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A news gem from last month
(March 2004), sent by Leon Russo to News Tasmania
while the editor was away.
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"I
DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR OPINION",
says Dick Adams
Australian Labor Party MP, Federal House of Representatives
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Dear Gordon,
Today [17 March 2004], I briefly spoke to Mr. Latham
(Federal Labor Leader Australia) at the Franklin Boatbuilding
school. I expressed the opinion to the Opposition
Leader that 'woodchipping is ruining our state's future
timber industry'. I handed the Leader a letter detailing
my concerns about this state's (I believe) dubious
record of forestry management. Immediately following
this cordial chat, Dick Adams chose to take issue
with this point of view and told me (in the company
of four print journos and a video camera operator)
'I don't give
a fuck about your opinion...'
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Now, I have been wondering for some
time why Dick isn't, hasn't, and probably won't be
in the Shadow Ministry: (it appears) he doesn't understand
the basis of a democracy, i.e., one is allowed to
express a political opinion. Arguably, even the village
idiot would have some idea of this constitutionally
guaranteed privilege, but not, it seems, an elected
people's representative. Dick's quasi-apoplectic spak
attack left me wondering 'why do these pro-woodchip
heroes get so uptight when I ask "why are our
timber trees being woodchipped?"' If this is
not an issue, a normal human reaction would be to
laugh at the assertion. If it is an issue, why the
hell don't Tasmanian politicians remedy it rather
than going bananas at the merest squeak of dissent?
Don't want to upset the BIG company's profits do we?
Well, yes I do if it is going to cost future timber
jobs. And it is.
Leon Russo |
About Big Dick
.....Adams, known across his expansive, mostly rural
electorate as "Big Dick",
is a plain-speaking former meatworker and unionist
who won a seat in the Tasmanian parliament, became
a minister, lost his seat and became a milko. He stepped
up to federal parliament in 1993 by winning the seat
of Lyons. He nearly lost the seat in the federal Labor
wipe-out of 1996 but has clawed back the margin to
8.7%. Like his state Labor colleagues, Adams is pro-logging,
supports the export woodchip industry and hates the
Greens.....
THE
BULLETIN March 10, 2004
MORE...
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Google
On some committees the Mental Giant sits.
HERE...
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THEN
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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NOW
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Burn-off fire bombs fury
April 25, 2004
THE Wilderness Society says it has caught Forestry
Tasmania, on film for the first time, dropping napalm-type
incendiaries to burn off recently clearfelled trees
in the Styx Valley. Society spokesman Vica Bayley
said the dramatic film footage would show Australians
and the world a story that Forestry Tasmania has
always attempted to hide. ..... "The burn is
in the same forest that less than 12 months ago
5000 Tasmanians marched to in an effort to save
the Styx, " he said. "Last year this was
old-growth forest and a rallying point for community
concern. Today Forestry Tasmania has turned it into
a wasteland. The burn was about 600m away from the
world's
tallest Christmas tree and the World Heritage
Area."........
NEWS.COM.AU...
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Growing outcry at state FoI secrecy
25 April 2004
FREEDOM of information in Tasmania has become a farce, says
a leading FoI expert. The intent of FoI legislation is being
thwarted by bureaucrats who refuse to release, or delay
releasing, important information being requested. University
of Tasmania law lecturer Rick Snell said lack of disclosure
about major projects in Tasmania could hurt the economy
and distort the market. Mr Snell said lack of reliable information
about issues such as the $40 million Intelligent Island
program, the Tasmanian devil cancer, the Mersey Hospital
and forestry could reduce confidence in the marketplace.
FoI requests were not producing adequate information and
the public, including decision-makers, the media and business,
were getting unreliable information, he said. "Tasmania
has a highly distorted information market where reliable
information is kept to privied sources," Mr Snell said.....
SUNDAY
TASMANIAN ... |
I’m nervously clinging to the highest
tree house in the world, a flimsy looking affair 180ft above
the ground in the limbs of a gigantic eucalyptus
Nick Squires in Tasmania
25 April 2004
I’m standing at the top of one of the tallest trees
on the planet and the wooden platform beneath my feet is
heaving like a ship in a storm. Great gusts of wind are
rolling down the valley with the sound of an approaching
jumbo jet and twigs and leaves are flying through the air.
