to the front doors of the Victorian ALP State Conference. |
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Report urges water controls |
Richard Baker |
The Age (article) |
A water advisory committee set up by the Victorian Government has recommended that Melbourne's water prices be raised during summer to cut demand. In a report to the government yesterday, the committee recommended seasonal water charges to save up to 3000 megalitres of water a year by 2050. |
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Government hires leak detective |
Richard Baker |
The Age (article) |
A private investigator has been hired by a Victorian Government department to track down the source of information leaked to the State Opposition. A spokesman for Environment Minister Sherryl Garbutt yesterday confirmed that an investigator had been hired by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment in an attempt to discover who was leaking sensitive documents. |
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Timber sleepers row |
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The Age (article) |
Victorian Government plans to use timber sleepers for high-speed rail links in the state have been attacked by opposition parties. |
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Forestry farce |
John H. Clark, Canterbury |
The Age (letter) |
The Bracks Government and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment just don't get native forest. They think that if they clearfell and woodchip native forest and replant with plantation timber there is no change in value. |
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Industry groups join timber fight |
Philip Hopkins |
The Age (article) |
Various industries linked to the forestry sector have formed a coalition to fight for the future of Victoria's multi-billion-dollar hardwood timber industry. Five peak industry bodies across timber processing, retailing, building and furniture manufacturing have agreed to join the alliance, called the Sustainable (hardwood) Timber Industry Coalition (STIC). |
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When a tree falls . . . |
LUKE CHAMBERLAIN, Kensington |
The Age (letter) |
When a tree falls in a forest, and nobody is around, maybe it does not make a sound. But when an old-growth tree is felled by a bulldozer and a chainsaw, and 10 bushwalkers are near, it bellows a scream that touches your very soul. |
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Clear-felling: a big, burning issue |
Claire Miller |
The Age (article) |
If a picture speaks a thousand words, then the image of a freshly clear-felled coupe, blackened and smoking, tells a confusing story. For conservationists, it is an image of wanton destruction to feed a voracious export woodchip market. But for the state's forest managers and the timber industry, clear-felling is about renewal. |
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Possum study's surprise discovery |
Sophie Douez, Canberra |
The Age (article) |
A road trip to try to find a way to eradicate problem possums has led a couple of Australian scientists to discover a new species. |
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East Gippsland opinion poll on attitudes towards logging |
Jill Redwood |
Poll commissioned by CROEG on 21st April |
2 out of 3 East Gippsland people want an end to old growth logging and reckon logging should be moved out of native forests into plantations. |
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Black Forest lives life on the edge |
Philip Hopkins |
The Age (article) |
Operating a business with the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head is not the most pleasant experience, but Black Forest Timbers is getting used of it. |
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Logging risk to springs, say greens |
Stathi Paxinos, Regional Affairs Reporter |
The Age (article) |
Green groups have called on the State Government to cease logging in the Wombat Forest and investigate their claims that Daylesford's famous springs have been put at risk of water contamination and drying up. |
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Forest exclusion zones to be argued in court |
Darrin Farrant, Law Reporter |
The Age (article) |
Lawyers and environmental campaigners are preparing for a courtroom showdown with the State Government over its decision to set up public exclusion zones in state forests. |
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Environment: forget carrots, use the stick |
Noel Ryan, Wollongong |
The Age (letter) |
Ross Gittins has raised some important environmental issues (Opinion, 24/4). He pointed out that disposable incomes have increased over the past 10 years while environmental quality has generally declined. |
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Silt catchment |
Margaret Jones, Kalorama |
The Age (letter) |
I am amazed that logging is occurring in our so-called pristine water catchments. |
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Timber estimates no simple matter |
Mark Poynter, Alphington |
The Age (letter) |
Ken Duxbury's assertion that the Department of Natural Resources and Environment doesn't care about our forests (19/4) is unfortunately typical of criticisms from the vocal elements of an urbanised society far removed from reality. |
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Water price rise, logging ban near dams urged |
Richard Baker |
The Age (article) |
The Victorian Government will be urged to increase water prices during summer and investigate banning logging in Melbourne's water catchment areas. |
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Victoria needs a new approach to logging |
Ken Duxbury, East Kew |
The Age (letter) |
Mick Murnane, chairman of the Otways' largest sawmill, says (The Age, 11/4) that he is short 800 tonnes on his licence for mountain ash. |
