Minister for Energy and Resources Bryan Green said today the Government had agreed to an innovative plan by the forest industry to maintain supplies to the State’s sawmillers and keep harvesting and cartage contractors working.
“The solution that industry has put forward will maximise the economic and employment benefits from the Government’s $3.6 million package to help contractors,” Mr Green said.
Mr Green said the Government had consulted widely on how best to support the forest sector through the current downturn.
“The assistance will keep contractors’ employees in a job and provide the sawlogs that sawmillers need to keep operating.
“This is a hand up not a hand out and will see a significant economic return to the State.”
Mr Green said the package would help inject about $20 million into the economy, generating around $9 million worth of business for contractors.
He added that low pulpwood prices had meant forestry companies have been harvesting as close as possible to mills and ports to keep costs down.
“Using the $3 million assistance package, forestry contractors will be able to work in outlying coupes, that have a higher percentage of sawlog and wood suitable for rotary peeling.”
The remaining $600,000 will be provided to assist silviculture contractors whose businesses have been heavily affected particularly by the collapse of the Managed Investment Scheme companies.
“Consultation with the silvicultural sector is progressing to determine the best way to apply assistance to this sector.”
Mr Green said the Contractor Assistance package would mean that most harvesting and cartage contractors would be working for the next six to ten months at around 70 per cent capacity.
“About half of the contractors who had previously been delivering to woodchip mills, will now take on the new work and the remaining half will continue to supply the woodchip mills.
“We expect the new arrangement will deliver an additional 25,000 cubic metres of sliced veneer logs, sawlogs and rotary peeled veneer logs to Tasmanian manufacturers.
“The lower quality wood will be used by Forestry Tasmania to supply growing markets in China, especially for peeler logs.”
Mr Green said Forestry Tasmania would manage the new program on behalf of the Government.
The Tasmanian Forest Contractors Association Chief Executive Ed Vincent said he was delighted the government agreed to the new plan.
“It isn’t often that a $3m investment will net a $20 million return within months. More importantly, contractors are proud people who would much prefer to be doing a good honest day’s work.
“Obviously, they all would prefer to be working at 100 per cent capacity, but this package is a big step in the right direction.”
However, Mr Vincent said that while this is a resourceful solution and a positive move forward, it is not an industry cure-all.
With the announcement of FSC controlled wood by Gunns’ Japanese customers together with the improved exchange rate, it is a win for the whole timber industry, not just contractors, Mr Vincent said.
He added that keeping our industry working will keep Tasmania’s rural communities alive.
Smithton sawmiller Glenn Britton said the package was an innovative solution to a tough problem.
“It is a fact of life that it is uneconomic to harvest only for sawlog. This package will keep sawlogs flowing while the market for pulpwood improves.”
ABC Online,
International firms snap up Gunns shares
A second international firm has taken a major stake in Tasmanian timber company Gunns.
Up to 37 per cent of the company changed hands in frenzied trading last week.
American brokerage company Morgan and Stanley has told the Australian Stock Exchange it has bought 49 million Gunns shares, or 6 per cent of the company.
The investment firm has been buying Gunns shares since February.
It follows an announcement yesterday from German firm, Deutsche Bank that it had taken a 5.5 per cent stake in Gunns on behalf of another party.
Deutsche Bank has since increased that stake to nearly 7 per cent.
Australia-based Perennial Investment Partners sold off more than 47 million shares last week, when Gunns share price hit a 10 year low of 26 cents.
Perennial is no longer a majority shareholder.
Meanwhile, a Chinese paper company has dismissed reports it is investing in Gunns.
Nine Dragons is one of five Chinese paper firms identified as a possible buyer in the recent massive company share trading.
A spokeswoman for Nine Dragons says the speculation is unfounded and the company has not made any announcements about interest in Gunns or its Tasmanian pulp mill.
Other Chinese firms including Asia Pacific Resources International, Asia Pulp & Paper and Hunan Tiger Paper have not commented.
Australian Financial Review ...
