Tasmanian Times

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To keep it very brief:
“Brenda,you deserve the global community awareness award!”
Thank you
Frank

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 29/04/05 at 12:55 AM
Well done as usual Brenda.

Lateral thinking is a wonderful thing.

It will be interesting to see the reply.

Cheers,
Dave

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 29/04/05 at 08:52 PM
John Dargavel has let the forest industries down. Terry Edwards, Barry Chipman and an array of forest agri-scientists (glorified farmers) argue the merits of proven science over emotional claptrap.

The use of the Huon Healthy River report as scientific support for a clean forest industry highlights his scientific shortcomings. Evan Rolley also failed this test on the same issue.

I have previously written on this subject in The Mercury and Tasmanian Times. The Huon Healthy Rivers report examined the presence of phosphates and their link to oxygen levels and algal blooms. The main contributing factors within the Huon are fish farms (fish poop), orchards (animal poop) and town sewerage (people poop).

This was pointed out to the Huon Valley councillors when the findings were presented. It is elementary high school science (chemistry, not tree farming). Therein lies the problem. Some people must have missed Year 10.

So much for Dargavel’s poop.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 30/04/05 at 10:26 AM
Brenda - what is your source for your claim that “Mostly native forests are clearfelled and replaced with MONOCULTURE Eucalyptus Nitens plantation trees that are harvested every 12-20 years for woodchip”? I expect evidence from you that more than 50% of current forest-industry-conducted logging in Tasmania is clearfelling resulting in the establishment of E. nitens monoculture plantations resulting solely in the production of woodchips.

When we’ve got that one out of the way, we might move onto some other issues from the above.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 30/04/05 at 10:56 AM
Kevin Bonham said:
“I expect evidence from you that more than 50% of current forest-industry-conducted logging in Tasmania is clearfelling resulting in the establishment of E. nitens monoculture plantations resulting solely in the production of woodchips..”

In partial reply, Kevin - and in relation to PUBLIC land:
Source: Forest Practices Board Annual Reports 1999-2000, 2000-2001 (according to the Wilderness Society). I quote:

“73% of public native forests clear-felled were replaced by plantation or some other form of non-forest - ie the forest was cleared!”

See: http://wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/tasmania/revsub_c/

This is part of the Wilderness Society’s submission to the Review of the RFA in Tasmania - a document one would expect Dr John Dargavel to be aware of given his comments on the outcome of that review process.

There have been newspaper reports that the tree plantation industry are having severe difficulty acquiring private land for further establishment of their green deserts. And that the Tasmanian Government has moved in to save the day by providing State (native) forested land to fill the breach. I will try to find the newspaper clippings.

Did I say that monoculture tree plantations were used ‘solely’ for the production of woodchips? I think you’re misreading me here, Kevin. It appears that this may very well be the case - currently - for Eucalypty Niten plantations in Tasmania. If not then please clarify.

Posted by Brenda Rosser on 01/05/05 at 04:01 AM
Brenda, the problem with the source you cite is that it refers only to the proportion of clearfelled native forests that are turned into non-forest uses (not all of those plantation in any case). It says nothing whatsoever about what proportion of native forests are clearfelled in the first place.

It also says nothing about what proportion of those forests that are clearfelled for plantation are replaced with a plantation species other than Eucalyptus nitens, such as Eucalyptus globulus or Pinus radiata.

As such the source you cite contributes nothing to your claim that “Mostly native forests are clearfelled and replaced with MONOCULTURE Eucalyptus Nitens plantation trees that are harvested every 12-20 years for woodchip.” You have not even got past first base, which is to establish that most native forests that are logged are clearfelled.

And “it appears that this may very well be the case - currently - for Eucalypty [sic] Niten [sic] plantations in Tasmania.” is just nowhere near good enough, by the standards you attempted to apply in another thread. Your claim, you provide the evidence!

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/05/05 at 11:38 AM
Dear Kevin,

I believe that the statement: “73% of public native forests clear-felled were replaced by plantation or some other form of non-forest.” Was quite significant and shocking. It may even be an underestimate from the Forest Practices Board??

The truth is out there. In this case on my backdoorstep and spread across the North West hinterland in Tasmania. Conversion of rainforest, blackwood and other native species to plantation - of the Eucalypt Niten variety (in the last 10 years). Much of the forest behind Preolenna and on the East side of the Inglis was deep red myrtle. Personal observation is legitimate in a climate of media, industry and Government spindoctoring but I’m sure there are many other individuals and organisations who can verify this reality, and further afield.

