Dear Miranda…

You have put a solid face on the front of protecting the beautiful forests of Tasmania and the world. Well done. I spend a good proportion of my working life up a tree in a harness, so I can imagine what it must be like to do that 24/7/365. Your perseverance and dedication is incredible.

The biodiversity of our forests and all the forests in the world, the richness of life and the uniqueness of each one is so so so important. To preserve, protect and respect the wilds and to leave them there is so important. ….

However, I am concerned that the hype and social conditioning towards extreme protection – the ‘green’ image/attitude – is not looking deep enough into the issue of biodiversity on our planet. There are many other aspects to the issue that I would love to see you consider and address – since you have such a high stage and all the world is watching as it were 🙂

1. The widening gap of cultural disassociation between ‘trees are being cut down’ & ‘the products we use that are made out of them’ (paper, books, houses, furniture, protest placards and signs, tool handles, sculpture, toilet paper, etc). I am not an angel here either, I live in a wooden house, my library is huge, and I have wooden stuff everywhere by preference.
I am not saying that we should or should not cut trees…. but that we should be a lot more aware of where those trees that are cut down go to. and that if we stop managing and harvesting enough forest trees in Tasmania then we risk becoming an IMPORTER of other peoples forests – possibly those endangered ones in other countries that we care about as well…..

2. Plantations. I am getting the distinct impression at the moment, that the Tasmanian timber-forest industry is being slowly forced into a plantation style of managed forests; which are basically long term monoculture cropping of trees. How can you, as an environmentalist, even allow this thought to be aired without objecting to it as strongly as you do to the old growth being cut down? Plantations are monocultures, lack biodiversity, need chemical additives to help them survive, very few animals can live there, they are bad for the soil, and just generally are a poor substitute to managed native forests. In addition, the timber product is generally considered to be of a lower quality.

3. The black and white view that there is ‘old growth’ and there is ‘plantation’ but there is no option in-between for Managed native forest. Forestry Tasmania has been managing native forests for harvest for decades. There are many patches of Managed native forest that have been logged 2-3 times over the last 150 years and yet look and feel like a biodiverse forest – enough so that Environmental groups want to lock them up and high value forest.
The Managed forests have a rich biodiversity because they are planted back with the species that were already there, they are full of wildlife and still contain the high value trees and shrubs that are found in true old growth. When they are logged they are only done so in small patches and only if there is mature forest next to it for the wildlife to escape into.
Yes, I am sure it could be done better and this method could be implimented and improved over more of the industry, but this method of management takes more financial resources to care for and, because of the maintenance of biodiversity, has a lower volume output of timber per hectare than plantation. There is also quite a bit of ‘waste’ timber that is useless for construction, furniture, power poles or veneer which is sold for chipping. If the waste timber can not be sold, it is not currently financially viable to harvest the good timber either…..

4. The devision between foresters and environmentalist.
On one side are the foresters and logging contractors some of whom have been in the industry for over 60 years, some of whom have only been in a while, many of whom have a rich knowledge of forests, not just how to cut them, but how they grow and how they can be encouraged to regrow as they were before harvest. Some also have an understanding of better harvest techniques; techniques that reduce the impact that logging has on the forest through use of lighter machinery, soil conservation and erosion control.
On the other side are the majority of the environmentalist. These seem to be putting a lot of energy, time and commitment into resisting and working against the foresters. In the process they are destroying an industry, its reputation, and thus our supply of LOCAL timber products.
What if the 2 sides could work together? What if some of the older, wiser, logging contractors and forestry workers could get together with some of the environmentalists and they all teach and learn from each other? What if people like you and I, (who are really just looking in from the outside and pointing fingers at people who are doing the work), actually spent some time with them instead of standing back and accusing without personal knowledge? What if a better way of managing native forests could be developed this way? A way that is developed by the people who know how to practically do the stuff necessary to manage a forest, along with the ones with the passion to see it done better? Wouldn’t that be amazing?

5. Trees, plants and animals are our ONLY renewable resource. Not stone, or concrete, or metals or oil or other minerals out of the earth or sand for glass, etc. Plastic can be produced from plant oils in small amounts, fabric from plant and animal fibbers, paper, timber, etc; these are our renewable resources. If we care for them well and manage the land well so that we do not create any more deserts and salt flats, if we become true caretakers and gardeners of the land and the forests, we can live on this earth indefinitely. Obviously we need to manage our population and consumerism levels too!