Timber! How Gunns investors felled John Gay
Excerpts from Australian Financial Review - Friday 28 & Saturday 29-30 May, 2010
Tree huggers tried to oust John Gay from Gunns but it took an investor revolt to get it done. Anne Hyland and Carrie LaFrenz report
It was a crisp day in early March 2010 and John Gay, the then chairman of Tasmanian timber and forestry group Gunns, drove his green Pajero 4-WD to Launceston airport. Gay must have had a sense of foreboding running deep that day as he arrived at the airport to pick up portfolio manger, Chris Haynes from Concord Capital and Charlie Lanchester from Perpetual. These two funds management firms were the biggest shareholders in Gunns - owning almost a quarter of the company; they were angry and under water on their investment.
Gay knew his meeting with the portfolio managers, which would last three hours, would be unpleasant. The two men had flown down from Sydney to meet Gay about a week after Gunns’ disastrous first-half profit result. The company was in trouble and there were fears that it might go belly up. Investors had become more nervous after the collapse of managed investment scheme operators Great Southern and Timbercorp - although they were different vehicle to Gunns woodlot schemes.
Inside the warmth of the Pajero, it was Haynes who took the initiative and told Gay he had to go; Lanchester agreed. The shareholders believed there needed to be accountability for Gunns’ under-performance and better corporate governance at the company. So for the next three hours at a café, Gay listened to the shareholders’ arguments.
It would be six more weeks before Gay responded to their demands. In Later April, not long after Gay’s 67th birthday, Gunns made an announcement that John Gay would step down as chairman in November at the annual meeting. But there was no cheering. Gunns announced it was creating a new subsidiary, of which it intended to own at least 51%, called Southern Star. Gay would be its new chairman and it would own some of Gunns’ plantations and the planned $2.65 billion pulp mill at Bell Bay in the Tamar Valley. Gay was ‘cocking a snook’ at shareholders; he wasn’t going anywhere!
If the shareholders wanted Gay gone, then the gentlemanly wasn’t working. Perpetual and Gunns’ third biggest shareholder, Perennial began selling stock this month. Perpetual slashed its holding from 14.55% to 11.67%; Perennial dumped 1.3% of its holding. Shares in Gunns plunged dramatically, loosing 40% in 10 days, down 26 cents per share.
It took this drastic action to get the Gunns board and Gay to finally act. After a monthly board meeting last Thursday, gay quit - effective immediately.
Perpetual’s head of equities, John Sevior told The Weekend AFR: “He [Gay] had been fixated on the grand vision of the pulp mill and lost sight of the existing state of the business and, most importantly, the existing state of the balance sheet.”
Gunns’ first-half earnings were nearly wiped out from $33.6 million to $400,000, thanks to a surging Australian dollar and falling Asian demand, and its stock went into free fall. Mr Gay sold a chunk of his shares weeks before the balance date was issued, further riling investors.
The severity of Gunns’ decline in earnings caught the market by surprise. Now the company is facing a class action by plaintiff firm Maurice Blackburn alleging it failed to keep the market fully informed of its financial position before the result. [Any damages awarded would likely be paid by Gunns’ insurers.]
Gunns’ market value has slumped from $1.6 billion just 6 months ago to $222 million on Thursday 24 May 2010.
Show Comments
Comments (45)
Hilarious. Well done Bryan, we’ve missed you.
I guess the round table was sawn in half as only the industry appears to have been invited to the talks.
Innovative indeed,what is new about subsidising the industry again?
So for the last 20 years we have handed over a billion dollars and now with another $3.6 million it will be fixed?
Why is my bullshit detector screaming?
#2 maybe because the ENGOs are too busy fighting amongst themselves and can’t get their act together to take a seat.
Innovative. No doubt Brian Green’s advisors will be slapping themselves on the back over the “innovative” line as they slurp down their belgian beers tonight.
Surely there is theatre or screen writer in Tasmania who could use all this stuff to write a smash hit satire. Talk about trying to polish a turd.
Both bullshit and highway robbery was invented a long time ago, nothing innovative or new about any of this. Thanks McKim, historic deal for the Greens and all … job well done!
The tourism industry is on very fast downhill spiral….could we have some handouts too???
Oh sorry…we are in competition to the logging industry!!!!
I’m relieved that our hard earned taxes are in the safe and expert hands of FT.
I’m sure they will continue to channel funds at the status quo, which should see them used up by the end of the month.
Disappointed with the Federal government though.