Many Tasmanians want to know precisely what is happening to our native forests Statewide. I have more information which I can post at the end of the day which is related to this topic. But in the meantime I’ve heard that you have contacts with the ‘forest’ industry, Kevin.

Can you get all this information from the industry and/or Government? If so, could you please post it here?

It must be in the public domain, surely? Perhaps Dr John Dargavel will provide the source for his assertions? And is it truthful??

Dr Dargavel has not responded to my emails as yet.

Kevin if you have any difficulties, please let us all know. (For the record, I’ve had enormous trouble trying to get information from council and Forestry Tasmania about the state and extent of our forests and plantations).

Posted by Brenda Rosser on 02/05/05 at 12:28 AM
Further information gleaned - native forests to plantations:

First, it need to be pointed out that there are distinct problems with the Huon District Forest Management Plan 2000. Whilst the plan states that “clearfelling, high intensity burning and aerial re-seeding will be the ‘predominant’ timber harvesting method used in the Plan Area.” It also says the following:

* the extent of plantation establishment over the 10 year period will be equal to the amount of forest logged and regenerated.

* areas for plantation establishment will include areas currently covered by native forest.

* all areas for plantation establishment are not identified yet.

Then there’s the problem with definitions of key words. Plantations are called ‘forests’. ‘Regeneration’ has no definition, only the term ‘silvicultural regeneration’.

There is no real indication as to the planned extent of conversion from native forest to plantation. Only the sentence about ‘forests’ being predominantly ‘reseeded’...which is not a wording I find terribly reassuring in the light of Forestry Tasmania’s failure to identify where the plantation expansion is to go and the culture of lies within the industry that Bill Manning referred to in his Senate testimony (see below).

And then there’s the problem with the fact that the Huon District Forest Management Plan only refers to the operations of Forestry Tasmania in that area. Other ‘forestry’ operators - Gunns Ltd, Forest Enterprises and the like - are not mentioned by Dargavel with respect to the Huon district. Therefore the reader cannot ascertain the extent to which native forests are retained and regenerated in a manner that retains all of their original biodiversity.

Dargavel’s and FT’s documents are misleading to say the least.

But let us revisit the testimony of our long time auditor on the Forest Practices Board in Tasmania, Bill Manning:

“..no silvicultural outcome other than the clear felling of native forest for plantation establishment of exotic introduced plantation species..”

His words in context:

“From my extensive experience in the forestry industry, I believe that the implementation of the regional forest agreement and 2020 vision have led, first, to the weakening of the Forest Practices Code by making a lie of the claim that it is world’s best practice; secondly, to corruption of forest management in Tasmania such that there is no enforcement of this weakened code of forest practice and no silvicultural outcome other than the clear felling of native forest for
plantation establishment of exotic introduced plantation species; thirdly, to the RFA and 2020 vision manipulating the development of an internal auditing system which has led to the misleading of the Tasmanian parliament; fourthly, to the
decimation of habitat for endangered species in Tasmania, in particular the giant freshwater crayfish and other engaeus species of burrowing crayfish, not to mention many other rare examples of Tasmanian flora and fauna; and, finally, to a culture within the Tasmanian forestry industry
of bullying, cronyism, secrecy and lies.”

Reference: Manning’s testimony to the RURAL AND REGIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRANSPORT REFERENCES COMMITTEE, Reference: Plantation forests industry WEDNESDAY, 8 OCTOBER 2003

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 02/05/05 at 07:44 AM
I have no idea if anyone other than those few subscribed is still reading this thread (I have been away for two weeks).

For the record such contacts as I have within the forestry industry are predominantly in the area of animal ecology, not the sort of material Brenda is referring to. I see no reason to go doing Brenda’s work for her gratis though doubtless I would be happy to do it for a suitable fee! In the meantime Brenda has still provided no useful evidence to back her claim about the majority of native forest harvesting being clearfall for rapid-rotation E. nitens plantations - I suspect because this claim was actually false. Manning’s comment about silvicultural outcomes, a generalisation unaccompanied by figures, is simply obvious hyperbole.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 16/05/05 at 05:52 AM
Dear Dr Bonham,

How can you possibly pratice animal ecology when you are so blind and poorly travelled?

‘In the meantime Brenda has still provided no useful evidence to back her claim about the majority of native forest harvesting being clearfall for rapid-rotation E. nitens plantations - I suspect because this claim was actually false.’

