Great article Fred.

I am an environmentalist and I agree with you entirely - it's the best solution going around, and the only one with a chance of delivering social, environmental and economic outcomes. As you said, the Liberal party's position is essentially nonsense and we need the upper house to resist the urge to tamper with the agreement (as it will not hold together if parts are pulled out in favour of industry).

I'd like to add a comment to Murray Webster's comment below. Murray says that clear-felling is the only harvest method that will initiate significant regrowth of some eucalypt species such as Mountain Ash (called Swamp Gum in Tassie). For commercial purposes I agree. My additional comment is that perhaps when dealing with logging in wet eucalypt forests the industry could work with the areas that naturally favour eucalypts, ie ridge lines and north facing slopes. Given the extra light available on these sites it may not be necessary to clearfell, or it may be possible to clearfell small patches only? I'd also like to see industry continue to investigate ways to minimise soil loss, invasive weeds, edge effects and native animal kills.

Thanks again for a great article, and thanks Murray for the silvicultural perspective

And I recognise the photo. Mother's Day protest in the Upper Floz, which my partner Jo and I attended back in the day

An interesting article and congartulations to all parties sitting at the table for the Tasmanian Forests Agrrement. It is in the nature of reaching an agreement in a vexed process that the discussion is more about harm minimization to the various interests rather than optimisation of repective opportunity. This means nobody is really happy - just less unhappy!

But one thing I had trouble with was when you wrote: "But equally, if the process is captured by environmentalists, an overly cautious approach to ecosystem protection may result in forgone development. Sustainability, then, is about achieving an acceptable balance between economic, social and environmental interests and values. It requires properly constituted multi-stakeholder forums that engage in deep deliberation to broker an appropriate compromise."

How often has the process been "captured by environmentalists" and how often have we been demonstrably "overly cautious to ecosystem protection"? How often have we even had a properly constituted multistake holder forum.

I'd suggest the usual heavyweight is vested economic interests which derives many decades of benefit while acruing major environmental damage in the form of species extinctions, habitat loss, irreversible extirpation of functional ecosystems etc etc ... "before" the environmental lobby get's a real foot hold. Let's just think about our environmental record for a second - extinctions, irreversible ecosystem degradation, major habitat loss and now fairly dire global cliamtic threats.

Maybe we should sit a few children on those properly constituted multistake holder forums to remind us to leave behind something other than luxurious wealth and lots of shiny things for a privelidged minority.

Thank you for your detailed response and comments. After living and working for the last 25 years in Tasmania, I am well aware of the issues you mentioned.
Delective logging stands for selective take away, selective mining of resources.
What TWFF and ProSilva is about is responsible, site specific forest management.
The forest is the place of attention and the silviculture works with natural, ecological principles be that in the Boreal, the temporate or tropical climate zones around the world.
Here some fresh thinking about the role of the E. regnans in (wet forests) potentail rainforest in transition.
One thing is for sure, Australia is more likely to run short on Rainforest and high quality Rainforest Timbers rather than fire weeds and pioneer species like Eucalypts and Acacias.
With regards
Frank Strie

Here we go:
Giant eucalypts sent back to the rainforest › News in Science (ABC www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/11/01/3623363.htm
1 Nov 2012 – Giant fire-dependent eucalypts should be classified as rainforest species, ... says Professor David Bowman, a forest ecologist at the University of Tasmania. "Of these, the tallest is Eucalyptus regnans with temperate eastern ...

Giant Eucalyptus Trees Earn Rain Forest Stripes - NYTimes.com www.nytimes.com/.../giant-eucalyptus-trees-e-arn-rain-forest-stripes....
5 Nov 2012 – This was the conclusion drawn by David Bowman, a forest ecologist at ... with other rain forest trees and report that Eucalyptus regnans grows ...

Do Australia's giant fire-dependent trees belong in the rainforest?
www.utas.edu.au
1 Nov 2012 – Professor David Bowman, from the UTAS School of Plant Science, ... The tallest flowering plant to call Australia home is Eucalyptus regnans, ...

Australian Rainforests: Islands of Green in a Land of Fire
www.books.google.com.au/books/about/Australian_Rainforests.html
Why do Australian rainforests occur as islands within the vast tracts of Eucalyptus ? ... In this original and challenging book, David Bowman critically examines all ...

Interesting article Fred, but I think a few comments are required.

You have noted that "Spurning the current agreement will return business, workers and environmentalists to the war in the woods from which everyone loses.Profits, jobs and the environment will all be trashed."

