THE GREAT TASMANIAN SCAM
Port Arthur Tasmania
Port Arthur Tasmania, beautiful cultural heritage and a world class primary iconic asset.
It is inconceivable that a normal thinking honest person would purposely destroy such an asset.
However THE SCAM is akin to bulldozing the Port Arthur sandstone buildings and using the rubble for road base. THE SCAM is Government propaganda that hides, excuses and lies about this destruction which is commonly seen and described around the world as vandalism.
By falsely claiming a mandate for the vandalism, the Tasmanian Government, its Premier and Ministers, misrepresent the wishes of the majority of the Tasmanian community thus bringing ridicule on that community.
The vandalism (seen here), is driven by the greed and corruption (Bulletin Magazine - Rape of Tasmania) and evil that is destroying the primary natural assets of Tasmania. The vandalism clearfells Tasmania's world class iconic Native Forest assets for woodchips, poisons the native wildlife inhabitants and replants woodchip plantations for the exclusive use of the land barons created in the process. Like a cancer, the vandalism with resulting water degradation and contamination is eating away at the Tasmanian community and Tasmania's reputation around this planet while consumers continue to be tricked into believing the Government and cronies propaganda that claims Tasmania to be Clean, Green and Natural. (for more see Fair-Trading.com)
There is a common belief in Tasmania, that 80 percent of informed Tasmanians do not want these current Forest Practices grounded in this vandalism. and there is a recent Doctors for Forests NewsPoll (January 2004) conducted throughout Australia, indicating that in excess of 85 per cent of Australians want the same. However, amongst the informed there is also the minority culture bludging (an Australian term meaning, "undertaking the activity of being a user or freeloader") on Tasmania's environment, that think otherwise, and they include:
• Those that have a vested interest in the vandalism;
• Those that are subservient to the Government for favour;
• Those who are led to believe their jobs or assets are at risk due to oppressive propaganda or threats.
SOME PRIMARY PROPAGANDA RORTS THAT UNDERPIN THE SCAM
RORT 1 - "More than 40 per cent of all of Tasmania is reserved and will never be logged"
THE TRUTH - Vast tracts of these protected reserves were never available to be logged in the first place as they contain forest types that are not suitable for logging or are not even forested at all, such as;
* buttongrass plains;
* sand dune regions
* alpine plateaux regions;
* boulders regions;
* midget trees regions.
It's as if someone drew a line around the rich forested areas such as the Styx and the Tarkine and made the protected reserves outside of those lines, thus making the rich forested areas of high conservation value available for plunder. A graphic example and images of this, is at Tarkine.org at here, here, here, here and here.
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RORT 2 - "86 per cent Old Growth Forests on public land in Tasmania is protected".
THE TRUTH - The 86 per cent of course is that which is purported to be in the 40 per cent at Rort 1 which as said, excludes the rich forests of high conservation value, which, are often made up of the type of Old Growth Forests such as in the Styx Valley (Valley of the Giants). This type of (Styx Valley) Old Growth is NOT included in the Forest Practices definition of Old Growth (and thus excluded from the 86 per cent) as is has been selectively logged for generations. Because of this established activity, which most people have no problem with, the vandals now claim a right to clearfell, burn and poison this (Styx Valley) type of Old Growth plus the Old Growth that does come within the definition which is outside the 40 per cent zone. Together with this, the Forestry Practices definition of Old Growth Forest is purposely ambiguous, so that it can be varied to suit the spin and argument on any given day by a bunch of lying Politicians or forest practice vandals.
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RORT 3- "The Old Growth Forests are dying out and require human intervention to regenerate and improve them". or "...clear-felling operations, regeneration fires and replanting were assisting the species" ~ Forestry Tasmania's, Kim Creak in Sun Herald report
THE TRUTH - Human intervention on the scale it is happening (or at all) is simply not necessary for the continuance of the Old Growth Forest Cycle that has prevailed for millenniums before european settlement. The following is a cyclic example, courtesy The Bulletin Magazine - 13 August 2003 reporter Bob Beale:
"Tasmania's Old Growth Native Forests progress through stages. Over time a bushfire occasionally sweeps through and kills the standing trees; wattles rapidly colonise the bare ground and dominate for a couple of decades, then get shaded out by the fast-growing gums; later, beneath the gums rise the shade-tolerant rainforest species with lyrical names – sassafras, myrtle beech, celery-top and tree ferns – to form a dense canopy about 30m high. That canopy steals so much light that the mountain ash trees can set no new seedlings. After a couple of centuries, only the tall pioneer gums poke out from the canopy, -typically reaching up 60m. After four centuries or so, the gums gradually disintegrate and fall and other species take the rainforest to its climax stage, which can persist for centuries more until the next fire......"
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RORT 4- "The Forestry Practices replants far more forest than it cuts down"
THE TRUTH - Native trees are predominately not replanted. While some natives are replanted for specific plantation purposes, artificial, specially cultivated (and maybe genetically engineered sterile clones), quick growing, water hungry, monoculture plantations are predominantly replanted specifically for quick rotation cropping to entice greedy investors. All of these plantations (whether native or not), are only allowed to grow for 20 to 30 years and are re-cut again mainly for woodchips, there is no quality sawmill timber (see Melbourne Age) in such young skinny trees. A true native eucalyptus (such as regnans) can live well in excess of 500 years and reach a height of over 95 metres. Once a Native Old Growth Forest is clearfelled for a plantation, it is gone forever!! This practice is a man made fundamental changing of the environment.