“We’re not worried about the platform being blown
down,” Jannis Jensen, a Greenpeace activist from Germany,
shouts above the 50mph gusts. “The biggest concern
is if a dead branch breaks off above and smashes down on
us.” The structure I’m nervously clinging to is
the highest tree house in the world, a flimsy-looking affair
that has been built 180ft above the ground in the limbs
of a gigantic eucalyptus regnans, or swamp gum, in Tasmania’s
Styx Valley. The tree-sit has been occupied since November
by activists from Greenpeace and Tasmania’s Wilderness
Society, who are trying to stop the valley from being logged
and want to see it designated a national park.
It’s a story I’ve been covering for a couple of
years, but this is the first time I’ve been to Tasmania
to see for myself the battle between conservationists and
the timber industry. Until now I’ve made every effort
to uphold journalistic impartiality and give equal weight
to both sides. Privately, however, I am seething. Chopping
down such magnificent trees seems like madness. Some of
them are 400 years old – twice the age of the European
settlement of Australia. The one I’m standing in has
been dubbed Gandalf’s Staff, well suited to the Tolkienesque
world of ferns, moss-covered boulders and crystal-clear
streams below. It’s not as if they will be turned into
beautiful furniture; most of the timber will be ground into
wood chips and exported to Japan for paper production........
SUNDAY
HERALD - GLASGOW SCOTLAND... |
Author, Richard Flanagan accused of betraying
Tasmania
Presenter: Tim Cox
Saturday, 24 April 2004
....Speaking on Statewide Mornings with Tim Cox on ABC Tasmania,
Richard Flanagan said he was amazed that the issue was brought
up in parliament. He suggested publications from through
out the world are sending journalists to cover the story
and that this worries the government. “The problem
Brian Green and this government has got is the world is
interested in what’s happening here, the world thinks
it wrong” he said. “What we have is a pattern
of intimidation, of lies and an ongoing attempt to suppress
the truth of what's happening in Tasmania...it’s a
steady erosion of democracy and it’s not just the forests
that are being trashed in this process”......
ABC
TASMANIA...
• Paradise
lost - with napalm - THE GUARDIAN - UK... |
Senator claims Tasmanian forest industry
'woodchip-driven'
Thursday, April 22, 2004
New South Wales Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan believes
some sawlogs in Tasmania are being woodchipped because specifications
for logs are to high. The Premier, Paul Lennon, has claimed
Senator Heffernan has been tasked with developing Coalition
policy on Tasmania's forestry ahead of the federal election
but Senator Heffernan says he wants a sensible debate on
forest practices. Senator Heffernan
says Tasmania's forestry industry is woodchip-driven.
He says the regional forest agreement (RFA) is being used
as cover for the provision of millions of tonnes of woodchips.
He says 300,000 tonnes of sawlogs must be provided to the
industry under the RFA and to get the timber five million
tonnes of pulpwood is produced. He also says millable timber
gets woodchipped because of seasonal gluts and inflexible
specifications for sawlogs. But Senator Heffernan, who is
on the Senate inquiry into plantations, denies doing Howard
Government bidding for Greens preferences. "Anything
that I'm doing is certainly not driven by a political edge,
it's driven by doing the right thing and having a sensible
look at where Tasmania's going to be in a 100 years given
what it's doing now," he said. It is understood Senator
Heffernan is pushing for the plantation inquiry report to
point out what he sees as weaknesses within the RFA.