You may well be right, but you are overlooking the pretty significant change that has occurred - namely that even if the current agreement is spurned there will still be half as much harvesting as before (the negotiations started) due to the departure of Gunns and the buy-back of their allocation. The harvesting that occurs will be more dispersed and there would be opportunities for different approaches such as longer rotations.

So ..... there shouldn't be as much as angst, but due to nature of environmental activism I'm sure there would be because the activists would have missed out on half a million hectares of new national parks.

Profits and jobs have already been trashed and no-one is sure that this will change even if the agreement is ratified.

As for the environment, why will it be anymore or any less trashed whether there is an agreement or not? I don't doubt that activists will say forests are being trashed, but the logging and regeneration processes will be the same and the annually harvested areas won't be that much different whether or not the agreement is ratified. Again the major sticking point is that the activists won't have their new parks.

You have a pretty narrow view of forest governance due to your FSC background. Other past processes such as the RFA's have involved considerations of all stakeholders, not just the two extremes of a narrow conflict. The process in Tasmania has simply large segments of the community who will be disadvantaged by turning another 15% of the Stae's forests into national parks in a state were 50% of forests are already reserved.

The RFAs were pilloried of course by forest activists because they endeavoured to deliver certainty to a forest industry, despite adding over 3 million hectares of forests to parks and resereves nationally. The activists participated at first, but then opted to walk away and continue their campaigns. But the process was far more comprehensive and wide-ranging than this.

Worst of all though, this process simply shifts responsibility for public policy out of the hands of the government with its scientific and management expertise, and into the hands of unelected and unaccountable vested interests with narrow agendas. You say that nothing else has stopped the forest wars and that is true, but then no effort has ever been seriously directed towards making the antagonists (the activists) accountable for deceitful and unwarranted campaigns against reasonable and balanced resource use. Unfortunately, this proposed agreement continues that trend and gives no confidence that the wars won't continue anyway.

Has Jim overstretched the friendship?
Only time will tell.
You may like to listen to the voices.

ABC Tasmania Mornings on Demand : 04/11/12
http://blogs.abc.net.au/tasmania/2012/12/mornings-on-demand-041112.html?site=hobart&program=hobart_mornings

JIM ADAMS, CEO Timber Communities Australia, why have they decided to sign on to the IGA after the members voted against it.

GEORGE HARRIS, Huon Branch President TCA, will lobby LegCo not to pass IGA legislation. (11:54:46)

PETER GUTWEIN, Opposition Forestry Spokesman, responding to the decision of TCA to support the forest agreement in the face of opposition from its members. (23:05:28)

Download audio http://blogs.abc.net.au/files/tuesday-4th-nov-blog.mp3
Tasmania (Australia) needs the FSC to trade in the international forest products market places, however FSC International can do without such practices.
The TAS - IGA desert is about to be served, watch out.

Thank you Fred for your thoughtful analysis. As a founding member of FSC Australia and a long time advocate for the sustainable management of the Worlds forests. I strongly agree with your sentiments. It was in the multi stakeholder environment of FSC Australia that the conversations that gave both to this agreement were possible.

Mark suggested that an alternative that didn't involve further reservation would be preferable. Unfortunately propositions that industry could move to a business model based on conservative cutting rates and value rather than volume driven economics has been consistently rejected. These models in Australia originally were provided by the early Australian foresters. In the 1980s such an approach was canvassed by ENGOS participating in the Helsham inquiry and explicitly rejected. So conservationists will always seek the most conservative solution which is one of protection of a resource rather than exploitation. these days I run a small business with my partner where people come a stay in a purpose built eco-lodge on the edge of the forest. Some, mostly our oversees guests take a walk through the forests with me. I can show them sustainable logging it was practiced in the 1880's when the value proposition was based on the value of the labour as the underpinning driver. each log on this basis was worth more than 100 times its current value, worth so much in fact it was perfectly acceptable to leave 80% of the tree behind to continue to nurture the biodiversity of the forest through the carbon cycle.

The RFA didn't produce a durable or a sustainable outcome because it was an outcome imposed by Government against the wishes of many of the participants and non participants in the process. it failed spectacularly to recognise that certification or market risk was just as important as sovereign risk. It provided the catalyst for the largest land clearing episode in Tasmania since the Second World War fuelled by taxation subsidies and direct payments to Forestry Tasmania these "investments" we're made into a species that was really only fit for one purposes which was wood chips.

