Quantum Forest

A few months ago Senator Bob Brown was complaining that nothing would happen with the government’s electoral promise on forests. Last Friday—Friday 13^th, spooky—John Howard (Australia’s Prime Minister) and Paul Lennon (Tasmanian Premier) signed the ‘Supplementary Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement’ in a visit to the Styx Valley.

The extension to the RFA includes much more than just extra reserved land:

• Extra 193,400 ha protected (148,400 ha of State Forests and 45,000 ha of voluntarily protected forests). This covers two of the most contentious areas: the Tarkine and the Styx Valley, plus a number of small areas. Out of the 148,400 ha there are 120,000 of old growth forests. The new areas are reserves and not national parks; thus, they are not available for forestry but the mining industry still can claim mining rights.
• Clearing and conversion of native forests (both old growth and regeneration forests) to other land uses (plantations, farming, etc) on public land phased out by 2010. Same situation in private land by 2015.
• Old-growth clearfelling will be reduced to 20 percent of total production (400 ha a year) by 2010, favouring partial harvesting methods. There will be no acceleration of harvest rate in old growth forest.
• There will be an expansion of hardwood plantations of 16,000 ha (most likely in converted land) to allow meeting a legal commitment of 300,000 m³/year of sawlogs and reducing reliance on old-growth forests.
• End of use of 1080 in States Forests (although this is not new) and incentives for private land owners to do the same.
• There would be an extra 213 jobs in forestry (155 direct and 53 indirect).
• There are other bits and pieces including ‘feel good’ programs of AUD 1 million for water quality assessments and AUD 2 millions for studying Tasmanian devils’s facial cancer. Not that they are not important, but they have not much to do with the rest of the RFA.

It is now clear that the delay of the announcement (from December to May) was due to intense negotiations to provide a much more comprehensive package. This extra coverage comes at a cost though; where the initial budget was AUD50 millions from the Federal Government, it increased to AUD250 millions (160 millions from the federal budget plus 90 millions from state government). There will be AUD 115 millions for intensive forest management and AUD 42 millions for the hardwood industry. This is still a small number compared to Labor’s promised AUD800 millions.

If the sign of a fair deal is that everybody is a little unhappy, we are in the presence of a good deal. The Greens and other conservationists can not stand it—the Greens call it forest torture—but nobody expected that they would like any solution to the problem, which is key to their political position in Australia. Farmers do not like the deal because it imposes restrictions on land clearing. Part of the forest industry does not like it because it reduces—and in some cases eliminate—access to to specific forest resources.

It is clear that with a reduced available forest area, there will be an intensification of silviculture of the remaining land, particularly in plantations.

Some sources:

• Full document and maps for the Supplementary Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement 13 May 2005.
• Tasmania’s Premier press release.

It seems that during summer time not much is happening on environmental issues in Tasmania. Plenty of people are on holidays and the news cover mostly regrettable natural disasters around the planet. Anyway, just a few things that will be—or are likely to be—happening in Tasmania during 2005:

• 1080 will stop being used in State Forests in December 2005. Therefore, Forestry Tasmania will stop its use, in the same way it stopped using Atrazine in 1997.
• Parliament will continue the discussion about repealing section 32A (112 KB, PDF file) of the Freedom of Information Act. Although Forestry Tasmania is subject to Freedom of Information law, it may request exemption under specific circumstances. FoI law still protects information considered ‘commercial in confidence’, including pricing.
• The government should make available the results of public consultation on the projected pulp mill in Northern Tasmania.
• Forestry Tasmania should make public the updated version of Alternatives to Clearfell Silviculture. They were supposed to be released around the time of the past Federal Elections. On hindsight it was good that the results were not released on time. The issue will still be political, but not more than necessary.

I doubt that there will be any real news before March.

PS. 2005-05-16. Additional reservation and other changes were announced in May.

In an unsurprising appearance in the news a few days ago, Senator Bob Brown said that nothing is going to happen with the re-elected government’s promise on Tasmanian forests, so he will not hold his breath about their conservation.

But what would happen if parts of the Tarkine were to be reserved? What would be the impact on Tasmania’s environmental debate if part of the Styx Valley became protected? I think that is highly unlikely that the whole areas — which go way above the 170,000 ha promised by the government — will be reserved. For once, it would probably break the RFA (Regional Forestry Agreement). On another front, it would be seen as too much a concession to the Greens.

However, if the heart of the Tarkine or the section of the Styx Valley that contains the tall trees (yes, a good part of the valley does not contain giant/tall trees) what would be the reaction of environmentalist organisations? They would probably claim that ‘the end is near’ and that ‘it is not enough’, despite of extending partial reservation to two icons of the Tasmanian environmental debate.

I may be wrong — and Bob Brown in the right path — and nothing will happen with this electoral promise. In fact, I normally do not trust politicians; however, in this case I think that the ‘John W. Howard’ reserve (mock name, of course) will be a reality pretty soon indeed.

PS. 2005-05-16. Additional reservation and other changes were announced in May. Bob was wrong.