Suspect? Try travelling south from Wynyards. 50 kilometres of e.nitrans, interspersed with the odd hectare or so of pines. Go anywhere in the State and tell me where I can gaze upon plantations of native trees. I have travelled virtually every rural road in the Tasmania and I have yet to find a native tree plantation on clear-felled land. Perhaps I blinked and missed it. Sylvicide everywhere one looks!

Brenda Rosser presents chapter and verse and well documented facts, quoting her sources. You quote nothing but spin and use the old trick of trying to discredit a detail to invalidate the whole argument. Doc, you seem to be losing the track. Who are you trying to convince? Martians maybe? Certainly no-one who lives in Tasmania.

Climb off the merry-go-round and take a look around outside your office. You might get a surprise!

Posted by Gerry Mander on 19/05/05 at 10:41 AM
Sigh. The natives are getting desperate I see. Dear gutless pseudonym (“Gerry Mander”), if you would like to play the I’ve-seen-more-of-Tasmania-than-you-have game (and have some way of proving your side of it) I will be more than happy to kick your presumptuous butt. I know quite a deal about the plantations of the northwest, including those of Oldina, West Takone, Lapoinya, Oonah etc, because I once spent five pleasant winter weeks researching their invertebrate ecology, and have been back to some of them since. Please don’t let such facts interrupt your sad and ignorant posturing.

Brenda claimed that the majority of native forest harvested was clearfelled for E. nitens plantations. Even if every forest clearfelled was converted to E. nitens (which it isn’t) she would still have to prove that most forests harvested were clearfelled. As it happens, you don’t normally see plantations dominated by native species because the normal method of regenerating logged forest to natives is through regrowth rather than plantations. However if you wish to go out to the Togari block near Smithton you will see plenty of plantations of a certain Eucalyptus globulus, a species that is native to Tasmania (although the particular strain of it used in the plantations isn’t.) I have also seen small areas of plantations of other native eucalypts and of blackwood elsewhere. Try keeping your eyes open more when driving, Gerry; sleep apnoea is a killer. (As is posting on the internet with your brain shut down.)

There are massive differences from forest district to district in the rate of conversion to plantation and the species to which conversion occurs where it does. Try really driving around the whole state and you may appreciate this.

As for the remainder of your unsubstantiated characterisations of the debate, to throw your own words back at you, “who are you trying to convince by this?” Obviously no-one worth the effort; I suspect you just get juvenile jollies out of wasting people’s time.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 19/05/05 at 01:05 PM
Hi Doc,

Got your goat a bit, didn’t it? Predictable response though. Shoot the messenger! Yeah, maybe there’s a bit of native plantation here and there. Easy to miss though. Haven’t seen any celery top or myrtle, no sign of King Billy or any of the other exotics. Takes too long to grow to be profitable, when you want to reap in about fifteen years. The fifty kilometres of e.nitrans are still there and nary a regnans or a Huon pine in sight.

I see you were offering your services to Brenda - at a price. Is it more than you are being paid by them others? Bit of a Vicar of Bray, what?

Proof, proof, you cry. Myopia is also a dangerous disease.

The problem is Doc, you are so predictable. It’s like throwing worms to fish. Anyone who raises a point about the obscene destruction of this State, and there, rising to the bait, is Dr Bonham or one of the other Government minions, determined on a process of nit-picking in an attempt to discredit what is being said. If these are your true opinions that you are expressing, then you are probably the only person in this environmental debate that has been brain-washed by an enema!
Ecology of invertebrates! Hmm. Did you find any? There can’t be many of those left after they’ve copped a few doses of Gunns special mixtures. Or was it in that undesirable Old Growth that you were searching?
Far from being able to kick my butt, Doc, I reckon I could run rings round you. Try if you like. I’ve got a few letters after my own name as well and I was a member of MENSA for many years.
Toughies!

‘Gerry’

(It’s a way of keeping my private life private and avoiding lots of unwanted hacking and interference, etc.)

Posted by Gerry Mander on 20/05/05 at 09:05 AM
No, Gerry, you didn’t bother me at all, your arguments are just as ineffective as any of the other green ranters on this site and I have, of course, skipped over a lot of your unsubstantiated wibbling. As for “nit-picking”, if people choose to read my challenges to specific claims as also discrediting what the writer has said about other things, that is not my responsibility, but perhaps it might encourage the original writer to be more accurate in future. I hardly think that disputing a claim that forestry in Tasmania consists largely of conversion to E. nitens (note spelling) is nit-picking, but to paraphrase Francis Urquhart, for nit-picking to occur, there must be nits to pick. Looks like you are one of them!