I truly believe that we can move to a sustainable industry and that this deal at least begins that journey. Hopefully the durability mechanisms provided for in terms of the proposed stakeholder council and the commitment to FSC certification will be the forums in which we can have an intelligent conversation about how to achieve this. n the meantime I for one will rejoice knowing that over 400,000 ha of forest will not be industrialised and will remain for future generations to decide whether we made the right choice in 2012.

Fred's piece reflects the progress that's surely being made here. Just as we hope the new agreement over the MDB is progress. However, in both cases, we should question "Sustainability, then, is about achieving an acceptable balance between economic, social and environmental interests and values." That is, if the reference is to ECOLOGICAL sustainability.
Fred appeals to realism - 'there is no Plan B' - meaning all options have worse outcomes. Not quite.
Ecological sustainability has its own bottom line - independent of us humans. Ecological patterns & dependencies are indifferent to 'development', and will change in ways that could be disastrous for civilisation if economic development does not respect that.
This at the bottom of the environmental perspective in the Tas. debate, and it's what the climate threat is all about too: push those interdependencies too far from their slowly-evolved realities, and there won't be any timber industry, or any industry, or development at all, nor any reasonable life on earth.

Re: “Give sustainability a chance”
The debate also continues on www.tasmaniantimes.com

Here three of the key issue questions:
1. ”Who actually benefits from clearing immature forests?”
2. “Who benefits if it turns out the timber is not there?”
Yes, there are names attached to this situation.
TA ANN Tasmania was lured to Tasmania by then Forestry Tasmania Chief (Captain) Evan Rolley, to process the "better pulp logs",
nowadays these logs are often the main prime product of forest logging = forest mining.
Under the IGA 2012 in legislation this company either way, they would benefit one way or the other, with logs or without.
3. What has changed in Tasmania you may ask?
Just more of the same.
Here comment # 10 http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/comments/22231

Evan Rolley’s LinkedIn profile shows that he was Managing Director of FT from 1990-2006 and would therefore have been instrumental in setting up Ta Ann’s wood supply agreements for its Smithton and Huon mills which are both dated 16 January 2006.
http://au.linkedin.com/pub/evan-rolley/45/6b9/96b
http://www.forestrytas.com.au/forest-management/wood-supply-agreements
The fact that the very person responsible for setting up these agreements, based upon independently verified unsustainable volumes, is now seeking multi-million dollar financial compensation from the Australian taxpayer for reducing them is not just a conflict of interest ...
To make matters worse, Evan Rolley’s LinkedIn profile also shows that he is Projects Advisor at Van Diemen’s Land Company which is proposing to clear 1,818 hectares of native vegetation on VDL’s Woolnorth property.
Posted by PB on 04/12/12 at 07:49 AM
Comment #11
(10 –PB) Well that’s very informative, if not rather telling. Lots of devil in that detail! So that’s what Rolley/Ta ann means when they say they will be dealing with ‘private’ growers. One indeed needs to question conflicts of interest.
There’s a saying which might apply …?
Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive!
Posted by Claire Gilmour on 04/12/12 at 02:46 PM

Comment #12
Has anyone actually seen any of the strange agreements on which these tens of millions in compensation are handed out? We’re given no explanation as to how the quanta are determined or the contractual obligations for paying out.
I guess I’ll have to ask Bryan about this stuff.
John Hayward
Posted by john hayward on 04/12/12 at 05:39 PM

As we can see, the story continues.

Give sustainability a chance.

If you are happy keeping Tasmania as an economic basket case, I agree.
If you are happy to see all of the bright, highly motivated young Tasmanians move to the coal fired bright lights of Melbourne for jobs and opportunity, I agree.
If you are are happy to keep Tasmania as a nature reserve, while you take advantage of the earth's resources such as JetA1 fuel to fly to Europe for your holidays, I agree.

Poor old Tasmania.

Gerard Dean

Good outline of the elements and issue. It does, however, seem to skim over dealing with a concern under the 'Who gets - and loses - what'. The second bullet point notes that " Environmental interests give up their long-standing campaign against native forest logging and their opposition to the utilisation of forest residues for a range of commercial uses."

Is this a giving up by all environmental organisations, or does this only apply to those that are signatory to the TFA? If it does not bind the wider environmental sector, while that which is being given up (and received) by the economic and social interests is to be enshrined in legislation, how is it that there is no enshrinement of what is to be given by the environmental interests (outside those that are signatories), but the gains are? Are the economic and social interests to take the environmental organisations' commitment to give up their campaigns on good faith?