Surely they have a few hundred million squirreled away, that they could use to keep the industry going till Santy comes?
More good news for industry, while they wait for the Feds to get their act together though, with Gunns share price going through the roof as it soars and climbs, rockets and explodes to a monumental 45 cents.
These are heady days indeed, as the pulp mill moves closer still, with venture partners just over the horizon, I’m sure.
FT are hard at it, spending public money to clearfell and give away our iconic native forest, and generously allowing the public access to air after they have torched whatever remains.
Bryan…you can walk tall, knowing that you are doing the right thing, by shareholders and our favoured elite, who continue to enjoy the fruit of FT’s generosity.
I look forward to watching the procession of logs from Cockle Creek to the Burnie chippers, in another fine example of industry innovation.
Ha,Ha,ha, Clear-felling native forest is now ‘silviculture’. Bryan Green will start calling my quarry friends ‘ceramicists’ soon.
Any one can use bull shit figures, the only figures that should be used are how much of a return will we the tax payers get for the sale of our timber. I am not interested in the flow on effect, as I said any one can invent bull shit figures what I want to know is the direct cold hard cash return on the sale of our timber. Using this type of accountancy all the people working for Forestry Tasmania, sitting in their offices giving away our timber resources are contributing to the wealth of our state when quite obviously they are doing the reverse.
Some one should tell the minister that Gunns closed their euc veneer mill at Boyer some years ago. no veneer needed there, mate.
And I have it on good authority that Ta An are getting the majority of their peeler logs from private land. Something about FT unable to supply the quality required.
Some private land logs are travelling a long distance, and my understanding is that the price the farmer receives suffers because payment is “delivered mill door”.
Can anyone confirm that?
A question for Bryan Green.
How’s the rescue package for the farmers supplying Mc Cains coming along?
The speed of response tell us all we need to know about this ministers priorities.
Innovative? spare me the lies, noddy. It is simply another handout that will put off the inevitable end result, a down sized industry. The only difference will be the waste of yet more taxpayers money.
If not a hand-out, what is it?
Private industry is getting public money to extract public resources at the public’s expense. There is no mention of the industry’s overwhelmingly favourite product, woodchips.
There is no explanation as to why woodchippers are not simply offered the dole, and maybe some retraining, as anyone else would be, without adding road and environmental damage, and resource depletion, to the bill.
It doesn’t appear that Barbara Etter has any qualifications in Special Education, which she will certainly need for teaching ethics to the likes of Bryan Green.
John Hayward
John, 12. You mentioned education, ethics and Bryan Green in the same sentence. Isn’t that a bit oxymoronic, in the same vein as military intelligence.
Also, using the cane as a teaching aid has been outlawed in this state for a few years, mores the pity in this case.
Islands of extremes: One of the two “cradles of forestry” in Tasmania: While it is appropriate to acknowledge Ireland’s tremendous
achievement in implementing an afforestation programme that has restored
forest cover from 1% to 10%, it is also pertinent to ask how these new forests
are now to be managed. ...
It is time to wake up and learn from other’s situations:
http://www.prosilvaireland.org/article/Close_To_Nature_Forest_Management_Paper_for_Compass_Magazine.pdf
I thought it was an incomprehensible but nevertheless passionate love for John Gay and Robin Gray which drove the past manic slaughter of the forests at a net cost to Tasmania’s treasury, but those two are out of it now.
So could someone please explain why the pollies are still tripping over themselves in continuing this farce. To see Nick now enthusiastically pumping for the continued felling of mature native forest at the cost of a hospital ward or two just so a few bogans could remain in useless employment was simply sickening.
(Thanks, Kim, for still standing firm and giving it straight.)
And listening to the snappy business brain of CEO Bob at work explaining why saw logs are better than chips was equally boggling. How long has it taken him to work that one out? No wonder FT is a basket case.
Really, David, it’s way past time to start sacking some of these incompetents.
Bryan Green has to be, if not already,the most deplored minister in this State of Tasmania, the actions of this minister can only be described as straight from Abetzian Charter of how to shaft Tasmania’s citizens and the State’s irreplaceable resources.
This minister is constant in his call for ever more taxpayer funded dollars to keep this faltering unsustainable industry in the business of anihilating even more of our Ancient Forests
This flagrant waste of State and Federal revenues must be broadcast across the State of Tasmania and into the mainland news headlines?