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Stewards of the blackberry patch |
Pamela Lloyd, West Brunswick |
The Age (letter) |
Like an invading army, the logging juggernauts plunder the forest then move on to the next treasure trove with feckless disregard for their damaging legacy: wildlife devastation, ugly scarring coupes, and disrupted soil. |
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Otways logging battle set to ignite |
Claire Miller, Environment Reporter |
The Age (article) |
The Otways are shaping up as the next theatre of confrontation between conservationists and the State Government as logging winds down in Goolengook this week |
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Barrister questions Goolengook Forest charges |
ABC Gippsland |
A Melbourne barrister has questioned the legal basis for
charges laid against anti-logging protesters arrested in the Goolengook
Forest, in East Gippsland, over the past month. |
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Old growth, New Growth |
Stephen Plowright, St Kilda |
The Age (And another thing... ) |
Protected old-growth forest accounts for 0.3 per cent of Australia. Yet the Department of Natural Resources and Environment blatantly lies and tells us virtually all old-growth forest is protected in this state from logging. |
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Who has the real job? |
Colin Smith, Glen Waverley |
The Age (letter) |
Someone drove through the anti-logging protesters' base camp near Goolengook last week and shouted, "Get a real job!" A few kilometres away the loggers were hard at it, smashing up what little is left of an ancient, unique, heartbreakingly lovely and quite irreplaceable ecosystem |
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Live trees better than dead wood |
Adam Pepper, South Vermont |
The Age (letter) |
Where are our values heading when a structure such as the Sandridge Rail Bridge, which no longer serves any function, is kept, yet 400-year-old trees are cut down for woodchips? |
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Logging protesters resume blockade tactics |
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The Age (article) |
A small number of anti-logging protesters yesterday resumed their blockade in East Gippsland despite several arrests on Monday. |
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State spent $420,000 to prevent disruption of logging in East Gippsland |
Claire Miller, Environment Reporter |
The Age (article) |
The State Government has spent more than $420,000 battling conservationists who are disrupting logging in Goolengook in East Gippsland. |
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No turning back as Mighell pledges his troth to Greens |
Royce Millar |
The Age (article) |
Union leader Dean Mighell is a fully fledged member of the Australian Greens. |
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Destruction in the Valley of the Giants |
Sian Prior |
The Age (article) |
They were simply enormous. Some of them stood more than 90 metres high, and you could park several cars on the space occupied by the base of each one. They had been around for at least 400 years, attracting visitors from all corners of the globe. |
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Old-growth forests: no plans, no secret |
Ken King, executive director, Forests Service |
The Age (letter) |
Re: "Documents reveal secret logging plan" (The Age, 25/3), the government has no plans to "open up" additional old-growth forest to the timber industry. |
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Tourism makes more money |
Pete Lusk, Westport, NZ |
The Age (letter) |
It amazes me that the Victorian Government still allows the logging of old-growth forests of the quality of Goolengook. In New Zealand, there is almost no logging of native forest on public land. Forest on private land can only be logged with an approved sustainable plan. |
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Documents reveal secret logging plan |
Andra Jackson |
The Age (article) |
The State Government may consider allowing previously untouched old growth in remote forests to be logged, according to documents leaked to environmentalists. |
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Greens wins a cue to national picture: Brown |
AAP |
The Age (article) |
The Greens' latest victories in Victorian council elections had national implications, party leader Bob Brown said last night. |
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Wall of silence over logging attack |
Andrew Darby |
The Age
(article) |
Police are struggling to solve the most damaging attack
yet on the logging industry, which has sharpened the divide over native
forests in Tasmania and left loggers wondering: who will be next? A convoy of low-loaders hauled millions of dollars worth
of wrecked, fire-blackened timber machines out of the forests on a funereal
procession through central Hobart this week. |
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Loggers force tourism groups to table |
MELBOURNE, AAP |
The Age (breaking news) |
Tourism groups along the south Victorian coastline met with timber workers today after the loggers threatened to blockade the state's key tourism artery, the Great Ocean Road. |
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Greens demand compo for sacked forestry workers |
Kerry Taylor, Canberra |
The Age (article) |
Greens senator Bob Brown last night was seeking to amend the controversial Regional Forests Agreement bill to ensure woodchip companies compensate or retrain forestry workers who are sacked. |
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After the logging, some questions |
Alastair Traill, Wonga Park |
The Age (letter) |
