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Journalism 101: get names right.
Mr young, it’s “Jaakko”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 16/02/07 at 04:48 PMSome info about Jaakko Poyry:
“Gunns Limited does not conduct its IIS without expert help. It has engaged Finnish consultants Jaakko Poyry. Jaakko Poyry conducted the feasibility study for Gunns that led the Tasmanian company to say it believed it could build and operate a mill…”
http://www.pulpmill.tas.gov.au/newsletters/PulpMillNews040205.pdfBRIEFING ON THE FINNISH CONSULTANCY COMPANY JAAKKO POYRY
http://www.forestsfornb.org/docs/briefing.pdf“Nordic-based Jaakko Poyry Oy -the largest forestry and engineering consulting company in the world, with an estimated 40 percent of the forest industry consultancy market worldwide and a turnover of more than US$300million in 1994 alone. Poyry, which recently absorbed the large Swedish consulting firmInterforest, has over 60 offices in 25 countries around the world—11 in Brazil alone -and thousands of employees, and has been involved in hundreds of major commercial forestry and pulp and paper projects in the last two decades across the Americas, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Europe (1)...
Historically, Poyry’s bread-and-butter contracts have come from industrialized countries, but
what with an increasingly globalized paper industry, some of the company’s most destructive
recent activities have been carried out elsewhere. Indonesia, with its many new pulp mills
feeding off native forests and exotic monoculture plantations, serves as an excellent example. A
1984 contract with the World Bank and the Indonesian government to analyze the country’s
paper and pulp possibilities helped Poyry land over 30 subsequent contracts to plan or implement
public and private sector projects to supply mills with pulpwood from natural forests or plantations. In addition, the company has picked up scores of contracts…Poyry has built its power and prosperity partly on handouts from governments Other government subsidies for Poyry have been
transferred through multilateral agencies such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), African
Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development, and the World Bank. The scale of such subsidies can be inferred from the establishment
of 2.9 million hectares of tree plantations between 1984 and 1994, largely for commercial purposes, at a cost of US$1.416 billion. In addition….Helping Poyry scoop up its share of the thousands of consultancy contracts put out yearly by international borrowers are close personal and ideological links between its staff and various official bodies (5). These links are forged through shared backgrounds, education and experience as well as through mutual attendance at meetings industrialized-country governments sponsor to bring their country’s firms together with multilateral financiers….In 1994, for example, Poyry, which had no previous experience in India, was selected over 15 Indian bidders to carry out World Bank forestry projects in Kerala and Uttar Pradesh. Surprise at this remarkable coup was somewhat lessened by the revelation that the person in charge of Bank forestry programmes in India was a former vice-president of the Jaakko Poyry Group, Christian Keil. India’s Inspector General of Forests, A. K. Mukerji, meanwhile, who had recently been a guest of Jaakko Poyry in Finland, was reportedly preparing to open a branch of the firm in India upon his retirement from the civil service (6). In countries where such channels are lacking, Poyry has not been shy about intervening in national politics. In Thailand, the Poyry consultant leading the formulation of a contested Forestry Sector Master Plan openly admitted that these activities were aimed at bringing Thailand’s “institutional and social frame into shape” in a way which would allow the wider application of Western techniques of industrial forestry (7)...
+Another interesting paper to read: ‘Globalization of the Pulp and Paper Industry’ by Chris Lang.
An excerpt:
“The political background to the establishment of plantations in the South forms the core of the study. Plantations and the global expansion of the pulp and paper industry are not possible without
a range of subsidies including international “aid”. “Aid” functions as a form of international
diplomacy, perhaps best illustrated by the example of the Pergau Dam “aid for arms” deal between
Britain and Malaysia, and has little to do with benefiting the poor in the South….Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 16/02/07 at 09:00 PMJaako Poyry must have information to asses the viability of the pulp mill that is denied the Tasmanian people. Where is the resource coming from? Whose forests are they? How much will each tree cost Gunns?
This pulp mill to a layperson like myself seems to be economic idiocy, that will need to be propped up until its slow death by the public purse. Just as the forest practices of Gunns are unsustainable, so is this idiotic idea for a pulp mill. Why did Burnie APM close, and given the exploitation of forests globally by these greed machines, how can Tasmania compete with 1)Asia 2)South America?