Myopia is indeed a dangerous disease and assuming people are right just because they are fellow anti-forestry-as-it-is-currently-practised travellers is the most common form of it seen on this website - witness the first two responses to this thread. The so-called precautionary principle clearly being useless, the burden is on those seeking to justify a policy change to provide something more convincing than scientifically semi-literate say-so.

Those whinging about forestry are not generally engaging in “baiting”, but are simply complaining or trying to acheive their political goals. Far from wanting people to rise to the alleged bait, they would probably prefer it if those predictably hosing them down shut up so their misrepresentations would go unchallenged and become more widely circulated. Mander may be an exception and could well be trolling, but seems so hell-bent on giving me still more easy points to score that I’m happy to keep feeding him the odd 1080-laced carrot.

Yes I found a surprisingly diverse native invertebrate fauna in even young plantations. If you’re interested, Gerry, you can check the full findings in the paper on pp.237-247 of Forest Ecology and Management vol 158 (2002). In summary, the plantations surveyed had recovered the majority of the biodiversity (in selected groups) present in adjacent mature forest, but not all. It would be interesting to know whether canopy spraying to eradicate leaf beetles and other species that boom in plantations has any impact on ground invertebrates in the litter layer, but I certainly saw no evidence of wholesale invertebrate slaughter in the plantations I sampled.

Gaining membership of MENSA is not especially difficult, since one only needs to once record a result in the top two percent of the population on tests supposed to demonstrate intelligence, but which one can improve one’s results on through practice. Of course we only have Mander’s anonymous say-so that he was a member and the lack of perception in his comments would tend to suggest otherwise or else that there has been a major loss of brain function in the meantime.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 21/05/05 at 02:39 AM
The underbelly is beginning to show.

True to form, despite demanding facts and ‘Proof’ from everybody, Doc Bonham insists on whingeing and chucking out the unsubstantiated epithets, attempting to shoot the messenger and generally implying that anyone who does not share his opinion is an imbecile. When true ecological issues are at stake, he is noted by his absence. For instance, it is such a pity that Dr Kevin Bonham, who is an invertebrate ecologist, could not raise his voice and help out Dr Frances Daily, when it came to saving the South Sisters Tiers flora, fauna and insects from destructive logging.

Quote : It is home to threatened species (4 on the coupe and another 18 recorded in the surrounding area) which include the blind velvet worm (worldwide habitat of only 159 sq km including South Sister), the giant velvet worm (a slightly larger habitat at 600 sq km!), euphrasia collina deflexifolia, eucalyptus brookeriana (protected under the RFA), wedge tailed eagle, spotted tailed quoll, eastern barred bandicoot to name but a few.
The Giant Velvet Worm, is found adjacent to the coupe with the line of parapatry (geographical line separating the two species) running through the coupe. This line of parapatry is extremely rare and of significant conservation value which should be protected.
A recent entomological survey revealed 6 moths never reported in a Tasmanian National Park and two rare lichens have also been found on the South Sister (with about 150 others identified also!).
A botanical survey found 86 species just on the coupe (165 hectares) and additional surveys would probably reveal many more. Many scientists have remarked how biodiverse this area is but as the north eastern part of Tasmania has had little research in the past, it is an unknown hot spot! ‘

I would have thought, that as this is his field, he would have been a little concerned, but no, the only type of bug that Dr Bonham is prepared to support is Humbug, and on that subject he is a particularly vociferous exponent!
Look at this—when I stated that Gunns spraying had destroyed much of the ecology, this is the reply.

‘In summary, the plantations surveyed had recovered the majority of the biodiversity (in selected groups) present in adjacent mature forest, but not all.’

So they were affected, as I said. No mention of how long after spraying the survey was done and how long the bugs had taken to crawl back out of the old growth and re-inhabit the land. Proof, Doc, proof!

By the way, while undertaking a post-graduate course at Birmingham in England, the Sociology Department did a snap IQ test on the entire University. In their published results, I came first out of all the professors, staff and students alike with a rating of 156+ - the highest the test could accurately measure. There was no practice involved, and even if there had been, that score would not be able to be achieved. It was on these results that I was offered membership of MENSA.

Also, just for the record, I am not a ‘Green’ in the sense of a party political animal - I only sympathize with their attempts to battle their way through the imbecilic mentalities that desires to sacrifice our heritage to Mammon. After all where does one turn when both major parties are (so sympathetic) to the timber giant. Yes, I admit I do stir things a little - a bit like the picador who diverts the attention of the animal while the Matador, in the form of people like Brenda Rosser, kill the Bull!