ABC
NEWS ONLINE... |
Paradise lost - with napalm
To Australia's shame, loggers are being allowed to destroy
Tasmania's extraordinary primeval forest
Richard Flanagan
Wednesday April 21, 2004
.....Rainforest is being clearfelled and then burnt with
napalm. The world's tallest hardwood trees, eucalyptus regnans,
are being reduced to mud and ash. And the monocultural plantations
that replace the old growths soak up so much groundwater
that rivers are drying up. ........ Compound 1080, a lethal
poison, is laid to kill off native animals that might graze
plantation seedlings. In the resulting slaughter, wallabies,
kangaroos, possums, and protected species such as wombats,
bettongs and potoroos, die in slow agony. ..... Logging
is an industry driven solely by greed. It prospers with
government support and subsidies, and it is accelerating
its rate of destruction, so that Tasmania is now the largest
hardwood chip exporter in the world. And Gunns, the largest
logging company in Australia with a monopoly in Tasmania,
is making record profits selling these forests as woodchips,
which are in turn made into paper and cardboard......
THE
GUARDIAN - UK... |
The Blue Tier Needs Your Help Now!
April 20, 2004
As Forestry Tasmania continues its assault on old growth
forest, the natural beauty of Tasmanian north east highland's
Blue Tier has become a battleground. Lesley Nicklason from
Friends of the Blue Tier, is one of many concerned people
who are camping out in protest of the destruction of the
Blue Tier. Here's an excerpt from her diary and details
of what you can do to help save this precious forest region.....
AUSTRALIAN
CONSERVATION FOUNDATION (ACF)...
• SEE
WHAT'S HAPPENING AT WELD HILL... |
Motor registry refuses to take doctor's
1080 bait
18 April 2004
A SURGEON opposed to the use of 1080 poison to kill native
Tasmanian wildlife has been barred from promoting his cause
on his car number plate. Hobart medico Michael Vaughan wanted
to have a custom plate, "NO1080", on his ute --
but was denied. The Motor Registry has deemed the labelling
"political" and refused to issue the plates. Motor
Vehicles Registrar Richard Fowler said "NO1080"
plates could be viewed as inappropriate by certain parts
of the community. ...... "It's not a political statement,
it's a compassionate statement," Dr Vaughan said. "Tasmania's
forests and native animals are what make the island special,
they need to be protected, not wantonly destroyed."
The 1080 poison is used in forestry and farm operations.
Foresters tempt wildlife into logging coupes with carrots.
Once possums, wallabies and other native wildlife are used
to the free feed, the carrots are baited with 1080. There
has been local, national and international condemnation
of this treatment of Tasmanian native species.....
HOBART
MERCURY... |
Ancient trees pit activists, loggers
Protesters in Tasmania are living atop the world's tallest
hardwoods, now being felled for cardboard.
By Richard C. Paddock - Los Angeles Times
Apr. 18, 2004
Here in the ancient Tasmanian forest, the world's tallest
hardwood trees rise 250 feet from the valley floor. These
are the Eucalyptus regnans - the king of the eucalyptus
- and some have been growing for more than 400 years. Now,
many of the enormous trees in Australia's southernmost state
are being clear-cut, turned into wood chips and shipped
to Japan for cardboard. The logging of the old-growth trees
has turned this valley, with its giant tree ferns and carpet
of green moss, into a battleground in the fight to save
the world's rain forests. ...... "The Tasmanian government
is subsidizing the cutting of these forests. It's a tremendous
waste of a magnificent resource."......
PHILLY.COM... |
Protesters pledge to fight despite arrests
17 April 04
OPPONENTS of logging in the Blue Tier are prepared to keep
up the fight against logging in the area. Friends of the
Blue Tier spokeswoman Lesley Nicklason said the group was
determined to continue to scrutinise the clearfelling operation,
despite three members being arrested on Thursday. Ms Nicklason
and two others were arrested after refusing to leave an
exclusion zone placed around the 65ha coupe as harvesting
equipment moved in. .....
HOBART
MERCURY... |
Top citizen in forest arrest
16 April 2004
AN 82-year-old Citizen of the Year was one of three people
arrested yesterday as logging equipment rolled into a controversial
forestry coupe in the state's North-East. The trio, Greens
Apsley candidate Lesley Nicklason, Waterwatch member Beris
Hansberry and Break O'Day Municipality's Citizen of the
Year, Denys Walter, refused to leave an exclusion zone placed
around the 65ha coupe as harvesting equipment moved in.
They were among 12 protesters who have camped at the coupe
for the past 34 days in a bid to have the State Government
conduct a public land-use inquiry of the area and end logging.