It is an embarrasing state of affairs to be proposing 19th century industry in the 21st century.
Governor’ Gay and his sidekick’s pride come before, what one hopes, is their very big fall. There sure seems to be a shortage of common sense with these two headed Tasmanians!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 18/02/07 at 12:24 PMIf Pöyry Capital Limited are to be the prime financial institution selected to raise finance for the pulp mill then this is actually bad news for Gunns’ shareholders. A quick review of Pöyry’s web site (http://www.poyrycapital.com) shows that the company has no experience in raising capital for a greenfields mill, and is far too small to stump up the $1.4B by itself. Thus the loan will have to be syndicated. If, as is rumoured, the Stendal mill in Germany failed to syndicate, then it will be hard for Pöyry Capital to get the Gunns mill over the line. Because Pöyry Capital is also part of the Pöyry Group which includes the Jaakko Pöyry engineering consultants, it will be difficult to maintain any independence, with a potentially serious conflict of interest arising between the interests of the financial institutions, those of the prime engineering contractor (Jaakko Pöyry) and Gunns itself.
Moreover, because the finance will not be denominated in Australian dollars there will be an additional exchange rate risk, this on top of risks due to the inexperience of the Gunns management team, the lack of EPIC or turnkey engineering contracts for the building and commissioning of the plant, major project cost inflation (currently running at about 10% per annum), the volatility of future pulp prices, log supply insecurity (both political, slow growth of Tasmanian plantations and MIS taxation uncertainty), and future CO2, SO2 and NOx global emissions trading.
All in all, not a pleasant prospect for the future viability of the mill. Shareholders beware!Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 20/02/07 at 08:39 AMAndrew Wadsley said (earlier this year in the Mercury) “If it was a totally-chlorine free, closed-loop mill that used plantation timber, the probability would be that it would be economically world’s best practice and would match Tasmania’s brand,” ..
Many Tasmanians see this stance taken by the Greens (and clearly yourself) as a very transparent form of hypocrisy on environmental and social issues in Tasmania. It is not ‘Tasmania’s Brand’ to have our land, forests and soil owned and degraded by a handful of TNCs (transnational corporations). Setting aside the obvious flaws in economic and social logic, it’s obvious that the environmental issues of a pulp mill don’t begin and end with the design of the mill but must always incorporate land management practices. Why have you brushed these issues aside?
See ‘Pulp, Paper and Power’
And excerpt:
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/item.shtml?x=52196
” ..Certain types of resistance are fairly easy for large actors in the industry to eliminate or circumvent, simply by redistributing their ample resources from one place to another. By themselves, such types of resistance often even wind up favouring conditions which lead to increased concentration or centralization of the industry and its support networks—a development which, in the end, may be far from environmentally benign.In Europe, to take one example, agitation and legislation against the industry’s air and water pollution is being treated by a few far-sighted companies not as a political threat but as an economic opportunity. Hoping to transform anti-chlorine sentiment into a huge demand for totally chlorine-free pulp, for instance, the Swedish firm Sodra Cell, has invested in cleaner technology of a type affordable only by the biggest corporations. If companies such as Sodra succeed, they are likely only to strengthen their centralizing hold on land, forest and other resources. ..”
http://www.geocities.com/rosserbj
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 20/02/07 at 10:14 AMBrenda,
I suggest you look at the full submission made by Australian Risk Audit on the Pulp Mill of which I was one of the authors. This is available from either the RPDC (http://www.rpdc.tas.gov.au, submission 301, vol 2)or the Green website (http://tas.greens.org.au). Note that the submission does not necessarily represent the views of the Tasmanian Greens.
You will see that I do NOT think that “the environmental issues of a pulp mill ... begin and end with the design of the mill”. Certainly, the proposed pulp mill on the River Tamar would significantly degrade the environment and seriously impact local health and community values. The scale of the mill and its dependence on both native and plantation timbers is far beyond what Tasmania can sustainably support.On the other hand, subject to appropriate community and legislative approval, a properly sized pulp (and paper) mill, non-polluting and based upon sustainable plantations that do not impact either the environment or rural communities may not, of itself, be a BAD thing.
At the very least, if this were the case, when we write letters or print emails we would be using our own sustainably produced paper, and not otherwise supporting the rape and pillage of tropical forests and habitats by our continuing use of imported paper products.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 20/02/07 at 02:49 PMA basic principle of journalism that you haven’t grasped yet, is the importance of checking your facts.