6. There is currently less media and cultural emphasis on planting trees than there is on trying to stop them being cut down; meanwhile, the forest/timber/production industry plants more trees per annum than all the environmental groups put together. Every time I drive down the midlands highway I see all that empty space on the side of the road that could be full of vegetation. All that empty grassy space in towns that could have trees and shrubs rather than a monoculture of grass. All those fields that could have a row or 2 of trees around them, all those bleak dry hills that could do with a bit of purmaculture TLC.
There is so much social and cultural emphasis on ‘stopping logging’ at the moment that we have forgotten about planting trees. The revegetation of degraded land is quietly struggling along, hidden from the common view by the anti-logging binge we are currently in.

There is a taoist idea that I have always rather loved. The idea is: that you won’t get anywhere very fast by resisting against what you don’t want; however, if you turn about, have a vision or where you do want to go and strive for that instead, then you will get there a lot more quickly.
I studied Environmental Ethics with Pete Hay at Tas Uni a few years ago. One of the essay assignments he set was to envision our idea of Utopia and to write about what it would look like. At the time I could not figure out how to get where I wanted to go from the now, so I posited a fictional situation involving colonising another planet. At the time I think the question was too big for me to really understand. Now,I think I am starting to get more of an idea of where I think we need to go from here. But the thing to do is to cut it down and look at smaller chunks of idealism.

So for the moment, here and now, specific to the ‘Foretsry management for harvest’ vs. ‘Foretsry management for biodiversity’ (National parks are just as managed as any other forest these days) war that is currently playing out….This is the real question…. (We already know what we want the national park and reserves to look like – as big a possible!)
But what do we want the Forestry industry to look like in Tasmania? really? What should it look like, not just where it is happening in the forest but also at every level of our culture, where forestry practices impact on us and where we impact on forestry?
I would love it if you thought about that and wrote about that, I would love it if others would think about that.

For the moment, here are the beginnings of my ideas:

1. limit the amount of plantation to the minimum.
2. Protect the true old growth and enough biodiverse forests to act as seed banks, examples, havens and parks.
3. Have long term – and I mean looooong term…. 500 + years – management plans for harvestable forests; and make sure that includes enough timber output to make Tasmania more than self sufficient for timber products.
4. Plant trees and shrubs and plants everywhere (minimise the grass monocultures).
5. Examine our management practice and develop better ways to care for the land, the soil and the biodiversity of flora and fauna. Do this by incorporating the knowledge of the old loggers, the modern environmentalists, siviculture, and also Purmaculture.
6. Reinstate the traditional idea of each piece of managed forest, each ‘coupe’ having a forester who is specifically connected to that site, who is the one that cares for and manages that site through all its cycles. Who’s job, life and livelihood is intrinsically linked, long term, to that one site. Basically, a forester would be a farmer, a forest farmer.
We need to move away from thinking about the harvesting of forests the way we think about harvesting minerals from the earth and start thinking like caretakers and farmers of a renewable resource.
7. Encourage and develop a culture of purmaculture gardeners so that less land is needed for cropping and herds of animals and more of the farm land can be made into managed timber forests.
8. Promote the idea of self-sufficiency at all levels, as a country and as a state, as well as at a local level. Self-sufficiency is an idea that has got wrapped up with the idea ‘hippies’, so that most of the population just don’t think it is cool at all. But self-sufficiency at a state level means that we won’t NEED to import anything to be comfortable and happy and fed and sheltered. It means being in a state that does not NEED to import goods just to survive.
9. Determine right now what our ideal MAXIMUM population is, that is sustainable for our state, given how much of it is locked up in National parks.
10. get rid of the idea that growth in population and growth in consumerism being good. Because it does equal good. Population growth indefinitely is bad bad bad, as is consumerism.
11. Find a way to slow down the advance of ‘quality of living’, because this is a major contributor to advanced consumerism, use of resources, and an constant increase in the size of our cultural footprint. (you know how easy it is to live with very little stuff….. )
12. encourage greater community interaction with nature and each other through urban purmaculture of the public landscape, through public art and beauty, and through channelling destructive creative outlets (eg graffiti, fire lighting) into constructive creative outlets (eg. public murals and art, streetscape gardening),
13. Create Urban ‘plantations’ of exotic trees along the stress – managed by the community and the local councils.
14. Try to change the cultural ideal that tidy, empty space with only grass, straight lines of plants, gravel or chips instead of leaf litter, lots of concrete, etc is beautiful!! None of that is biologically diverse so how is that beautiful?

All of these ideas will cost more in time and labor and will mean changing our cultural attitude again… but wouldn’t it be worth it? to live in a greener world with more trees and forests. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to advertise our forest products to the world as the most Eco-friendly and biodiversity friendly in the world?

I am sure there is more that I have not considered yet. But this is a start.

I look forward to reading yours and others thoughts on all this.

In peace
Janice Sheen