Particular references must be incorporated in these headlines to include the enormous amount of already gifted millions upon millions of Aussie Dollars already consumed by this highly unsustainable industry, then to tally up the thousands of hectares of Ancient Forests logged to so result in the Tas forestry industry having to again hold out its grasping paws for more government money?
Why the people ask, is it so that the forestry industry insanities can continue to strip bare even more of our Ancient Forests and sold at give away prices?
(I am told to believe,) the first consignment of logs to China ware given as a sweetener, to offer these Chinese merchants the opportunity to put in a bid to then actually purchase more of the same, but to pay less than firewood costs for this of our high value Ancient Forest logs?
I would like to hear that the present count of such forest industry horror stories depicting the goings on in this State, that they be nothing but hot wind?
Is there a trusted and responsible person from Forestry Tasmania or elsewhere that can advise me otherwise?
Please reply through these pages of Tasmanian Times.
Thank you.
William Boeder.
Good point John…12…Barbara Etter getting ethics into Tasmania, will be as easy as getting oxygen to supply the moon.
The support of forestry jobs is predicated on no downsizing of an indiustry built on a woodchip market that is not buying. Whilst their is as yet no roundtable process to deliver a plan including an option to reduce the size of the woodchip contract workforce would have been more in line with real needs.
In Tasmania we are subsidising truck drivers and heavy machinery operators with taxpayers money and in Western Australia they are looking for 200,000 workers.
If you are a contractor in Tasmania, get out of our native forests and get thee to WA. After six months there, you’ll be wondering why you wasted so much of your time here relying on government hand outs.
What are all you guys going to say when the export woodchip market picks up? As it does. GFC won’t last for ever.
#16 Bryan Green “most deplored”? Get a grip on yourself Boeder. He was re-elected on election night with much more than a quota. As Dr Bonham suggests in a separate article, the “I hate Bryan Green” stridency here is the exception. You’re all welcome to your group-think, though. Just remember that not many agree with you.
#14 The master economist again! Get with the news: Ireland is a basket case, mate. Up there with Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy. The PIIGS. The great socialist forestry experiment, and everything else propped up by government debt, has failed. The lied-about so-called subsidies for the Tasmanian forest industry pale into insignificance when compared to Irish forestry.
But will it CRF?
Tasmanian woodchips will have to compete with a stronger world supply.
There are Eucalypts in the equatorial zone that grow at an advanced rate compared to here in Tasmania.
How will Tasmanians compete with a Thai or Vietnamese labour force that is paid a fraction of the wages that contractors enjoy here?
# 14. Frank. I wish you would make up your mind.
So NOW you are saying that plantations are forests, because thats whats been planted in Ireland.
# 16 William. You are wrong, Green is very popular, or he would not have been voted in. If you have such an issue with Tas, why don’t you juts simply take off.
And this talk about subsidies is largely claptrap. The so-called subsidies were mainly compensation packages to account for the locking up of productive forest, in order to reduce the income of hard workers, and force the state and country to increase its wood based imports from unsustainably managed forests. ... the superior feelgood factor you feel ... is false
Giving another handout to contractors is rewarding the cowboys out there who are now able to, under the pretence of getting sawlogs, just keep on clearfelling. Where are the incentives to help contractors change their forestry thinking? It is no longer FT that is the problem in tassie, it is contractors who are able to use the broken FPA process to continue doing what they have always done. Whilst there may be some genuine contractors who are interested in reforming forestry, my own encounters with contractors is that they are only in it to make money as quick as they can and are happy to bulldoze anyone in the way. And we are giving them a cash handout of how many million dollars!!! Mind you the contractors are doing a good job of manipulating the media with their wholesome family endeavours and traditions. If you ever encounter a contractor’s wife ask her about “greenies” and forestry and you will get the same hateful red neck vitriol that seems to have been selectively bred in tassie since the Franklin Dam.
crf #20.
That is the very point I am making that monoculture tree cropping is unsustainable.
The “two cradles” of forestry in Tasmania have no good track record on forest management have they?
You have just confirmed what I was saying.
There (in Ireland and in the UK) like here have the simplistic tree croppers received decades of support from public funds.
