“The Wilderness Society is a national, community-based, environmental advocacy organisation whose purpose is protecting, promoting and restoring wilderness and natural processes across Australia for the survival and ongoing evolution of life on Earth.”

http://www.wilderness.org.au/about-us

Except in Tasmania where it is a publicly funded lobby group whose purpose is protecting, promoting and assisting the logging industry destroy the natural environment at taxpayer expense.

We should all stop and consider precisely why both the loggers and the Roundtable ENGOs are now so desperate that woodchip buyers not be told the state of play in Tasmania. 

The extreme reluctance of Fiat and Terry Edwards to actually committing to binding reserves is clearly evidence that they don’t intend to, and they are backed by a Premier who actually admitted that the TFA sham was intended to obtain FSC certification.

While no one would accuse her of being overly honest, that admission had the ring of inadvertent truth.

John Hayward

The concessions post committee are one sided & as predicted the ENGO continue to capitulate while MLC’s offer comfort & support for the poor downtrodden Terry Edwards & co.

MLC’s are pushing ENGO’s hard for more &more; concessions while giving the logging signatories beer & a sympathetic ear in what is meant to be a “two sided” agreement…cough…

Harris’s hearings are playing out as predicted.

While MLC’s demand ENGO’s actively support pro logging campaigns & actively undermine former campaigners comrades MLC’s are simultaneously seeking to erode volume, status & usage of ENGO reserve claims. There are no calls from MLC’s for industry signatories to reciprocate support of the TFA by asking Terry Edwards & co to actively support ENGO’s push for WHA nomination, against mining in new reserves or general promotion for need of ongoing protection from bad old logging practices.

Harris’s hearings have now seen Environment Tasmania effectively disowning TNC & the Tarkine campaign. In response to an MLC inquisition on ET’s relationship to TNC, Pullinger started defending his links to TNC & the Tarkine expressing his love for the area. The ET CEO seated next to Pullinger quickly chimed in and assured MLC’s - “Phil is answerable to me” (read: ‘Dont worry, we wont be giving you any trouble’).

Looks like Scott Jordan & TNC will have to rely on those nasty old “fringe groups”.

The concessions ET/TWS have given will be very hard for some of their personnel to live with into the future. If the TFA does get up i’d therefore expect to see a significant shuffling of the decks in both these organisations.

What will Environment Tas & TWS look like in 5 years?

Environment Tasmania has just confirmed at the Committee hearing that it will “unequivocally support” FSC certification for Tasmania’s wood production forests even when they are clearfelled by cable logging.

And the shameful transformation of these abject and duplicitous environmental organisations into lobby groups for the logging industry is confirmed by the release of the following update:

This is an important moment for Tasmania’s forests.

Lyndon Schneiders
National Campaigns Director
The Wilderness Society

A roll of FSC stickers AND a pulp mill with a continuation of logging in old growth. Oh sorry, forgot the miners on the loggers coattails too. Who opened the door and who invited them in? Industry floggers will milk it for all it is worth and then walk away. Business as usual with a rejuvenated and re funded FT. How successful was that? I’m sure the FSC criteria is being adjusted to suit as we speak. TCA on the FSC executive etc etc. Has FSC like the so called engos been captured by the industry corporates?

http://independentsciencenews.org/environment/way-beyond-greenwashing-have-multinationals-captured-big-conservation/

The attempted local engo greenwashing of an international pariah like Ta Ann is a new low.

Call me snoopy, call me a trouble maker. Indeed, call me what you like. But, so I can sleep easily, I need to know why there were no blogs from ‘The Observer Tree’ between 24/12/12 and 17/1/13. I ask here as the comment section on the mentioned blog does not seem critic friendly.

If FSC International allows their brand to be trashed by the Australian branch without kicking them out of the process there’ll be no worthwhile certification system, just a system designed to be a hollow shell.

The conditions for winning environmental battles have never been more favourable. People are moving away from paper (eBooks, tablets and Internet), There is a growing awareness of environmentalism, The Internet has provided a means of spreading information without having to depend on the mainstream media. The global Financial Crisis has devastating the woodchip industry. Why would any environmental organisation settle for just peace, when they can WIN the war?