In a letter to a friend in America, I quoted the full correspondence and ended with; ‘That will probably get me a torrent of abuse back, but I’ve got a few more pithy epithets up my sleeve for the likes of him. I just hope it takes some of the pressure off Brenda; she’s doing a good job.’
Bingo!

As for ‘E.nitens’ - I prefer the old spelling - ‘Gunns weeds’!

Posted by Gerry Mander on 21/05/05 at 06:39 AM
Ironically, “Gerry Mander” accuses me of use of unsubstantiated epithets but that claim is in itself unsubstantiated. Indeed I have used some, but there is a great difference in this area between subjective opinions of a person’s debating style (for which all the previous debate on the site forms an implied body of evidence anyway) and unsubstantiated claims of fact about the subject matter being debated.

Gerry asks why I had nothing to say about South Sister. I simply don’t have a view either way on whether that coupe should be logged or not. I’ll be surprised if it is, but we’ll see.

Listing on the Threatened Species List does not mean a species necessarily is, or should be, protected from all possible impacts - just that there is a need to ensure that these do not, in general, get out of hand. That said, comments on some of these claims:

* Wedgetailed eagle: is a landscape predator that occurs statewide, so presence in coupe is almost meaningless because it occurs everywhere, with established mechanisms for protecting nest sites. Main threat is persecution not forestry.

* Spotted-tailed quoll: widespread with densest populations elsewhere and, while listed at threatened, at lowest level of risk and barely qualifying for that.

* Eastern barred bandicoot: not threatened in Tasmania. (National threatened species listing is somewhat aberrant because species is nearly extinct on mainland but is not at current risk overall. Foxes and dingos would become risks if they became established, forestry alone is not.)

* Moths: Tasmania has thousands of species of moth and hence it is likely that a trapping effort almost anywhere in suitable habitat well away from a National Park would reveal several spp not recorded in any National Park. Irrelevant unless conservation risk for these species is demonstrated, in which case they should be considered for listing as threatened.

* Eucalyptus brookeriana: listing under RFA (which is typically as community type not species) does not confer 100% protection, just goals for reservation. I don’t have much faith in these superficial vegetative community types as conservation tools anyway. Their relevance to actual species conservation is inadequately demonstrated.

* Velvet worms: while happy to debunk obviously false claims about them (of which there are many) I leave the running on the remainder to someone who knows far more about them than I do, Dr Bob Mesibov. I’d point out that while lines of parapatry involving velvet worms specifically are extremely unusual (indeed this is the only species-pair for which they are known), lines of invertebrate parapatry in general aren’t that uncommon.

* Lichens: are these listed threatened species or just “rare”?

etc.

On plantations, “Gerry Mander” should try actually obtaining and reading the paper I cited (I would be happy to post him a copy) before making silly accusations about not supplying proof. As it happened, I looked at both pine and eucalypt plantations from 5 years old upwards. Elsewhere I have seen some recovery in much younger plantations, but not much. One would not expect a 10-15 year old plantation to have recovered all the species diversity of adjacent mature forest, just as one would not expect 10-15 year old native regrowth forest to do so - what is significant is that plantations do have substantial native invertebrate habitat value rather than being completely worthless as was commonly claimed/feared. Time since spraying was not a variable I examined but evidently if there is a serious impact on ground invertebrates from spraying it can’t be that persistent.

(continues)

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 23/05/05 at 04:24 AM
(continued) Because “Gerry Mander” is anonymous we are not in any position to verify his stories about MENSA membership but in any case, his account seems rather dodgy - I have never heard of MENSA unilaterally offering membership on the basis of an external test, although they may offer *the opportunity to sit their test* (which includes fees for assessment and membership) to those who perform well in such tests. (I have myself been offered such an opportunity but had better things to do with my money than flatter my ego by joining a society that locally appeared to be offering nothing more exciting by way of events than wine and cheese days - at the time I was a non-drinker.) In any case, no IQ level yet recorded appears to save people from wading into debate on subjects they know little about without their facts straight, so I am unsure of what Mander’s fossilised boasts are meant to accomplish.

Gerry, you are not taking any pressure of Brenda because you are not reducing the likelihood of me debunking her nonsense, nor are you establishing it as credible, and the notion that she could “kill the Bull” is laughable when her actual task seems to be to generate more of it. I will happily take on as many of you as are fools enough to play. As for “that will probably get me a torrent of abuse back”, and the “shooting the messenger” rubbish (didn’t I just debunk this silly cliche on another thread?) do please give the persection complex/martyrdom thing a break - quite simply (and this goes for Brenda as well) don’t dish it out if you can’t take it. I never claimed to be a nice guy but at least my “underbelly” isn’t this soft and squishy!

