Frank Nicklason
He was distressed by the disruption of the trip caused by seven huge forestry burns of ‘waste timber’ on clearfells. (It has been well documented by the group Timberworkers for Forests that large quantities of commercially highly valuable timber have been wilfully destroyed in the misleadingly named ‘regeneration burns’).
I AM a member of the non party political organisation Future Tasmania ( www.futuretasmania.com )which co-hosted a free screening of An Inconvenient Truth with Environment Tasmania at the State Cinema on Sunday 24/3/07.
The cinema was packed with people of all ages.
On the following Tuesday I received a phone call from a German-born friend who had been showing some visitors from his former country around the Huon Valley.
He was distressed by the disruption of the trip caused by seven huge forestry burns of ‘waste timber’ on clearfells. (It has been well documented by the group Timberworkers for Forests that large quantities of commercially highly valuable timber have been wilfully destroyed in the misleadingly named ‘regeneration burns’).
The air was thick with smoke throughout the valley and scenic photography was not possible.
A request to the Environment Department to send a mobile air quality testing unit to the area was met with the surprising response that the Department did not have the equipment. The local tourist office stated that complaints about these burns were common; they suggested talking to Forestry Tasmania.
The statistic that 30% of global greenhouse gases are emitted as a result of forest fires and deforestation was quoted in Al Gore’s film.
The truth seems too inconvenient for proponents of industrial scale clearfell and burn conversion forestry in Tasmania.
Dr Frank Nicklason