The plantation timber is purposely cut for woodchips before maturity to limit the supply of sawmill timber available to the market, thus providing an excuse to clearfell more Old Growth Forest for the purposes of the SCAM.

These beautiful old trees which are home to a vast range of wildlife from eagles to possums, are being clearfelled under the SCAM of sawmill timber or veneer log purposes, when they are really cut down for woodchips in order to make the land available for the land baron plantations and gain the benefit of vastly lower royalties payable for woodchip timber over sawmill timber thus defrauding the Tasmania community out of the Old Growth Forest resource and the true value of the royalties.

The writer of this article and many others, have seen log truck after log truck after log truck after log truck after log truck carting huge Old Growth Forest logs on Tasmania's roads that have been purposely and illegally split to make them unsuitable as sawmill timber which further limits supply to the market thus hiking the cost of timber products for the benefit of the timber barons to the detriment of consumers.
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RORT 5- "Natural fire is far more devastating than the current Forest Practices"
THE TRUTH - Natural fire and the devastation it brings is a natural component of a healthy Native Old Growth Forest as seen at 3 above. A natural fire needs to be looked at, in a context of hundreds of years such as the four centuries or so cycle period, not the silly short sighted 20 or 30 years quick rotation periods of the Forest Practices so called "regeneration burns". A natural forest fire is just that, natural, unlike those regeneration burns and the consequential smoke pollution from the huge piles of valuable timber made by bulldozers, creating burns so hot nothing can survive (which is part of Tasmania's contribution to Global Warming). That of course is the purpose, as the native forest is not required or wanted anymore in the new plantation-corp and land baron minority culture, (further pictorial here).
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RORT 6- "The current Forest Practices creates jobs".
THE TRUTH - The timber industry manufacturing jobs have halved from 5,700 in the 10 years since 1992 (see (PDF) Economic Appraisal of Clearfelling and Woodchipping 2003 and (PDF) Tasmanian Timber Industry Jobs Update 2002), an index of these reports and more from the Timber Workers for Forests is HERE. Amongst those forest workers that still have their jobs and have not been replaced by machines, many receive notoriously low pay and would be classified as the "working poor" and some are even oppressed to the point of having to work 80 hours a week for illegal below award wages thus compromising road and workplace safety. (see Log Truck Accidents & Stories)
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RORT 7- "Tasmania's forests have been worked for generations".
THE TRUTH - Here the deception is that it is omitted from this line that the Forestry Practices clearfelling, burning and 1080 poisoning methods are only very recent and are unprecedented.
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MORE RORT statements:
Spin-doctoring and blatant denials used to obscure the truth about Tasmania's woodchipping...
FROM The Wilderness Society
What is Woodchipping?
MORE MYTHS FROM Chipstop
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This page updated, 1 February 2004
Author and publisher of this website - Gordon Craven
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