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 23/05/05 at 04:25 AM
Some interesting new information about the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s attempts to mislead the public:

“Using FAO’s definition of forest, monoculture plantations, highly degraded forests and even clear-cut areas ‘expected’ to regenerate, are all counted as forests.” (Report from the Rainforest Foundation 2005).

In FAO’s previous definition of ‘forest’ (the year 2000) “a 20% canopy cover was necessary for defining an area as forest. The FAO decreased it to 10 percent canopy cover, thereby largely increasing—on paper—the world’s forest area.”

FAO does not include ” logging as deforestation. According to the FAO, “by definition,
logging does not in itself result in deforestation, if the forest is allowed to regenerate.” While they are regenerating they are still considered to be forests and defined as
“temporarily unstocked areas.” This means that a country may have logged most of its forest, but—unless it converts the area to other ctivities—it will appear as having the same forest area as before.

FAO includes “even further types of plantations as forests—such as rubber tree plantations—which were not included in previous FAO assessments and thus artificially increasing the “forest” area.”

FAO includes “tree plantations as “forests” in the FAO definition. This is in fact the key issue for enabling the FAO to reach the conclusion that “net forest loss is slowing down”. Given that any plantation is considered to be a forest, this implies that if, for instance, 1 million hectares of eucalyptus plantations are established in one
country while at the same time 1 million hectares of forests are destroyed in the same country, the NET forest loss will be nil and the “forest” area will appear as not having
changed at all.”

“The NET loss in credibility of the FAO as the UN expert body of forests is now total.”

See this month’s World Rainforest Bulletin. November 2005. http://www.wrm.org.uy

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 30/11/05 at 02:45 AM
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strepsilswishers222

Posted by unlidofluit on 16/01/08 at 09:44 AM
Brenda whilst i don,t attempt (nor could i begin to) approach your substantial knowledge and information regarding deforestation, i can tell from what i am able to understand that you indeed care and have the well being of this state (and for that matter the world which is more important} at the heart of the matter and whilst i don,t necessarily agree with all that you say as to where, and why, mankind is at the crossroads, i aplaud your efforts and hope that you continue despite the nitpicking stupidity of bonham who continually asks for evidence from others for their opinions without EVER responding in like when questioned.

It is evident (this and other posts) that his opinion is not held in strong regard on any topic and should you feel obligated to respond to him i feel certain other posters do not necessarily expect you to do so.

d.d.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 16/01/08 at 07:25 PM
Davey, you must be really really bored out of your skull to bother continuing a debate over one year old just because it was bumped by a spammer. But since you’re doing it to continue your lame attemtpts to bait me, I’ll point out that your claim “without EVER responding in like when questioned.” is yet another unsubstantiated false generalisation. Indeed, on this very thread I mentioned a paper about plantations of which I was the lead author; and several times here when people have asked me to back my claims about plantation invertebrates with evidence I have done so, using that paper as a source. False generalisations that can be disproved by single examples will *always* (no exceptions!) make you look like an idiot.

Oh, and a sentence containing 109 words of poorly punctuated gibberish is not a good look from someone who on another thread was pretending to know something about the English language. Let’s get this straight, Mr Davey:

What is “evident” to you is irrelevant.

What is held in strong regard by you is irrelevant.

What is held in strong regard by anyone you say nice things about is irrelevant.

You are irrelevant.

Have a nice day. :)

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 16/01/08 at 10:51 PM
Hi,
At the risk of a flaming, and rightly so, as this is my first post and off topic! But I really need some advice.
My wife and I are planning on emigrating to Dubai, UAE as a new job opportunity awaits me there.
It’s obviously a big step and I’m exctited about moving but I’ve heard both good and bad things about the place.
Before I move my family, quit my job etc. I’d be grateful if anyone here has ever been there/or has any experience. Also what are living costs and the cost of Dubai property?

I’d really appreciate any feedback.

Regards
Jake

Posted by JakePorter on 08/03/08 at 12:57 PM
not sure where you are at present Jake however my ex doctor David Hewson should be able to give you some info as he spends half of his time between there and here,

He lives at Grindelwald, don’t have his number.
d.d.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/03/08 at 07:38 PM
Don, the post you are replying to is spam.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 11/03/08 at 08:12 PM