Mr Walter said he was proud to be arrested protecting the
area's water catchment......
HOBART
MERCURY... |
Styx campaign moves to second phase
Friday 16 April 2004
The five-month long tree-sit in Tasmania’s threatened
Styx Valley has come to an end, as organisers claim a victory
in the first stage of their campaign. The protest is against
the logging of the Styx’s old growth trees for sale
as woodchips for paper production in Japan.
GREEN
CONSUMER GUIDE... |
Outrage as editor accepts spin role
April 15, 2004
THE shock appointment of a Tasmanian newspaper editor as
Premier Paul Lennon's chief-of-staff was yesterday labelled
a scandal for media independence by the Greens..... Rod
Scott, editor of the Launceston-based newspaper The Examiner,
will start with Mr Lennon this month, ending his 21-year
career with the paper. Greens leader Peg Putt condemned
the move, saying it was a scandal that a newspaper was so
close to the Government that its editor could walk in to
the chief-of-staff job. She said The Examiner's editorial
line under Mr Scott was "strongly pro-woodchipping",
"anti-Green" and "politically partisan to
the extent of being often indistinguishable from the Labor
position". ..... Mr Hidding said with Mr Scott as chief-of-staff,
the Lennon Government would take spin-doctoring to a new
level.
NEWS.COM.AU...
2
PEAS IN A POD (HIDDING & EXAMINER) SUED FOR DEFAMATION... |
Forest proscribed to force protesters
out: Brown
April 15, 2004
Greens Senator Bob Brown says Forestry Tasmania has declared
an exclusion zone over a disputed forest in a bid to force
out a group of anti-logging protesters. The Break O'Day
Council in the state's north-east has confirmed logging
is due to start in the Blue Tier forest today, and that
Forestry Tasmania has asked for a police presence. Senator
Brown says one of the protesters has notified his office
that they have been handed an order by forestry officials
declaring the entire area off-limits to the public. "Leslie
Nickleson has just got onto the local ABC radio here to
say that they've just announced that they're declaring the
area proscribed," he said. "That means the media
can't go there, citizens can't go there, tourists can't
go there, only Gunns with its chainsaws and bulldozers can
go there."
ABC
NEWS... |
Hollywood Asked to Help Save Tassie Devil
April 14, 2004
Movie studio Warner Bros., which earned million of dollars
from its Tasmanian devil cartoon character "Taz,"
has now been asked to help save his real-life cousins in
Australia that are being decimated by facial cancer.Tasmanian
devils on Australia's southern island state of Tasmania,
the only place where these carnivorous marsupials are found
in the wild, are being wiped out, with grossly disfigured
animals dying within months of contracting the disease.
Environmentalists have approached the Hollywood studio to
help raise funds to battle the disease, which has probably
killed between a third and a half of the Tasmanian devil
population in the past five to 10 years. Only about 70,000
to 80,000 remain.......
PLANET
ARC...
MALAYSIA
STAR 27 April 2004...
Hollywood tries to save Tasmanian devil
.....The tumours are believed to
be caused by a virus that has lain dormant in the Devil's
genome for decades, before being triggered by environmental
changes, such as the depredation of habitat by the logging
industry, the 1080 pesticide, and calicivirus, a disease
introduced to kill rabbits.....
UK
GUARDIAN... |
City smoke haze fires up the phones
09 April 04
HOBART residents swamped 000 emergency lines yesterday as
a pall of forestry regeneration burn smoke covered the city.
The Tasmania Fire Service service reported being inundated
by calls yesterday afternoon, with some people fearing a
major blaze had broken out. A spokeswoman said several callers
were not convinced it was only smoke from regeneration burns
in the Huon and Plenty valleys. Forestry Tasmania apologised
for any concerns the smoke caused, saying there was no risk
to property.
Forestry Tasmania and private forestry operators held up
to 40 burns across the state. ..... But Greens senator Bob
Brown said the smoke would have a negative tourism impact
ahead of Easter. .... Senator Brown said the regeneration
burns were nothing more than a huge deliberately lit bushfire
that the public was expected to put up with.....
