The expert truth

Lindenmayer, Beadle Radio National interviews

D. Lindenmayer: The counter side to that in just 220 years we’ve had a biodiversity loss record that’s second to none, we lead the world in recent mammal extinctions, we lead the world in the number of threatened species, that we have here, we have the highest per capita number of extinctions and threatened species of anywhere on the planet by far, so its really quite an appalling record. Beadle: that makes it even more necessary to have an independent scrutiny of the wood supply before permission is given for the mill to be built.

ABC Radio National. Breakfast. Fran Kelly. Interview with David Lindenmayer.

3rd September. 2007. Listener transcript from tape. This was in connection with David’s 18th book to be released this day: On Borrowed Time: Australia’s environmental crisis and what we must do about it.

Fran: David Lindenmayer is Professor of Ecology and Conservation Science at the ANU. And he outlines what he calls the good, the bad and the ugly news of biodiversity in his new book, On Borrowed Time: Australia’s environmental crisis and what we must do about it.

David, good morning.

D. Lindenmayer: Good morning Fran.

Fran: David the good, the bad and the ugly that’s how you lay it out. I sounds like a Western; it’s a check list basically of where we are. Can you give us a snapshot if we start with the good news for a change. What’s good about how we are approaching things in biodiversity terms.

D. Lindenmayer: Well the good side of the book is that most Australians probably aren’t aware of how bio-diverse this nation really is. We have more species of endemic vertebrates, that’s vertebrates that occur here and nowhere else, than anywhere else on the planet. So it’s really quite remarkable and, – so that’s really something quite extraordinary that most Australians are probably unaware of. I think the counter to that,… the bad side…

Fran. I was going to say, that leads us invariably to the bad…

D. Lindenmayer. The counter side to that in just 220 years we’ve had a biodiversity loss record that’s second to none, we lead the world in recent mammal extinctions, we lead the world in the number of threatened species, that we have here, we have the highest per capita number of extinctions and threatened species of anywhere on the planet by far, so its really quite an appalling record….

Fran: Before we get to the ugly and that sounds pretty ugly, let’s just … let’s explore that for a bit… half of Australia’s marsupials, 30% of our native rodents have become extinct or almost extinct in the last 220 years, as you say the highest per capita number of extinct and threatened species in the world… why… what are we doing wrong? Or what are we doing worse than other countries?

D. Lindenmayer: Well, one of the most important things in Australia is that the continent itself is very vulnerable to invasive species such as foxes and cats but we’ve also overcommitted our landscapes in terms of resource use and that’s something that we’re seeing right now with the pulp mill in Tasmania. We’re about to overcommit the forest resource in Tasmania to a pulp mill that’s probably mismatched in terms of its scale to the availability of resources. And then what happens is we overcommit the resource, then we intensify its use and we leave very little option or environmental margin to be able to do the things we have to do to maintain ecological sustainability and thereby maintain biodiversity as an outcome of that sustainability and that’s a really serious issue.

Fran: Let’s just stick with the pulp mill thing for a minute because … is it inevitable if we’re talking about ecological sustainability we’re on the other hand saying that, that and economic development clash, that they can’t co-exist together. Is it possible to have a pulp mill that isn’t damaging for the environment for the biodiversity, for the ecology?

D. Lindenmayer: I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there Fran and a key theme of this book, – it’s not about ultra greens versus ultra browns, – it’s actually trying to find a way through that using good science and using smart thinking and good decision making to work out ways to do things in a truly ecologically sustainable way.

Fran: And can we do that with the pulp mill for instance?

D. Lindenmayer: I think it is possible to do forest management in an ecologically sustainable way. In the case of Tasmania, I think if there are a number of important riders that go with this; for example, a phase out of old growth logging, a phase out of clear fell logging, which can be incredibly damaging, some proper specifications on the pulp mill for pollutants, the proper location of the pulp mill and a really serious commitment to endangered species protection. In the recent Wielangta case it was pretty clear that the judge had indicated there needed to be a serious approach paid to protecting endangered species. So that means protect, – not just an arm waving thing saying “oh .. that’s what we might do” .. actually having to do some serious protection of threatened and endangered species.

Fran: So just before we move off the current pulp mill debate what’s your take on this current debate? That it is possible to end up with a pulp mill in Tasmania but perhaps we should all slow up a little and look what’s needed to make that sustainable?

David Lindenmayer: I think there are a number of important things here Fran. The first one is that pulp mills tend to be around for a long time. And they’re very big entities. And so we need to be very serious about the planning process of it and we shouldn’t rush it and corrupt the process which is actually what’s happened in Tasmania. The second thing is that we have to think very deeply about what goes on, region-wide and landscape-wide not only at the level of the pulp mill but also in terms of the timber catchment. So how much timber, how’s it going to be logged, how much is not going to be logged, what are the other kinds of impacts that are going on and put all this together to really chart a sensible way forward and one of the things that has characterised forestry for the last forty years in Australia is that it really hasn’t matured as a series of debates and discussions. It’s very much ultra-greens versus ultra browns without really the science in the middle trying to help the process forward.

