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The Rainforest Report

by

ZaKaiRan

 


In the last few months (2001), I have received many petitions to stop the stupid Brazilian government from decimating huge tracks of Amazon rainforest for farming, beef production, logging etc.

The Amazon rainforest is of big interest for anyone interested in the nature, the planet and the environment and the awesome bio-diversity that exists in the Amazon and how important this life line is for the planet. But the same situation exists here in Australia as how it was when I lived in the U.S., people were so concerned about the Amazon that they forgot about their own forests that are being cut down, usually for wood chips, by the same government/corporate organizations.

When I was living in the U.S., the U.S. forest service was giving away trees to the Japanese for $1 per tree, and still clear felling huge tracts of land. What do these Japanese people do with all this paper, it seems to be quite a bizarre obsession. I have been out of touch with Greenpeace reports in the U. S. but probably the same crap is still happening.

The same lunacy is happening right here in Australia in our beautiful rainforests and woodlands. Since the arrival of the white man to this country, 85 percent of Australia’s temperate woodlands have been completely cleared. “Australia’s woodlands are being cleared at the rate of five thousand square kilometres every year and our forests logged at the rate of two thousand square kilometers per year. (Somebody should make up an email petition to this government to stop the carnage).

In Tasmania, forests are being cleared at the rate of 15,000 hectares a year for plantation establishment, using commonwealth government funds. Proportionally, Tasmania has the highest rate of land clearing in Australia. It is the only state that still allows rainforest logging and clearing. The impact in Tasmania has been devastating. In the September quarter of 2000, exports of native forest woodchips from Tasmania reached 1.45 million tonnes (the equivalent of 5.8 million tonnes per year). Tasmania exports more native forest woodchips than all the other states combined”.

“In Queensland, the latest figures indicate that 425,000 hectares (4,250 square kilometers) are cleared annually. Despite having clearing controls in place, illegal as well as ‘legal’ clearing continues in NSW. While there is relatively little left to clear, 60,000 to 100,000 ha of NSW woodland is being cleared annually for crops and plantations”.

Now I’ve never been to Tasmania, but I hear it is one of the only places left in Australia where you can actually find old growth virgin forest, and the government, and the land rapers, are doing their best to make that no longer a reality. And I know from traveling and camping in Queensland, it is extremely difficult to find rainforest and undeveloped areas to camp in, unless you go way way up north.

Now these shady deals are happening quite legally with government approval and financial support, and the government has now passed a law that 2% of power must be produced from renewable sources, and of course the cheapest “renewable” source is the forests. So they plan to decimate our forests to make them into woodchips to run power plants. The stupidity and corruption that goes on in government, the corporate sector and on this planet in general never ceases to amaze me. (These power plants could be run by hemp ‘charcoal’ which has the same heating value as coal, with virtually no sulphur to pollute the atmosphere).

Luckily the energy Development Authority has excluded electricity generated by native forest wood from its nationally accredited Green Power scheme. So if you elect to have your electricity provided by this Green Power scheme, at least you won’t be supporting the trees being cut down to provide it. I highly recommend that everyone elect for this scheme. All you have to do is request it from your power provider.

Now you would think that all these trees being cut down would be going to make wood for building and such, but oh no, most of our beautiful trees are being shredded into wood chips and made into paper. And the majority of these wood chips are exported, in fact about 75% is exported.

“We already have enough softwood and hardwood plantations to meet all our domestic timber needs; to immediately stop logging our old growth forests; and to rapidly phase out the clearfelling and wood-chipping of our native forests”. The wilderness Society is encouraging the use of existing plantations for our timber needs, instead of native forests.”

If there is actually a need to plant new plantations, they could be established on already cleared farm land, but of course, the land rapers are ripping down native forests and then replacing them with plantations – f…ing amazing. Plantations are now being established in Tasmania in this manner. They clear fell the forest, take some of it off for wood chipping, burn everything else, use pesticides and herbicides, and plant one type of tree that they can harvest quickly, totally destroying any bio-diversity whatsoever.