It is time to learn from these mistakes, it should be logic that this is not best practice.
Tasmania was not the inventor of planting trees in monocultures, but a late copycat. FT and the Industry have repeated many of the mistakes that are promoted by short term speculators and that have done in other landscapes.
Don’t blame Ecoforestry for the poor economic situation Ireland, and Tasmania is in. The tree cropping industry has avoided the change to site specific management, they received millions and all the support by their puppets.
Forestry Economics you mention crf (whoever you may be)?
I can only point to and highlight the trend of solution building process in other places until we have a real ‘regime change’ in Melville Street, Hobart.
Here a little intro to other initiatives around the world:
1. About Ecotrust Forest Management
Ecotrust Forest Management, a for-profit forestland investment management and
advisory company, was created by the non-profit Ecotrust in 2005 to purchase and manage
forestland in the region on behalf of investors. The company’s goal is to improve forest health,
productivity, diversity, and structural complexity, while managing for high-quality timber and
monetizing ecosystem services such as carbon storage, habitat, and water quality resulting from
our management. EFM believes these strategies reduce risks associated with cyclical markets
and climate change by diversifying revenue sources and increasing forest health and resilience.
Creating jobs and opportunities for local people is a key priority. One of Ecotrust Forests’
acquisition criteria is to locate forests in areas of economic distress, where our investment and
management can provide jobs and opportunities for local residents. Ecotrust Forest Management
is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council as a Resource Manager. More online at
http://www.ecotrustforests.com .
2. Ecoforestry
Welcome to the future of forestry
http://ecoforestry.ca
#16: quote: “I am told to believe…”
Get a grip of your keyboard, man.
if hodgman was premier, with abetz advising, expect that the treasury would have been similarly looted.
no hope for the liberals (state or federally) until they dump on the pulp mill.
save lake pedder ( & possibly build the gbf to pay for it), + dump on the pulp mill should be sufficient to buy the greens prefs and make abbott prime minister.
Re; # 14 Frank, all who read these threads should read about what can be done in a country which had lost all forests due to blanket bogs and an unlimited population explosion in the 17th and 18th centuries. The difference between Ireland and Tasmania could not be greater. Ireland is a country which 60 years ago had no forests, it was among the least timbered countries of the civilised world. Tasmania was densely forested but largely cleared in t he last 150 years for farming . Now being denuded of timber to keep a few politicians in power a little longer and to finally bring the country into the pockets of overseas pay masters.
Comment below printed in The Mercury this morning.
Who is overseeing this harvesting operation, marking the trees to be felled and ensuring that immature trees are not damaged, or have the smash and grab raiders just been handed the keys to the bank. The best actions of concerned people is to quietly take as many before and after photographs as possible, to let us all see what is taking place.
Posted by: J A Stevenson of Wynyard 10:55am today
To #22 Mark Wybourne & Ass.:
A matter of choice, what I/we look for is ‘Reliable prosperity’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qZ_HRobCEA
I would like to suggest to you that we should (at least try) to inspire fresh thinking that creates economic opportunity, social equity and environmental well-being. We innovate, invest and inspire in ways that create reliable prosperity. This link may help: http://www.ecotrust.org
Smile for change!
The New, New Deal - (example only)
... building local, living communities is the way to save the economy and the environment at the same time. This short film shares the stories of analysts, professors, bankers, students, entrepreneurs and architects, and their movement toward a new economic model of recovery and sustainability.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYqqasHaPks&NR=1
I would like the 2 forestry zealots in Mr crf and Mark Wybourne to please listen to the rest of the world?
The numbers of people that are so hung up on maintaining the great non-financial bonanza of mono-culture plantations and ongoing destruction of our Ancient Forests are in the minority, yet this does not seem to imply to you of the dwindling popularity of your opinions and of the non-acceptances to such anti-environmental practices?
I have not seen any great change to the forestry practices since my arrival in 2003.
I have to say that the stories abounding in the mainland press at this time in 2003 were exceptionally scathing in their bluntness.
Yet here we have yourselves constantly attempting to fill our minds with the suggestion that we live in some sort of Shangri-la, right next door to the entire of ill-reputed forestry activities?
In my past comments in seeking answers to my relevent questions you fail to answer the questions I have asked of particularly crf?