Fran: Which basically is I think how you sum up the ugly in the book, we don’t do the proper research first, we don’t answer the necessary questions and yet.. your last chapter I think is the good news. You talk about the hero and within that you say there’s some positive aspect to that which is for a start, Australia has some of the best ecological scientific brains in the world. We have the knowledge base here, so it’s just a matter of asking the right questions, taking the time and the money to do all the right research before we tackle things. Is that your pitch?

David Lindenmayer: That’s part of the pitch definitely. I think what’s characteristic of the environment in Australia is yes, we have some of the best science and conservation science minds on the planet. What’s also characteristic of the environmental sector is that there’s major under investment in the whole arena, relative to the scale of the problems and the other thing that’s quite clear is that we’re not using the knowledge that we already have. So yes, there’s always going to be a push for more research but there is a lot of research out there that is simply not being utilised and implemented in management as it is now and that’s why we continue to make the same mistakes that we’ve made year after year after year, decade after decade…

Fran: And why isn’t that research being utilised? Is that just pig-ignorance or is it the people in power not wanting to look at those answers because they’re not politically convenient.. ?

David Lindenmayer: I think it’s always a combination of those kinds of things. There’s no doubt for the level of the politics both at the state and the federal level. In terms for example opening up Tas… opening up northern Australia or the pulp mill in Tasmania there’s an enormous amount of politic and in many cases it’s quite convenient to overlook the science that would underpin truly ecologically sustainable forest management or agriculture, or fire management or fishing or what have you. And then later on what happens is that things develop into a mess, and then there’s crisis management to see if we can fix up the mess. And the reality is that in most environmental sectors crisis management doesn’t work or its highly inefficient.

Fran: David, we’re almost out of time and I know we could talk about this for hours and that’s obviously what you’re saying. The country needs to talk about this a lot more but your prediction is dire. If we don’t get the right responses soon, the right investments soon within 50-100 years – which is not very long – we could see the collapse of Western civilisation. Now is that overly alarmist and what’s the most urgent thing we need to be doing?

David Lindenmayer: I think one of the most urgent things we need to do is seriously invest in this whole arena. So what we’re seeing for example in Tasmania is a major sort of corner-cutting exercise. And so we’re going to make mistakes, that we didn’t need to make and that’s going to cost a lot of money and there are going to be severe environmental consequences of having cut those corners when we didn’t really need to do that. Because we already know what we have to do. And we have to get more science into the politics, we have to get more science into the natural resource management. So I think that’s one of the really key things…

And

ABC Radio National. Bush Telegraph. Interview of Dr. Chris Beadle with Michael McKenzie.

Tuesday 4th September. 2007. Listener transcript from tape.

The broadcast can be listened to Online or via a Podcast.

The ABC webpage for this programme segment gives the following details:

ABC Rural: Wood Supply for the Proposed Pulp Mill Questioned: Margot Foster.

In the great debate over the proposed pulp mill in Tasmania we’ve heard discussion about jobs and pollution. We’ve heard argument over the optimum site for the mill and criticism of meddling mainlanders. But another question has been raised, and this is whether or not there are enough trees to support a pulp mill of this type.

Dr. Beadle is a professional forest scientist based in Hobart. His 35 years experience includes managing the Sustainable Management Programme in the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Production Forestry for seven years.

“I have examined three key documents that were produced as part of the assessment process for the pulp mill: the Gunns Limited Integrated Impact Statement (IIS): an Expert Witness Statement prepared for Gunns Limited and an Independent Review of the IIS on Wood Flow Assumptions prepared for the Resource Planning and Development Commission. I also draw upon my own knowledge of the productivity of eucalypt plantations in Tasmania and their current capacity to supply pulpwood.

I have come to the conclusion that projected wood flows may not meet the requirements of the mill over its lifetime, and that supplying large amounts of wood to a pulp mill neglects consideration of existing and new opportunities to add greater value to wood. Kraft pulp mills, once operational, require wood on a continuous basis.”

In this report: Dr. Beadle, professional forest scientist, Hobart and manager of the Sustainable Management Programme in the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Production Forestry for seven years which ceased operations in 2005.

Interview:

Michael MacKenzie: We’ve heard discussion about jobs and pollution, we’ve had argument over the optimum site for the mill and criticism of meddling Mainlanders but another question has been raised and that is whether or not there are enough trees to support a pulp mill of this type and with me today from Hobart is Dr. Chris. Beadle. Dr. Beadle is a professional forest scientist based in Hobart. He’s got 35 years experience including managing the Sustainable Management Programme in the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Production Forestry. For 7 years he was in that job. Dr. Beadle welcome to Bush Telegraph.

