The rotten top

THE rotten top of a pile trickles down to us all.

Being an American by birth, I am sometimes mistakenly aligned with the policies of President Bush and Co.

“Not so”, I keep screaming, but usually to no avail to those convinced that any and all Americans are inherently and constitutionally condemned to an arrogance and foul individualism that steps on the rights and toes of any and all in the scramble up the ladder to the billowy white piles of heaven sent stacks of money.

My point is this: As I don’t want to be tagged with the sins of those that govern me, neither let us tag the workers of Forestry Tasmania with the sins of those who govern them.

In my dealings over the past 20 years with the people on the ground within Forestry Tasmania, I have come to admire and appreciate their concern into wanting to “get it right” in our forests. For the most part, from the tree fellers to the tree sowers, from the road builders to the office map planners, these are honest people skilled in their various jobs and committed to doing a decent day’s work for a decent wage. For the most part, they want to see an end to the woodchip plunder of Tasmania’s old growth forests.

It is only at the upper echelons of Forestry Tasmania, along with union chiefs and politicians, where I think bad policy has ruined, is ruining our forests. Just as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield and their collective of “oiled” friends have tarnished the names of all Americans, those in charge of our forests — Lennon, Rolley, Gunn’s — have tarnished the public’s image of those who work under the pay packet umbrella of Forestry Tasmania.

This is what I suggest. Let there be a secret ballot among all those who earn a quid from Forestry Tasmania.

Let the questions be:

• “Do you wish Mark Latham’s $800 million offer to end clearfelling in old growth forests had been endorsed by the Tasmanian Labor Party?”

• “Would you like Forestry Tasmania to devote itself to growing forests rather than plantations?”

• “Would you like to see more areas set aside for speciality timbers and honey?”

• “Would you like to see a moratorium on any further road building into areas of high conversation value as originally outlined by the Community Leaders Group for Tasmanian Together?”

• “Would you like to see Tasmania’s World Heritage boundaries enlarged to include more commercially significant forests?”

• “Do you secretly admire the courageous stance of tree sitter, Peter (Peck) Firth, in the Styx Valley?

If done through an independent process, the final tally could provide some interesting statistics.

Peter Adams
Life on the Edge