"Australia has 155 million hectares of native forests. About 10 percent - 11 million hectares - of those forests are managed for wood production with less than 1 percent being harvested in any one year. The small proportion of forests that is harvested annually is regenerated so that a perpetual supply of native hardwood and softwood is maintained in this country.
And let me say that Australia is fortunate to have some of the best foresters in the world working to maintain our forest assets in perpetuity."
So began a speech by Martin Ferguson, the Australian Labor Party's resources and forestry spokesman, to the National Association of Forest Industries titled "Australia's role in the global sustainability of forestry and forest industries" on 28th November 2005.
The speech was the focus of an opinion piece in today's The Australian in which Glenn Milne suggests that,
"Ferguson's speech amounted to the most unrelenting attack on the Greens from a figure of substance on the Labor side of politics since the defeat of the Keating government in 1996. Brown is now on notice. In the words of one senior Labor figure supporting Ferguson: "We're about sending a message to Tasmania. Some sections of the Labor Party now no longer believe that the rainbow alliance is the way forward, especially when it's our economic credibility that's under question. Running around chasing the Green tail just means we're ignoring our base, and that includes small contractors."
In the speech Martin Ferguson tries to take the moral high ground on environmental issues as well as shafting the greens.
As Milne reported, Ferguson said, "The Greens are a political movement chasing votes like any other party. The campaign being run by the Greens is aimed at capturing votes, it has nothing to do with the environment or sustainability, and above all, it is dishonest.
The result of the Greens actions could well be to scare international customers away from sustainable forest resources in Tasmania to countries where illegal logging leaves a trail of total devastation, but where ignorance is bliss."
While the forestry industry and me have been saying as much for a long time, I haven't read anyting like this in The Australian by a regular columnist or heard anything like this from a federal Labor leader - ever.
The Shadow Minister was talking to the timber industry when he gave the speech. Milne is suggesting the speech is part of a new realignment by the Labor party.
But how will federal Labor promote a pro-forestry policy and also retain some of its inner city seats won at previous elections at least in part because of its popularist pseudo-green credentials which have historically been about opposing logging in Tasmania.
Read the speech here, download file here (51 kbs).
Phil,
I strongly support WH listing of Qld's Wet Tropical rainforests. In retrospect, the manner of nomination and inscription could have been handled much better. I was working in Ravenshoe at the time Richardson was stoned by angry timber-workers and have read more recently that he considered these acts of hostility invaluable in winning support of the metropolitan masses through mainstream media.
As for continued logging and its attraction to tourism, visit any award winning eco-resort and I guarantee that you will bask in the richness and diversity of rainforest cabinetry.
The failure of tourism to replace timber economies in places like Ravenshoe leaves an entirely different justification for concurrent logging. The Daintree generates far greater income through tourism than logging ever provided, but its bounty is deflected into politically more powerful communities of Cairns and Port Douglas, but this is another issue altogether.
Interestingly, a disefranchised Ravenshoe logger was jailed for a year for poaching timber from WH-listed state forest for a lesser quantity than the Wet Tropics Management Authority deemed as minor and inconsequential to avoid compensation in our Daintree portion.
Davey - have to say that despite all the machinations - the regional bodies in some areas at least seem to be self-actuating and getting into some serious personal resource management. GIS and remote sensing imagery going like topsy. Big thirst for data.
In Queensland we have a major issue with fire - too little in most of the state and maybe too much in the top end. Result - mixed woodlands thickening and becoming forests. Some good field measurements, photographs and isotope studies to back it up. So some mulga forests for example were not there 100 years ago.