Beadle: Good morning Michael. Thank you.

MacKenzie: Chris if we can begin by asking what it is that drew you to this issue because I don’t think I’ve heard much discussion about this in the …. What is now a national debate over whether this pulp mill should exist or not?

Beadle: Well as you’ve just mentioned, listeners who have been following the pulp mill debate over the last few months will have been aware that the focus has been on the aerial and marine pollution that might result from the operation of the mill. [Yes], We were getting very close to the point where decisions were going to be made about whether the mill should go ahead or not and yet nothing was being said about the wood supply for the mill. The Sweco process which has been the process in place since the demise of the RPDC…

MacKenzie: No, hang on Chris, remember you’re not talking to people in your department here, you can’t … you can’t use acronyms and those kinds of words and get away with it. You’re going to have to explain yourself…

Beadle: Okay. The Tasmanian government had had in place two processes to examine the proposal for the proponents for this mill. The first was – and I’ll just use the acronym – the RPDC process and part of their reement (?) was to look at the wood supply for the mill and after its demise in March this years it was replaced by an alternative process. It’s reement didn’t include the wood supply. It’s called the Sweco process and that reported a few weeks ago and it reported only on the potential for aerial and marine pollution as a result.

MacKenzie: So the focus, much of the debate has been on output from the mill rather than input and so you’ve actually done some of the maths based on your enormous experience. I should ask you before we get into the equations surrounding your concerns over this, are you anti pulp mill?

Beadle: No, I’m not an anti pulp mill person at all. I recognise that in Tasmania as a part of the way we manage our forests that inevitably a lot of pulp wood is produced and there is a logic, of course there is a strong logic that we should maximise our capacity to add value to that wood before it is exported. So certainly we should have a pulp mill. We just have to be careful that we have a pulp mill that operates on a sustainable wood supply. Just let me remind listeners that the Kraft process, which is the process which will be used in this pulp mill is a continuous process.

MacKenzie: Is that 24 hours a day do you mean?

Beadle: It’s 24 hours a day and I’m suggesting it’s 24 hours a day for the next 30 years and proponents indicate that they want to process 4 million tonnes of wood every year. So multiply 4 by 30; we need a sustainable supply of 120 million tonnes of wood for the next 30 years. So we have to have some certainty that we have that supply before the mill opens.

MacKenzie: Now we’re talking about a project here which is worth conservatively $2 billion dollars in terms of set up and expense. Surely a company as well versed in timber as Gunns is going to be looking most closely at its ability to supply that kind of project with that kind of money attached, with the amount of raw material it needs?

Beadle: Well I’m sure you are, …. My concern is that it’s not being independently scrutinised before permission is being given for the mill to go ahead and when I look at the figures that are being provided from the proponents and from people who have looked at those figures on behalf of the proponents, I come to the conclusion that …uhm….whereas they say there is an intention to source 75% of wood from plantations by 2020, I can’t see that actually happening from the plantations that are in the ground at the moment, that potential to produce wood at the rate required to meet that level of supply. So I’m just suggesting that because of that, that makes it even more necessary to have an independent scrutiny of the wood supply before permission is given for the mill to be built.

MacKenzie: Okay, let’s talk about growth rates of plantation timber. We’re talking here about eucalypts. What particular species of eucalypt are grown in plantations that would be advantageous to the pulp mill at the moment?

Beadle: Well right throughout southern Australia we’re growing two species, Eucalyptus globulus, – a lot of people in Tasmania will know that as Tasmanian Bluegum – but the preferred species in Tasmania is a related species. It is a bluegum called Eucalyptus nitens; it’s an indigenous species in Victoria. It’s grown as an exotic in Tasmania but it accounts for by far the large proportion of the plantations that have been established. Both these species grow at similar rates and under ideal conditions because we live in a cooler climate and because E. nitens, Shining gum is better adapted to cooler climates, this is the species which is grown.

MacKenzie: And when you say better adapted are you talking here Chris about the idea that it grows faster and therefore is more ready to be milled and processed than most other timbers in plantations?

Beadle: On average sites in Tasmania that is the case. The reason it’s a preferred species is partly because as you know exotics often do better than endemic species when you grow them in monocultures. It’s also because it comes from high elevations in Victoria. It’s particularly well adapted to cool climates where frost is something which the plantation has to experience throughout its life cycle.

MacKenzie: Okay so at the moment Gunns has put forward a proposal under a range of documents as to where it will be drawing its timber from. I think you mentioned earlier, that at the outset, the emphasis might be more on old growth forest and then moving further into plantation forest as those forests come on line and develop a là that kind of species of eucalypt. Is that a fair appraisal, is that how it works?

