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Forest Industries

The Tasmanian forest industry feels it satisfies it's smoke obligation by posting a daily map on the internet. (See similar below).

Not everybody has access to the internet, and those who do can not keep (excuse the pun) 'logging' on to the site all day in case there are updates, and why should they have to when they are not the polluters of our clean air.
And what about the burns that don't appear on their website?

Forestry has had to publicly defend it's actions for smoking out Tasmania by admitting they got their "air modelling wrong".
Even when they "get it right" Tasmanian's still have to breathe their smoke.
In Tasmania it is impossible to predict wind direction. The wind quite often blows to all four points of the compass in one day. If a burn is lit in the morning, later in the day large communities are being smoked out. There are many burns alight at once and the burns last for days and cannot be extinguished. The Bureau of Meterology acknowledges the short comings of smoke modelling with all methods available to us at this time.

The forest industries can put as many dots on the map as they choose, because it seems they are able to just do as they please and are not being made accountable for their actions. They blatantly get away with poisoning the air in this manner.
(Not sure why most dots are green when fires are red. Is it to camouflage them on the map (spot the dot), or is it because forestry are burning green smoky residue?)

The forest industry claims they have to burn.
"Fire is a vital and necessary part of the life cycle of Tasmania's eucalypt forests and by conducting these burns we are mimicking the natural process.,"
Then there was this...
It was reported in the Mercury newspaper (3/9/2008) by Forestry Tasmania’s assistant general manager Michael Wood that the fuel wood being transported to Japan would have just been burnt. He claims there could be up to a million tones a year of this fuel wood spread across Tasmania.
Bob Gordon states in the same article,”… instead of wood in forests being burnt to create a seedbed for eucalypts..” he would like to see it feeding wood fired power stations.
What does this tell us?
That these so called forestry regeneration burns are not regeneration burns at all. They are forestry operations residue burns or rubbish burns and if they can send the wood to Japan or use it in power stations then they are now stating there is no need for eucalypt forests to be regenerated by fire, there is no need for an ash seedbed, there is no need for smoke!.

Forestry Tasmania's Fire Management branch manager Tony Blanks said the burns were expected to run throughout the Autumn.
Forestry do not have to burn. Plantation seedlings are raised in nurseries, so why all the smoke?

The forest industry claims the burns are "regeneration burns."
The burns being done are mostly residue burns not regeneration burns. Forestry are burning rubbish left behind after they have logged or cleared an area. In other words forestry can't even clean up their own mess, without making another mess. 
In haste to replant, the forest industry sets fire to their residue when a lot of it is still green.
What is "cost shifting? Cost shifting is when forestry perform residue burns to save themselves money, and then transfers the associated cost onto our health system, community, environment, and so on.
There is no reason to burn or to produce harmful smoke when other cleaner alternatives exist.

The Forest Practices Code states, "Care should be taken to ensure that emissions of smoke, dust or noise from forest operations do not cause serious or material environmental harm under the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act.1994."

Because of the public outcry over forestry smoke, there are plans afoot to introduce a permit system for burns next year (2009), ie to stagger the burns.
If the same area is to be burnt, this would have the effect of lengthening the burning season. It  would also create a not-so-visable smoke haze all the time, meaning people would be breathing harmful smoke without knowing it for extended periods and this is a very serious matter for everyone.
This would be like giving a smoker 100 cigarettes in one hit and telling them not to smoke them all at once!

The forest industry needs to go back to school to learn their three R's.
There  is a big difference between Reduction, Regeneration and Residue/Rubbish burns.
Most of the smoke we are breathing comes from forestry Residue.
Planned Burns must stop completely. There are other smokeless methods available to forestry to get rid of their Rubbish.
Planned clearing does not mean planned burning.

Even their own National Association of Forest Industries say don't burn.

Go here to read what other methods are available.

Forestry pollution figures in 2008 were way under-estimated - EPA

24/4/2010 - Forestry Tas apologises for smoke

26/7/2010 - Smoke complaints to FPA for 2009 & 2010 (8.1 Mb)

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