Still if you and your small group want to continue to defend the indefensible so be it?
Further to your references to the imports of timber, perhaps you might like to explain the enormous tonnages of various non wood chip varieties that have long been clear-felled then bulldozed and burnt as a means of prettying up the now denuded sitest of clear-felled land, ready for the plantation crazed institutions?
Again what of the volumes of good forested product that has been torched for such numbers of years?
I suggest that from this time on Bryan Green should be dubbed “the minister for incoherent statements”
Mr Wybourne I fail to understand why the taxpayer should be expected to pay compensation packages ( read subsidies) because the property of the current and future people of Tasmania is being protected.
That is like saying that we should compensate the Japanese for not whaling or the Uruguyans for not catching our Patagonian tooth fish.
I plan to not sell land on the moon so maybe I should be payed handsomely for foregoing the massive profits I would make if I did sell the moon.
Frank,
#28, I’m still recovering from “Analogue Forestry” and now you toss in the “Reliable Prosperity” grenade. Lunch, wherefore art thou?
And at #29, judging from the vocations of The Included, seems a nice lifestyle if you can, or aspire to, afford it.
CRF, you expect the GFC to end soon. Good luck sport, it has not even got out of first gear. You need to read more than the Exagerator to get a wider perspective. Try searching Youtube for Clarke and Dawes video on the Euro cluster fuck to see more of what is coming.
As for Green’s quota, all it proves is that a larger percentage of the Braddon voters don’t recognise a fool when one is presented to them. He might wear a suit and smile a lot, but innovative he is not.
#32. Des Stackpole
Would you be so kind to explain to us readers what you think is wrong with the Forestry scenario described below?
Is this too natural, too community orientated, ‘too holistic’ or what do you think is so “explosive” to describe it a “grenade”??
Forestry
Standing forests are tremendously valuable for fish and wildlife, clean water and air, recreational uses, a stable climate, and a wide range of other ecosystem services. When logged conventionally, with large clear-cuts and insufficient attention to the health of the ecosystem, these other benefits are unnecessarily sacrificed.
Forests are enormously complex and richly interconnected ecosystems. Mycorrhizal fungi colonize tree roots and draw sugars from the tree while providing it with more nutrients and water than it could obtain on its own. Rodents eat the fruiting bodies of these vital fungi and disperse their spores through the forest. Salmon migrating upstream to spawn deliver a substantial amount of ocean-derived nutrients to fertilize the streams and woods.
Reliable forestry seeks to enhance and restore the natural processes at work in the woods, to take trees while keeping the forest and streams intact, and to consider the landscape-scale implications of the harvests it proposes. It focuses on what is left, rather than what is harvested, ensuring that trees of all ages and species remain, and that the ecosystem remains fully functional. These forestry practices are rigorously certified by neutral parties under the auspices of organizations like the Forest Stewardship Council and Scientific Certification Systems, providing favorable product differentiation in the marketplace.
This type of forestry also considers the social and economic benefits of forestry in a new light. The riches of the forest can offer livelihood over the long-term to people in nearby communities. But for the better part of those benefits to be captured, the raw logs must be processed in the area; it is better to ship out lumber than logs, and better doors, windows, and furniture than raw lumber.
Since the yield from the forest is limited, resource efficiency strategies can provide more jobs per acre. Non-timber forest products, including mushrooms, medicinal plants, and decorative florals like salal form an additional income stream from forests. In addition, markets in ecosystem services provided by forests, including climate stabilization and water purification, are beginning to mature. For instance, the Pacific Forest Trust is beginning to compensate forest owners for forestry practices that keep additional carbon stored. Many municipalities protect forested watersheds in order to maintain the integrity of their water supplies.
Practice a system of forestry that takes trees while leaving the forest intact, and seek certification to document these practices in the marketplace. Ensure that benefits from forestry flow back to local communities through diverse networks of value-added production.
For more go to: http://www.reliableprosperity.net/forestry.html
I’d love to see the calculations which explain how Bryan Green magically turns $3.6M (of our money) into either $9M or $20M (of ?somebody’s money). The Great Big Absolutely Vital Mysterious Forestry Subsidy Machine gets back into gear. (NOT!) Should we ask how this can be good economics? We know how good Bryan’s understanding of reality is. Remember, when Bryan looks dishonest, it’s not the case, he’s just being incompetent (thousands of Bass voters can’t be wrong).