Beadle: Well that is nearly right. If the mill opens as proposed in 2009, 80%, or at least 80% of the wood will have to be sourced from native forests and the intention is to source that wood in the north east of Tasmania. Now the native forest consists of two components. There are the areas that have already been harvested and regenerated and that is regrowth but there is the older forest which I’ll just call “old” forest and what I rope to that is forest which is usually one hundred years or older and may include trees which were around before European settlement and it does tend to contain quite large volumes of standing timber. So that will be part of the resource for the mill in the first… particularly in the first ten years of its operation simply because the amount of plantation wood which the mill would require if it had to operate without access to native forest timber including this old forest is just not available at the moment.

MacKenzie: How far away from the proposed mill is this old growth forest that would have to be a part of that demand for the mill’s intake… [Yes], what I’m asking is distance a factor when it comes to the economics of transporting timber to the mill?

Beadle: Yes, it certainly is, as I wrote, pulp – if you produce pulp you’re producing a world commodity product … uhm… it’s sold at a single price throughout the world so, if you’re going to be competitive you need to minimise your costs. Now a lot of pulp like this is produced in developing countries where land is cheap and where wood is cheap and that isn’t the case in first world countries like Australia where at least labour and land is quite expensive. So if you’re going to be competitive you need to minimise the costs of your wood. And one of the ways of making sure that that is the case is to minimise the costs of transport and the costs of harvesting. So because the intention is to source the wood supply when the mill opens primarily from north east Tasmania. In fact I think throughout the life time of the mill that would be the intention. You minimise your wood costs by putting your mill up on the Tamar rather than up in north west Tasmania say at Hampshire which of course…

MacKenzie: Which of course was one of the other sites debated as a fall back for location.

Beadle: That is right and that is getting a lot of discussion at the moment; it has been discussed in relation… from the perspective of people who would just like to see a plantation, a pulp mill based on plantation wood only. There are a lot of plantations in the north west of Tasmania but that is,.. that is not an option being pursued by the proponents at the moment.

MacKenzie: My guest is Dr. Chris Beadle who is a forest scientist of some years standing based in Hobart with some very interesting equations he’s done on the mathematics, the simple mathematics of supply and demand. That is whether the 30 year life of the proposed pulp mill, the Gunns pulp mill in the Tamar Valley can actually be supplied by the amount of both plantation and native timber that it will need to meet its targets over that 30 year life span. Chris Beadle is sounds to me like you’ve done a lot of intensive research into the potentials here I guess for what can be processed in that time and from what kind of forests and you’re saying that the maths just doesn’t add up given the kind of projections Gunns has put forward.

Beadle: I think what I’m saying is that I have a concern that there may be a shortfall of wood in ten years’ time…

MacKenzie: That can only be made up….

Beadle: In ten years’ time and therefore we do need to have an independent scrutiny of the proposed wood supply. I think I also need to add there are other factors in the equation. Here we’re talking abut a mill that’s going to be operating for the next 30 years. A lot of listeners will be hearing a lot about the potential for climate change to affect the way our vegetation grows. We’re already seeing this happening as in an agricultural context. We do have mathematical models that can describe how forests grow now that are based on the ways trees respond to their environment. And we can also project those estimates in the context of how we expect our climate to be behaving in the next 20-30 years and that will have an affect on our capacity to produce wood from both plantation and native forests. And I think we need… because we have a capacity to do this we should be examining the potential for forests to supply wood out into the future at least for the full future of the proposed development and seeing that that is being done.

MacKenzie: Okay, Dr. Beadle, in that case can I ask you this question because time’s running out. Do you believe, given the maths you’ve done on this and I’m sure the extensive research, and the Environmental Impact Statements done on behalf of Gunns, do you believe we’re being deliberately deceived about what this mill will need over its 30 year life span?

Beadle: I don’t think I can comment on that Michael. I’m…. I don’t really know. What I’m alerting people to is that we’re not hearing very much about the wood supply…. It doesn’t seem to be part of the way the decision is being made and I think it needs to be part of the way the decision is made so we have the certainty that we have a sustainable wood supply for the next 30 years. And we’re now moving into…. what we need to do is to now move into an era where we have ecological sustainable management of our forests and the wood supply is just part of that I know. But nevertheless it does need to be part of the way we deal with this particular issue.

MacKenzie: Well thank you very much for raising the issue and thanks for joining us on Bush Telegraph this morning.

Beadle: Thank you very much for inviting me, Michael.

McKenzie: Dr. Chris Beadle who is a professional forest scientist based in Hobart. And I should also remind you that these views are Dr. Beadle’s himself. He does not represent the views in this case of his employer, the CSIRO. So I’m sure more to be discussed on that matter.