I wish I could assure russell, #5, that his worries about FSC are unfounded, but FSC’s acceptance of TCA into membership and then onto the FSC Board as a rep from their “Social Chamber” has the alarm bells disintegrating into shrapnel. They are an archetypal astroturf org.

John Hayward

No doubt FSC would have come under heavy lobbying as part of the process.

FSC will no doubt be told that unless they certify cable logged & clearfelled Tassie forests it will be there fault if the forests deal falls through & the sky falls in on Tasmania.

It sure will be embarrassing for ET/TWS & their new besties if FSC tell them all to take their dodgy forest practices & piss off.

Guesses for who has been leaning on FSC?

How could TWS and ET have been allowed to be backed into corner by their own back-room strategists.

As Pilko suggests Paul Harris’ Committee is orchestrating the presentations and making these new age environmental negotiators look like traitors to their own constitutents.

Welcome to Taz-mania!

Editor’s note: sentence deleted for legal reasons

If Ms Weber of the Huon Valley Environment Centre Inc. says that people (members) are leaving the Wilderness Society, I would tend to believe her. But Ms Weber, just wait, until they (the TWS members) actually hear the truth, the full story of what has gone on from 2010 to 2013 over the Tasmanian forest debacle. And when they find out how the conservation of important areas has conveniently been ignored and effectively signed over to industry by way of complicit agreement from those ENGO signatories. And when they find out that instead of solving the problem they have worsened it. And… well I could go on.

I am wondering whether the TWS membership has unknowingly funded these overseas junkets through membership and donations so TWS employees can go and promote the foreign corporation, Ta Ann with its harmful logging of Tasmania’s natural forests, whilst at the same time undermining unfunded, volunteer, regional conservation organisations which are campaigning for those very same areas that are being pillaged.

I must say I am really surprised that a definition of “fringe group” has not been included in the Tasmanian Forest Agreement 2012. At the same time they could have included a definition of “obsequious” – something like that anyway so as to describe the behaviour and actions of the ENGO signatories in the forest peace process matter.

What is a “fringe group”? Ah I know, one that used to be a part of Environment Tasmania (ET) but which left in disgust at the unabated manipulation of due process.

Ah I have it a “fringe group” is one which some upright person seeks to diminish and damage through a pejorative description. The fact that these organisations worked together for many years makes me wonder about the honesty and accuracy of the claim.

Oh yes, speaking of luminaries, did you not realise that TWS is a member of ET and thus influences ET as well as being a signatory in its own right. Nothing duplicitous about that eh.

ACF does not escape unnoticed. We note that one ACF Tasmanian Councillor happens to be life partner of one TWS Tasmania ENGO signatory.

So now not only is TWS represented directly in the Tasmanian Forest Agreement and through its membership under the ET umbrella as they put it but in essence has seemingly wheedled its way into a position of power with ACF. I always wondered about ACF, how they got to be a stakeholder, when they do not have an office nor run campaigns here in Tassie.

ET is not immune from such acts or cross-fertilization too; its marine campaigner is also an ACF Tasmanian Councillor. Seems all sewn up doesn’t it!

So what we have is a delightful little coterie. Chummy isn’t it? What ever happened to the opportunity for representation of other stakeholders that may have genuine concerns for the environment? Have all those groups become fringe dwellers too? Ooops I meant “fringe groups” but the definition is missing.

I can recall several groups leaving ET during the turgid ‘forest peace’ process, including the conservation group, which initiated ET and founded it, being the one I represent, TEA Inc. We left ET several issues and years ago. We were unable to stomach what I and other TEA members regarded as avoidance of adherence to the Constitution. We briefly tried to be involved at about the time when a reference group was formed but the lack of probity and integrity was too much for us.

So far during this process we have been mild in our criticism but I suspect those days have passed now. Cable logging eh, I spent years working to end cable logging, as the Forest Practices Authority knows.