Steady on, Hanna. Bass ain’t Braddon.
You know ! it all boils down to this one ! single ! common denominator !
There is absolutely NO ! never has ! nor ever will be ! any f———g way that new plantation will ever be able to supply this industry with the amount of product that is needed for it’s continuing existence.
One only has to look at all the countries of the world that have been denuded to realise that fact!
If there is ONE industry that has set this planet on a path of self destruction it is world forestry practice.
The “Ostrich” mentality factor is alive and well in the state of Tasmania.
Don Davey
11 years ago a story scenario equal to that of Tasmania 2010, the choice we have is to learn from others and to avoid mistakes:
Confusing liquidation with income in BC’s forests: economic analysis and the BC forest industry
Tom L. Green,
Suite #2-373 Baker Street, Nelson, BC, Canada V1L 4H6
Received 29 July 1999; revised 3 January 2000; accepted 4 January 2000. Available online 28 June 2000.
Abstract
Forest exploitation in British Columbia is currently unsustainable. Economic analysis is frequently used to justify the high rate of cut by documenting the revenue, job and wage benefits of current industrial forestry. However, Hicks’ definition of income implies that it is poor accounting practice to count the consumption of natural capital as income. Yet in BC, economic analysis fails to make adjustments for the consumption of forest capital. Such analysis provides society with misleading signals of future economic prospects. By reference to landscape ecology, conservation biology, forest ecology, and ecosystem-based management, this paper sets out requirements for a forest management regime that maintains forest capital intact and for determining a rate of cut that would likely maintain ecosystem structure and function. This ecologically sustainable rate of cut can be seen as an ‘extraction ceiling’. Extraction beyond this ceiling is considered to involve natural capital consumption. This extraction ceiling is used to divide the proceeds from timber extraction into ‘interest’ and ‘depletion’ streams. The interest stream is consistent with maintaining capital intact, and can be considered true income. The depletion stream involves capital consumption. Basing economic analysis of the forest industry on an extraction ceiling encourages debate about defining sustainable extraction levels and about how to make the transition to sustainable forestry. It also shows that the timber industry overstates its contribution to government revenues and to the province’s economic well-being. Critics of industrial forestry in BC have yet to take full advantage of how proper accounting for natural capital depletion can show the advantages to moving towards an ecoforestry approach. By insisting that economists make adjustments where natural capital depletion is projected to occur, advocates of ecoforestry can ensure a more level playing field for the comparison of industrial forestry and ecoforestry.
Author Keywords: Income; Natural capital; Accounting; Extraction ceiling; Ecoforestry
You can contact the author:Tel.: +1-250-3521130; email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
You can ask him what happened since and if the industry has changed for the better…
10 - “And I have it on good authority that Ta An are getting the majority of their peeler logs from private land.”
I see peeler logs going west through Burnie and Wynyard to Ta Ann as I travel Ulverstone to Smithton several times a week.
Then I see Tarkine split logs travelling east and not once have I seen Tarkine log trucks turning left to feed Ta Ann, that is not to say it does not happen but on the ratio of incidence all log trucks I see out of the Tarkine turn right and head east.
What that purports is forestry business and obviously a part of the Green- Labor funding need. At the same time this funding is vital for Smithton if the Tarkine logs are unsuitable for Ta Ann.
Interesting story, #38
Some years ago, a Canadian named George Sranko was a masters student at Griffith University in Qld. Tas Uni had him here for a lunch time seminar which I attended.
He told the story of change in the forestry industry in Qld & B.C.
In Qld., the industry had to come to the negotiating table coz it realised it was running out of timber, while in B.C., German customers refused to buy B.C. product until the industry changed its destructive practices.
Sounds familiar?
Should be something on the web - Google George Sranko.
Re #39
John Wade - I know little about log movements in the far north west - it may have been that my informant was referring to the Southwood Ta Ann mill. On the other hand, I’m aware of at least one ex-industry forester buying logs from private land owners in the north west, at least some of which are for Ta Ann.
As I understand it, peeler logs are very regular in shape, in the order of 400mm diameter cut to a fixed length and frequently have gang nail plates on the ends to prevent splitting.