Gunns has started legal action against twenty environmentalist individuals and groups, including Bob Brown, Peg Putt, the Wilderness Society and Doctors for Forests. The company is trying to recover around AU$6.36 million that claims to have lost due to:

• Logging operations disruption campaigns and actions at Lucaston, Hampshire, Triabunna and the Styx;
• Corporate vilification campaigns relating to the Burnie Woodchip site and the Banksia Awards;
• Campaigns against overseas customers of the First Plaintiff (Gunns) including customers in Japan and Belgium;
• Corporate campaigns targeting shareholders, investors and Banks.

The writ claims that the environmentalists’ campaign is a conspiracy to injure Gunns and to interfere with Gunns trade and business by unlawful means. The writ is quite large, and you can obtain a copy from Bob Brown’s website (PDF 5.4MB).

Environmentalist organisations and forest companies have used before legal action, called to Royal Commissions, lodged formal complaints, etc. Thus, there is nothing new in the ‘legal approach’ to environmental ‘debate’. However, this time Gunns is certainly aiming high in a very risky bet.

Is legal action threatening freedom of speech? I think it is hard to be conclusive about it. On one side, it may deter people voicing their opinions and genuine concerns, which would be a major drawback. On the other, there would be pressure to be more responsible when expressing dissent, particularly pushing people to ‘check facts’ and to avoid bogus claims to disqualify their opponents, which would be a major plus. I would certainly prefer a parallel universe where people would speak their minds openly always telling the truth. However, I live in this universe where legal action may be the lesser evil.

Will Gunns be able to prove the accusations presented in the writ? I find it hard to believe, particularly when (i) trying to connect cause (environmentalists actions) with effects (loss of income) and (ii) valuing the size of the effect of the campaign. It may be that Gunns is trying to establish a ‘fear factor’ (that I do not think will be achieved) or that John Gay really believes the contents of the writ and is trying to recoup some of the money. Anyway, there are interesting days ahead of us.

In a not so unrelated note, the Independent Complaints Review Panel of the ABC, found that the ‘Lords of the Forests Programs’ (aired on 16 February 2004) showed some innacuracies, unsourced visions and emotive language, which affected its balance and fairness.

Environmental discussion in Tasmania is plagued with false dilemmas. As I described before in Conservation or production: a false dilemma, the reduction of environmental issues to ‘two unpleasant mutually exclusive propositions’ shows either dishonesty or lack of imagination (maybe both). In that case, I pointed out that the false dilemma was being presented by environmentalists.

This time around the false dilemma comes from the pro-forestry camp. It is now phrased as ‘pulp mill or woodchips’. Considering the diversity of forests and of their management in Tasmania (species, ages, silviculture, etc), it is conceivable to feed a range of industrial processes (e.g., pulp mills, sawmills, veneer mills, energy production, etc) to obtain, again, a range of products. However, the discussion is presented as we either build a large pulp mill or keep transforming part of the forests into woodchips. Either you support a pulp mill or you support woodchipping; bollocks!

There are, of course, many possible alternative scenarios: large pulp mill, no pulp mill, small pulp mill and other mills, etc. When searching for optimal solutions for Tasmania there is no point on discarding options a priori just because they do not boil down to a simple message or slogan.

I know. I may expect too much from politicians…

I finally completed (and submitted to Silvae Genetica) the manuscript for ‘Genetic variation of physical and chemical wood properties of Eucalyptus globulus‘. This is not my first or last paper (it is publication 25), but it took such a long time that it deserves a special mention. The project was plagued with problems and delays that, although did not affect the final quality of the data, made data analysis and writing the manuscript a real pain in the back.

By the way, Silvae Genetica looks like a very old fashioned 1800s journal. I always associate the image of a very old German worker printing the journal in a damp basement. Nevertheless, it is almost compulsory reading for tree breeders and the publisher seems now keen to give it a facelift.

When writing papers I use either a combination of MS Word and Endnote (a reference manager) or LaTeX in its MiKTeX incarnation with TexnicCenter as a text editor. I use the latter combination for large documents, like convoluted course notes. This time I chose Word but did not have a ‘Silvae Genetica style’ for Endnote, which is necessary to format the citations in the text. I created a style that works for journal articles, books, book chapters and conference proceedings, which you can download from here.

I do not expect to see the manuscript for around three months. By then I should receive comments (I hope positive) from the referees.

Watching the coverage of the USA’s presidential election reminded me of García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Crónica de una muerte anunciada). The end of the story was known from the first pages — well, unless you were a die hard Democrat, but the flavour was in the details. Is the world any better because George Bush won? Probably not, but Kerry winning would not have made much of a difference. As The Economist put it, the choice was between the incompetent and the incoherent.