HOBART
MERCURY... |
A TYPICAL EXAMPLE OF TASMANIAN INGENUITY....
INABILITY TO FIND ANYTHING ELSE TO DO BUT CUT THE TREES
DOWN
Logging to stay for sake of economy
April 10, 2004
IGNORING mounting pressure at home, on the mainland and
even overseas, the Tasmanian Government looks poised to
rule out an end to clear-fell logging of old-growth forests
by 2010, after a new draft report found it would be uneconomic
to impose a ban......
THE
AUSTRALIAN... |
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Forestry debate prompts Japanese call
for action
Friday, 9 April 2004
The Tasmanian Government maintains its 30-year business
relationship with the State's biggest buyer of woodchips
is not under threat. Japan's Nippon Paper Industries has
urged the Government to resolve its differences with environmental
groups. In a letter posted on its website, the president
of the Japanese company says the Tasmanian forestry debate
is interfering with business and causing confusion for
customers. Geoff Law from the Wilderness Society says
the letter proves its campaign is being noticed internationally.
"This is a major breakthrough as far as the campaign
is concerned," he said. Resources Minister Bryan
Green says the Tasmanian Government has built a 30 year
relationship with the company based on trust. "They're
jeopardising our business relationships, but more than
that - and the part that really frustrates me - is they
are sullying Tasmania's good name,".......
ABC
TASMANIA...
HERE'S THE LETTER
FROM NIPPON...
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Nippon Paper Urges Tasmania to Fix 'Divisive'
Forestry Debate
Apr. 8, 2004
SYDNEY, Australia - Environmental activists campaigning
to halt the logging of Tasmania's ancient forests for Japan's
paper market claimed victory Thursday after obtaining a
letter from Nippon Paper Industries Co. urging the state
government to "conclude this divisive debate."
"Never before have issues that are essentially local
Tasmanian issues come to interfere with our business and
cause confusion with our own paper customers here in Japan,"
said the letter from Nippon Paper President Takahiko Miyoshi
to Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon......
MIAMI
HERALD...
MELBOURNE
AGE...
AND JAPAN
TODAY... |
Brown fears for Styx Valley
April 7, 2004
AUSTRALIAN Greens senator Bob Brown fears an area of the
Styx Valley in Tasmania visited last month by Federal Opposition
Leader Mark Latham will be logged. Conservationists today
started dismantling a protest platform 65m high in a eucalyptus
regnans known as Gandalf's Staff. Senator Brown today said
Mr Latham, who toured the area with him, should ask the
Tasmanian Labor government to ensure the area was not logged.
He said it was unsafe for protesters to stay on the platform
during winter and it was possible logging operations could
soon begin in the area.
"The grim determination of the Lennon government in
Tasmania is one where they will take advantage and move
in the bulldozers even in winter, but that remains to be
seen," he told reporters......
NEWS.COM.AU
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Can't see the wood for
the trees
The recent international outcry over felling in Tasmanian
forests overlooks the human problems threatening the island,
warns Greg Barns a Tasmania-based writer and a former
adviser to the Australian government.
Tuesday April 6, 2004
.....The leading independent social research agency in
Tasmania is the Anglican church-funded Anglicare. That
organisation released a ground-breaking report late in
2003 on the extent of poverty in the state. A survey of
812 low income Tasmanians revealed that 59% had gone without
meals in the previous 12 months due to money shortages
and 20% had seen their power cut off in the same period.
Over 35% of Tasmanian households are dependent on government
support - the highest figure in Australia. More disturbing
for the state's future is the fact that only 27% of Tasmanians
have completed secondary school education. Tasmania's
economic security in the 21st century cannot improve unless
that latter figure reaches at least 50%......
UK
GUARDIAN...
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CUTTING tall trees in the rain forest
provokes outcry
1 April 2004 Miami Herald - Miami, FLORIDA, USA
STYX VALLEY, Australia - Here in the ancient Tasmanian forest,
the world's tallest hardwood trees rise 250 feet from the
valley floor. ...
MIAMI
HERALD... |
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