You’ve also fallen into the trap of using terms like `industry speculation,’ which I assume means `Wes’ speculation.’
A phone call to Gunns, or even Pöyry Capital would confirm that your claims are fanciful, unjustifiable, and simply not newsworthy.
Gunns
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 22/02/07 at 06:36 PMWhile I am not in the habit of responding to faceless snipers such as posts 1 and 7, there is a need to set the record straight on a couple of matters.
Firstly,the spelling of Jakko Poyry.
I apologise for the ommission of the letter ‘K’ when writing the story,but in my defence would like to point out that’s how their name is spelt in the erratum report from Toxicos and the sections of Gunns IIS that I read. You know the one apologising for getting the dioxin emmissions wrong by a factor of around 45.
Secondly ‘industry speculation’was just that, a quick ring around of some investment bankers and other signatories of the Equator Principles all pointed to the same conclusion and that’s why I used the term ‘speculation’ and not ‘fact’.
Furthermore ANZ and Pyory hid behind the ‘commercial in confidence’ defence, as the quote from the ANZ spokesperson highlighted.
However it is interesting to note that Gunns HAS confirmed they have finance and it’s through a signatory to the Equator Principles ‘in Australia’ as opposed to an Australian signatory.
As for my learned friend behind post 7 the most basic principle of journalism is putting a name to your work and supporting the argument with facts and relevant information.
But what would you expect from a person whose biggest ever ‘scoop’ was a double helping of macadamia nut…
Wes Young
Commended entrant 2006 Walkley Foundation Student Journalism Competition.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 26/02/07 at 01:43 PMMr Wadsley said: ” suggest you look at the full submission made by Australian Risk Audit on the Pulp Mill..”
Well, of course any risk assessment relating to a pulp mill must incorporate the risks associated with managing the feedstock for it.
Pesticides used on a vast geographic and quantitative scale. Concentration in land ownership. Absentee land management. Vast monocultures prone to disease and fire. Expensive public infrastructure costs for roading to service a handful of private companies. Corruption of political and social processes associated with the existence of land monopoly barons. Etc.
None of which you mentioned.
Why was the submission also so limited in respect of technological options? After all the ‘means’ of production determines its ‘ends’.
Quoting from the document I linked to in the previous post above:
“Paper does not intrinsically require huge machines, large technocracies, extensive road networks, intercontinental marketing mechanisms, or the mining of vast amounts of raw material in single locations. China, for instance, still supplies its immense paper needs largely through small local mills which use mainly surplus local agricultural wastes such as straw, support community economies, require no advanced infrastructure to support them, and, like village bakeries, can safely shut up shop temporarily when no one is buying without the proprietors needing to worry about paying off their machinery investments…”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 26/02/07 at 03:02 PMMr Wes, (... sarcastic anonymous personal abuse deleted)
It’s “Jaakko” - double “a”, double “k”
By the way, where’s your evidence that Gunns failed to secure an Australian based lender (it’s the word “failed” I have trouble with)?
At the end of the day I am sure the mill proponent will take the best deal they can get for project finance. The cheapest rate may well be overseas.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 26/02/07 at 05:04 PMObviously rat missed the front page story when the Commonwealth Bank advised shareholders against the Pulp Mill project, believing it could never be economically viable. Employment numbers are exaggerated, and if there was another willing Australian investor, why have they been so remiss in not offering their support. Their silence for this project speaks volumes.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 27/02/07 at 11:58 AMThe Gunns share price appears to be crashing with many shares traded. Anybody have an idea why?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 27/02/07 at 12:01 PMPerhaps Wes has scared them all off David.
More likely, those in the know had an inkling that Gunns first half profit was crap.
There’s a story for you Wes. A good follow up to your Walkley student commendation whatever entry perhaps?
And Wes, I’m well aware of basic principles of journalism. (anonymous critical observation deleted).
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 27/02/07 at 09:26 PM(post 12)Because with our current water shortage, helped by Gunns, waterless, paperless toilets will soon be the norm. Won’t need pulp. Sorry Mr Gay that’s the way it goes when you play monopoly. Oh well they can cut their trees down, plant another vine, have another whine and dine the governement to keep paying the bills.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 28/02/07 at 06:01 AM