Given that the election was not that interesting, and that I was confined home with a cold, I decided to do something ‘useful’. I went through some old fan and hate mail for this blog and my Forestry in Tasmania site in an attempt to select the ‘all time classic’. The winner was the chap from the United Kingdom, claiming that there was a conspiracy to hide the environmental problems in the Stix Valley. He would look for it in Google and could not find any references to the problem. Surely the forest industry was exercising undue pressure on Google to hide the truth. Hint: look for Styx Valley, with y, and get over 6,000 hits. What can one say about that? Illiterate comes to mind. He added ‘what can we do about this? Maybe we should boycott Circus Oz, which is financed by Forestry Tasmania’. Of course Circus Oz has no relationship with the forest company, except for participating in 2001 in the Ten days on the island festival, which at the time was sponsored by Forestry Tasmania. The festival had dozens of artists participating, and none of them would claim that they were financed by a forest company. Loonie.

Continuing with loonies, I just read a letter written by a Rambo wannabe representing Doctors for Forests, explaining that the ‘civil war to defend Tasmanian forests’ must continue. I hope he uses a different definition. Should we now start shooting each other over some trees?

Finally yesterday the Liberals anounced in Launceston their policy for Tasmanian Forests. No big surprises, no big policy. On one side, it is not very different from Labor’s policy, adding 170,000 ha to conservation areas. However, it promises much less money and—here is the big difference—to support the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA).

A quick glance to the major parties’ forest policies:

I still have not decided which policy is best for Tasmanians. I would love to see a policy that, on one side answers the environmental concerns of the bulk of the community and, on the other, sets clear guidelines for a modern industry, providing appropriate ‘carrots’ for guiding change.

A completely different issue is that I still find strange to have a special ‘Tasmanian Forests Policy’, where it would make much sense the existence of an environmental policy, covering all ecosystems in the country based on biological importance rather than on beauty alone (although I leave room for cultural values here). Particular policies are like having a specially high taxation policy for sexy underwear in King Cross, Sydney. It may be relevant to attract conservative votes somewhere else in the country, but it would certainly not be of national interest (and not necessarily in the best interest of King Cross’s residents).

This post expand on my previous post on Labor’s and Greens’ Tasmanian Forests policies.

We are getting closer to federal election day in Australia and we keep getting new promises and plans for Tasmanian Forests. The Australian Greens are playing the ‘we may hold the balance of power’ card and plan to sell their preferences¹ to the highest bidder. The Tasmanian Greens recently released their Forest Transition Strategy to Protect Forests and Create Sustainable Jobs. It is an interesting document, although with much more emphasis on protecting the forests than on creating jobs. I do not know where they did get the overestimated plantation productivity figures, while underestimating the value of native forest.

Meanwhile, Australian Labor—the main opposition party—released Labor’s Plan to Save Tasmania’s High Conservation Value Forests. The plan is aimed to attract Green preferences in urban seats, although it has managed to annoy the forest industry and the rural electorate dependent on forestry activity.

We are still waiting to hear from John Howard (Liberal Party) and see if he puts forward a plan for Tasmania’s Forests. My feeling is that he may be astute enough to avoid controversy—there is no much to win for the liberals in this front—and will not release any forest policy, cashing on angry rural Labor votes.

This will be an interesting week heading towards election day: Saturday 9^th of October.

¹ The Australian Federal Parliament has two levels: the House of Representatives and the Senate. Members of these levels are elected using a preferencial voting system—called proportional representation—which is slightly different for the Representatives and the Senate.

P.S. 2004-10-07. The Liberals’ policy is discussed on a later post.

Sometime ago I wrote about water pollution issues, extending the comments in this other post. Last Sunday, the Sunday program presented a feature piece on the problem, this time tackling the effects of pesticides and herbicides on human health (read a transcript).

The Sunday program was basically a rehash of the arguments conducted for months in various web sites, including the Tasmanian Times, and did not provide any new evidence. As such, it was just another example of TV following the blogosphere—while reaching more people. As a biometrician, I expected the reporter to ask questions like ‘Is the prevalence of strange diseases in St Helen any different from the rest of Tasmania?’ before jumping into easy conclusions. The data for answering that question should be available from the Tasmanian Department of Health and Human Services.

Despite of this, the issue highlights the poor communication of the forest industry with the community, as well as plenty of room to improve the transparency of the system regulating the application of chemicals in the State. There are some basic conditions that should be met by all users of herbicides and pesticides in the state (including forestry and agriculture):

• People have the right to know what is being sprayed in the state, so they can make decisions accordingly. There should be a registry open to the public with products, doses, locations and dates of application.
• There must be a clear demarcation and proper buffers for areas subject to chemical spraying.
• Selection of chemicals and their doses have to be carefully established.
• If there are more environmentally friendly products they should be preferred over more toxic ones.

As an example of the last point, Forestry Tasmania (the manager of State Forests) stopped using atrazine and simazine in 1997, while Gunns and other private companies still keep using them, despite the existence of more benign chemicals.

In addition, Gunns’s and the State Premier’s attempt to stop—through legal manouvers—the TV station broadcast was, put politely, unintelligent. Firstly, the chances of stopping a TV station are very slim; secondly, it creates a very poor impression of ‘we have something to hide’; and, finally, it does not help the forest industry’s cause.

Having a healthy, profitable industry requires constant improvement of forest practices and a broad support from the community. Opportunities for closer scrutiny and external validation should be welcomed.