Personally I find it telling to note how the membership of ET has declined significantly since the start of the so called ‘peace process’. Indeed I cannot begin to list them all. As the genuine long standing staunch conservation groups left, what one observed was their replacement with groups on their list of 20 who can hardly be called conservation groups. But I just visited their website and guess what it says there are over 20 groups ostensibly represented. Then I counted them as they are all listed. There were not even 20 groups at all but rather only Seventeen. I guess someone can’t count, just too busy looking for the definition of “fringe group”.

Yours sincerely
Andrew Ricketts
Convenor
The Environment Association (TEA) Inc.
PO Box 261
Deloraine 7304.

Re # 6 eddie,

I have a similar thing about the Whitehaven incident. I was interstate when it happened. I get home and see it is not on TT. I do a search for it and find it has been achieved. Does anyone know what the story is there?

Surely Vica’s trip to support Ta Ann is not being paid for by donations to the tax-deductible Wilderness Society? Are Ta Ann paying for the trip or is the Australian taxpayer funding the Ta Ann mission? Which one is it Vica?

TWS and ET have created for themselves complete hypocrisy.  I bet that Ta Ann CEO Evan Rolley is behind this conspiracy to get at the Federal handouts.  I suspect that FIAT has told told its members not to worry about sustainable forestry, FT is our servant and “let’s get what we can while we can”.  Live for today and dont worry about tomorrow; well that leaves all of my former forestry training and career objectives in tatters.
From day one it was drilled into young Cadet Forest Rangers the long term objective re eucalypt was to convert old cut over areas of forest “creamed for sawlogs” conduct a final harvest which of cause was mainly pulpwood followed by silvicultural regeneration treatment.

Similarly Wildfire regeneration from 1898, 1934 and 1967 was to be protected from fire during its regrowth stages to maturity. In those days 110 years was seen as the transition age from regrowth to mature trees for assessment purposes.
Some how the Working Plans officers have been progressively silenced to allow political interests to take over the former FC/FT Management Branch who was keeping a close eye on yields and setting sustainable cutting practices.

My main concerns remain as current harvest of immature wet forest/ highland forest regrowth and the lack of evidence that young pruned Nitens is seen as a replacement as a native forest
sawmilling resource commencing by 2020.

The Leg Co TFA Select Committee must allow information to become public as the inquiry progresses. I think that we all need to be updated as it is a public resource, it does not belong to Mr Rolley or the Conservation movement, its ours, the majority as a commercial resource that deserves to be managed sustainably

Robin I empathize with your grief about the loss of long term objectives. I have been here only a millisecond and can understand your point of view. I would certainly indict Evan Rolley but you must do the same to Bob Gordon and of course Graham Wilkinson CFPO who has “self regulated” this disaster for the past 16 years. Both are totally complicit. Enough has been said about successive Premiers and Ministers. Gob smacking self indulgence, incompetence, and dare I say it a tad of degree of suspect behaviour.

#6 “eddie”? That’s a new way of spelling Dimity?

I know I’m going against the grain in this thread, and forgive my simplified take on this, but from my perspective the friendly fire being aimed at the ENGOs by HVEC is extremely shortsighted.

I’ve always been of the opinion that if you haven’t got a better solution, keep your mouth shut.

Does Jenny Weber and HVEC have a better alternative solution to securing half a million hectares of native forest in formal protection zones? No. Have they ever put forward a realistic and compelling campaign that even comes close to what the likes of TWS are on the verge of achieving? No.

No one is immune from criticism, but this week’s attack is misguided. They are belligerently undermining an organisation that has been at the heart of some of Australia’s biggest environmental wins all because TWS are holding up their end of the bargain with the forest agreement. Do people seriously think TWS and ACF would be meeting with Ta Ann supporters if it wasn’t absolutely necessary to the survival of the forest agreement?

It’s pretty bloody easy to be a contrarian but it’s extremely hard to make tough, unnatural decisions in order to secure a potentially historic outcome for Tassie’s forests. I know whose judgement I trust more.

So now the media spotlight has shifted to green bickering initiated by Jenny Webber while the MLC’s obvious delaying tactics go unnoticed. Good one Jenny…

This green cannibalism and disunity is disgraceful.