The waste is piled into stacks, which may include quantities of debarked logs that "could not be sold at the time". An oversupplied market? |
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A provocative give and take |
Peter Deerson, Mornington |
The Age (letter) |
Your report (The Age, 6/3) on breaking the Goolengook logging blockade (tucked discreetly well inside the paper) bizarrely links the resumption of logging (after a five-year vigil by the blockaders) with a 1000-hectare reduction of logged area. |
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Goolengook Forest protesters arrested |
AAP |
The Age (breaking news) |
Police arrested 10 anti-logging protesters in Victoria's East Gippsland today as green activists attempted to stop timber companies cutting trees in the Goolengook forest. |
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This precious rainforest deserves protection |
Andre den Elzen, St Kilda |
The Age (letter) |
Imagine your favourite national park, then imagine it has been flattened, treeless, as in clear-felled. Imagine that millions of taxpayer dollars financed this destruction. That's how I feel about Goolengook in East Gippsland, but multiplied. |
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A dangerous political move |
Peter Campbell, Surrey Hills |
The Age (letter) |
The Bracks Government's breaking of the Goolengook forest blockade was ill-advised. It is now open slather for logging in this precious and irreplaceable forest. Pandering to vested interest groups, which are actually losing jobs due to woochipping, appears to be the motive for this. |
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Timber workers to decide on blockade |
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The Age Online |
Angry forest workers will decide later today whether to blockade the Great Ocean Road on the Labour Day long weekend, possibly disrupting hundreds of holiday makers. |
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Claim that 1000 hectares of forest to be preserved as blockade removed |
Claire Miller, Environment Reporter |
The Age (article) |
More than 1000 hectares of forest will be returned to reserves and protected from logging in Goolengook in East Gippsland where the State Government angered environmentalists yesterday by breaking through the state's longest running forest blockade. |
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Log protest camp razed |
Sarah Hudson, Environment Reporter |
The HeraldSun (article) |
A PRE-DAWN raid on a logging blockade yesterday uncovered a stash of needles and bayonets and a maze of tunnels. |
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Forest protest shut down |
Liz Gooch |
The Age (article) |
Dozens of police have moved in to shut down one of Australia's longest running anti-logging blockades in East Gippsland this morning. |
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Forest blockade raid to appease loggers, say greens |
Royal Abbott |
The Age (breaking news), MELBOURNE, AAP |
Police and officials broke up a five-year logging blockade in the Goolengook forest in eastern Victoria today. |
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Loggers blockade city in protest |
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The Age (breaking news) |
About 30 logging trucks blocked traffic along Melbourne's Spring Street today as timber workers and carters protested about being left out of negotiations on a peace deal with conservationists. |
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Last-gasp Southwood opinions pour in |
Danielle Wood |
The Saturday Mercury (article) |
Last-minute public submissions on the Southwood timber project poured into the Huon Valley Council offices yesterday to meet the close of business deadline. He said it was too early to say whether the majority of the submissions were for or against the development. |
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Loggers go on vandal alert |
Georgia Warner |
The Saturday Mercury (article) |
TASMANIA'S forestry industry is bracing itself for further attacks from the vandals who set fire to a controversial coupe in the South West on Thursday. Nannett Barker, of KD Barker Logging at Ouse, said yesterday the industry was rallying behind devastated Launceston contractor Les Walkden. |
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Forest vandals burn loggers out of work |
Georgia Warner |
The Mercury (article) |
A long-established Tasmanian forestry contractor yesterday stood down his staff indefinitely and without pay after a devastating attack by vandals who torched his machinery and a controversial coupe. |
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Rubbish |
Geoff Law, Campaign Coordinator Wilderness Society |
The Mercury (letter) |
Nigel Abbott (Letters, January 23) accuses the Wilderness Society of being "unconcerned" about the 8000 people he says are directly or indirectly employed by Tasmania's logging industry. This accusation is rubbish. There are thousands of jobs in the industry that do not rely on destroying native forests or wilderness areas. |
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Wood centre |
Amold Rowlands, Burnie |
The Mercury (letter) |
The proposed $26m wood centre for Smithton (The Mercury, January 21) looks to be a good idea on the surface. It includes "downstream processing" in the form of a rotary peeler veneer mill followed by laminated veneer timber board production. |
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Gunns vows to lop chip dependency |
Brett Stubbs |
The Mercury (article) |
Tasmanian timber company Gunns Ltd has outlined plans for the future, vowing to increase value-adding while reducing woodchip dependency. Managing director John Gay said after the acquisition of North Forest Products last year, 65 per cent of Gunns' turnover was generated through woodchips. |
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