You refer to split logs from The Tarkine. Do you mean split for only a short distance from the ends? I expect anything split more than a couple of hundred mm in from the end would be going to the chip mill.
All info welcomed.
JV
After the above email address bounced, I tried to find out a bit more about the author. I can imagine that Minister Bryan Green, Premier David Bartlett, Minister Nick McKim and not least Senator Christine Milne should spend some time with Tom Green to explore the opportunities and issues.
(He may also assist #32. Des Stackpole and crf #20.)
OK then, Bryan Green if you and/or one of your minders reads this, you could try to link up with Tom Green in Canada via:
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Tom Green is a Vancouver-based ecological economist now working on his PhD in ecological economics through the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia. He is currently researching how student knowledge of and attitudes towards the environment are affected by completing a first year economics course. He earned his masters in ecological economics from the University of Victoria in 1998, including a term as a visiting student with two of the founders of ecological economics, Herman Daly and Robert Costanza.
From 2003-2007, Tom worked as Director of Socio-economics for a coalition of environmental groups to help secure both human wellbeing and ecosystem integrity in British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest. He was also appointed to a management committee to oversee the Coast Information Team, an independent science team mandated to develop the best available scientific, traditional, and local knowledge, information and analyses in support of ecosystem-based management in the Great Bear Rainforest.
Cont ...
cont ...
From 1996-2003 he owned his own business that analyzed forestry, resource and economic development issues using an ecological economics approach. He also played a key role in developing standards for sustainable forestry for BC as an appointee to the Standards Team for the Forest Stewardship Council, BC Regional Initiative.
From 1991-1994 he was the Environmental Advisor and Assistant to the Chief Negotiator for Innu Nation in Labrador.
Tom is motivated by a concern for the common good and deeply moved by spaces that have yet to be domesticated. He escapes when possible to the coast or mountains of BC, though he’s also fond of beach volleyball, theatre, salsa dancing and baking apple pies. Having grown up in Canada, Italy and France, he loves languages. He would like in the not-too-distant future to bring his Spanish closer to fluency and start learning Portuguese.
web: questu.ventureweb.net/academics/faculty/tom_green
AND:
Tom Green
The Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, Canada, accounts for a quarter of the world’s remaining unprotected coastal temperate rainforest. Three years ago, conservation groups, logging companies and aboriginal groups reached a landmark agreement to develop an ecosystem-based approach to using the land. At the time, local ecological economist Tom Green co-authored an influential report on the ecological impact of economic subsidies for the logging industry. Three years later, with promises of protection slipping under political pressure, Green’s economic analyses are at the forefront of the struggle to protect what’s left of our natural resources. web: adbusters.org - leading_change
# 39 John Maddock.
In answer to your request for further information re the split logs from the Tarkine.
Yes there are often log trucks seen up in this region of the North West of Tasmania, the loads commonly seen thereupon generally consist of ‘full length split-logs,’ all bundled up to give the appearance of a non-conformity to those of which were once either huge hollowed-out but still living Tarkine Eucalyptus trees, or healthily growing Tarkine forest species.
I suspect that my observations will be poo-pooed by those contradicting F/T crazed persons, whom verily speak as if they believe they have tree sap running through their veins, in lieu of humanoid blood?
# 25 hugoagogo. Thank you for your enduring trials to provide us all with your entertainments.
# 20 Mr crf, I wish you well in your adorations toward the newly-reborn brand-new Bryan Green MP, Tasmania’s minister for financially assisting his mates to speed up the reduction of our Ancient Forest resources, then of their conversion into woodchips.
Still no answers to my earlier questions to you Mr crf?
# 22 Mark Wybourne, I wish upon you a whole bus-load of the very popular vote catching Bryan Greens, though I do suggest you not allow the bus to be parked too distant from the sanctum of a State government run business premise, for fear of them making acquaintance with the more sensibly inclined Tasmanian people?
My thanks to you all for the manner in which you have so kindly exposed your inner selves.
I remind all my fond detractors here that, no amount of wrongs will ever constitute a right?
Boeder #44, having predicted that I would poo-poo your statement, the implication being that the act of doing so only proves your rightness, I clearly stand defeated by the salad maker.