^CHIPSTOPPER

^{CHIPSTOP HOME}       

CHIPSTOP campaign against woodchipping the SE forests, PO Box 797 Bega NSW 2550 Australia
Autumn 2007

◄Woodchips cost twice as much as they earn for State
◄NAFI hex on ABC
◄Senator Bob Brown’s Court  Victory: Implications for SE NSW
◄Log Truck Count, Dec 2006
◄SEFE misleads
◄Grant for Chipstop
◄Woodchipping and Global Warming
◄April Fools Prank Stirs up Parliamentary Privileges Committee
◄Tamar Ridge Wines  sponsors   NAFI Annual Conference
◄Badja Logging pictures

NAFI hex on ABC

Catherine Murphy, Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Forest Industries (NAFI) and ex-John Howard staff continues to freely defame conservationists on ABC SE radio.

Since last October she has appeared several times in interviews with Tim Holt and radio news ‘grabs’, each time making incorrect and highly damaging statements about forest campaigners in the south east. These included:
1. A claim that a conservationist assaulted an employee at “one of the local mills” and broke his glasses. The incident to which she referred resulted in one person taking part in a blockade of the Eden chipmill being charged with assault of a South East Fibre Exports security guard. That person was acquitted of the charge in the Bega Local Court on 17 August 2005. One logger was convicted of assault in the same court on September 27 2006 following an attack on conservationists at the Wandella Forest blockade on 23 July 2005.

2. She says that conservationists are tree spiking, endangering loggers and workers at mills. This is not true and never has been true. The police, ForestsNSW staff or even fair-minded loggers will confirm this.

3. Ms Murphy alleges that conservationists are sabotaging logging machinery. The only instances of this (and they are very rare) have been found by police to have been the work of loggers themselves, motivated either by rivalry or for an insurance claim.

4. An amazing claim that conservationists have published a booklet on how to sabotage machinery. We were taken by surprise by this, but subsequently learned that the publication in question is a sad little booklet called “Green Jihad” published by the loggers union, the CFMEU.

We fear that the ABC has been intimidated by NAFI’s bragging that it was responsible for the organisation’s new ‘balance’ guidelines.
 Chipstop has asked Ms Murphy for an apology, but she did not reply. 

Senator Bob Brown’s Court
Victory: Implications for SE NSW

Senator Bob Brown’s court victory in the Wielangta Forest case may have implications for NSW.
Chipstop has already asked the Premier to order a halt all logging in forestry compartments which contain federally listed endangered species.
 The request followed on from Senator Brown’s win in the Federal Court on 20 December 2006 (decision Brown v Forestry Tasmania (No 4) [2006] FCA 1729)
Unfortunately the list of federally listed endangered species occurring in the south east is quite limited, but there are some.
Even so, it is likely that any future logging that is carried out in such compartments is likely to be illegal, as, indeed, is logging that has already taken place since the current law commenced.
We have asked the Premier to avoid the possibility of illegal logging by calling an immediate halt to all logging of these compartments while the legal situation is being clarified.”
 However, since the federal Government has already signaled that it will amend the law as well as appeal against the court decision, we would have to consider what might be achieved. Legal challenges are always expensive and wins can often be overturned by the stroke of a pen.

Tamar Ridge Wines is one of the sponsors of the 21 March NAFI Annual Conference (just in case you were thinking of buying some wine). We don't know if they are any good and don't intend to find out.

The Government has just announced plans to make it illegal to promote boycotts of Australian products, so this is not an incitement to a boycott.

Woodchips cost twice as much as they earn for State

We wonder how many people outside the Forests NSW bureaucracy know that woodchipping costs NSW taxpayers almost twice as much as it returns in royalties, according to figures provided to State Parliament last November. None, if local media have their way.
 When Chipstop issued a media statement drawing attention to this startling new information, not one media outlet on the south coast printed it or broadcast it. A letter to the editor based on the same information was similarly ignored.
The figures were supplied to Greens MLC Ian Cohen in a NSW Estimates Committee and prove what we have always suspected, that State taxpayers are being taken for a ride.
 The State receives less than $6 million dollars in royalties in the south east, but Forests NSW operations cost exceed $10 million in administering offices, workshops and other operations which service the woodchipping industry.

 SEFE pays about $10million in total, of which almost 60% is paid in NSW.

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Badja forest after logging in January 2007
 

 

 

 

 

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Note: counting ended at 5pm, and trucks were still arriving in significant numbers.
Other highlights:

1. A visit from the chipmill General Manager, Peter Mitchell (6.30am), who pulled up and stared at us from his gold 4WD for a few minutes before continuing on to work.
2. A visit from Senior Constable Ellis of the Eden police who had been summoned by chipmill management and wanted to know what we were up to.

Grant for Chipstop

Chipstop has been honoured by the award of a $2,000 grant from the Robyn Steller Trust to produce a computer animation depicting the role of forests in combating climate change.
The award is in memory of the late Robyn Steller who was a dedicated forest campaigner and editor and publisher of the book Monga intacta. The grants come from the proceeds of the book.
Our congratulations too, to colleagues South East Forest Rescue for their well deserved grant of $5,000 for a comprehensive package of campaign initiatives.
 

Quoll habitat at Badja Forest, after logging and burning

SEFE misleads

The Magnet advertorial published on behalf of South East Fibre Exports 22 February 2007 contained some other startling inaccuracies.
It claimed 350 on the payroll. That is not what the company told the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in its Annual Report. This document puts the figure at 74.
It states that $20million is paid in wages. Again, not what the company told ASIC. The latest report to ASIC puts this figure at $5,694,871.

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Woodchipping and Global Warming

Woodchippers are just as firmly in the carbon camp as better known greenhouse polluters such as the coal industry, fossil fuel power generators and air conditioning manufacturers.In fact, SEFE is one of Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas producers. From NSW alone it generates over 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. With a similar amount from Victorian forests, this is twenty two times what the nation will save from the federal Governments newly announced ban on incandescent light bulbs and that is not counting greenhouse emissions from the 160 trucks a day taking loads to the chipmill.In a recent full page advertorial in the Eden Magnet, we saw SEFE boasting of plans to produce “renewable” power from burning waste wood. This whole industry is supposed to be based on “waste wood”, but of course we all know that SEFE only takes whole trees because it can only process whole trees. Anyone who sees any of the 160 trucks a day heading for the chipmill can confirm this for themselves.It also spoke of employing “environmentally sound models”, a surprise coming from an industry that lays waste over 9,000 hectares of native forest in NSW alone and a similar amount in Victoria, kills millions of native birds and animals, wrecks our topsoils and waterways. At least they didn’t wheel out the old myth from the industry that a young regrowth forest allegedly fixes more carbon dioxide than a mature forest.
Mounting evidence shows that mature forests continue to sequester carbon and are far more valuable as carbon sinks than growing forests, which take many decades if not centuries to equal the carbon fixing capacities of mature forests. Perhaps the woodchipping industry is finally accepting that.
 In another development, Andrew Constance is now parroting SEFE plans to burn "waste" for power generation.
"We should be exploring renewable energy production opportunities for the timber industry through biomass," he said.