Luckily the Queensland Government and the government of Western Australia are ceasing old growth logging and establishing woodland reserve systems. The Wilderness Society and other environmental lobby groups helped in establishing this and other holistic campaigns; even a visit to Japan obtained the support of “30 million members of ‘Consumers Japan’, Japan’s largest consumer organization who wrote to each woodchip company and government in Australia requesting that no old growth forest be destroyed to supply Japanese paper manufacturers, asking that existing Blue Gum plantations be used instead.”

The logging industry has been dying for years. The cost of logging established woodlands and old growth forest is much greater than plantation logging, yet it continues at government subsidized fast pace to support corporate special interest with complete disregard for anything or anyone else. “In every state, the only way native forest products can compete with their plantation counterparts is through heavy public (including environmental) subsidies”.

The only reason old growth and native forest logging still exists is because of government support, otherwise the industry would just die financially, (government subsidies paid by you the tax payer; so you are actually paying for your own forests to be cut down). This kind of corporate and government irresponsibility is of course supported by the old archaic mind set that the original settlers of this country functioned with, a mentality of conquer and exploit; that every living thing is just a resource to be exploited for my own survival and generation of wealth, (and of course with complete disregard for the wishes of the native populace). The same mentality that “conquered” America. The governments of today still function with this mentality and they are supported by a generation of humans who are clinging to the old ways of scarcity consciousness, dog eat dog/survival and their own fear of nature.

“In most areas, the value of forests for tourism and recreation alone is greater than logging revenue; in the southern region of NSW, for example, forest-based tourism is worth approximately three times the value of logging industry”.

And I’ll only touch on the fact that trees don’t have to be used at all to make most products that wood is used to make, (including paper and wood for the building industry), when there are other much more sustainable and renewable sources available that can be grown on already cleared farmland. (Please see my book “Hemp - A Gift from God”, available for sale from me and available free on my website www.geocities.com/zakairan).

I encourage you to support the Wilderness Society and other environmental support groups financially and energetically. I also encourage you to support the widescale farming of industrial hemp, which could completely replace the logging industry and the petroleum industry (production of ethanol as a vehicle fuel typically used by the drag car industry).

Bibliography: All quotations contained in this article are taken from “A fringe of Green” from The Wilderness Society – 130 Davey St. Hobart Tasmania, 7000 - www.wilderness.org.au – members@wilderness.org.au


Your in Prosperity Consciousness,


ZaKaiRan

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More News

The Syx Valley Giants

The tallest flowering plants in the world are in Tasmania (Australia). The trees in the
Styx valley are the second tallest trees on the planet - just behind the giant redwoods in
California. These trees average 500 years of age. One of these Eucalyptus regnans, which means 'king of the eucalypts' measured 134 metres in height and is registered in the Guiness Book of Records as the world's tallest tree. Please help to save this living breathing forest of giants.
These magnificent forests are being logged for woodchips for the Japanese paper mills by the Howard Government and the Tasmanian State ALP Government. The Wilderness Society and the Greens in Tasmania are fighting back with the best weapon they know - public opinion. Each weekend, the Society hosts busloads of visitors to the Valley of the Giants. Pictures of the splendour, as well as the slaughter, of these forests are being sent to scientists, politicians and environment groups around the world. The aim is to have the Howard Government and Labor Opposition drop their support for logging and, united, declare the Valley of the Giants a national park and World Heritage Area.

There is a beautiful collection of photos of these trees at:
http://www.wilderness.org.au/member/tws/projects/Forests/valgiant.html
<http://www.wilderness.org.au/member/tws/projects/Forests/valgiant.html>
Please sign the petition to save them from logging, at:
<http://www.gopetition.com/info.php?currentregion=12&petid=195>
http://www.gopetition.com/info.php?currentregion=12&petid=195

Please pass this on, and perhaps the massacre can be stopped.

Thank you

Love and Light, Christopher.


Australian Land Clearing

Australia was the sixth largest land-clearing country last year, according to a report released by the Australian Conservation Foundation on March 1, 2001. The only countries clearing more bushland that Australia are Brazil (with 2.26 million hectares cleared last year according to the United Nations Food Resources Assessment 2000 report), Indonesia, Sudan, Zambia and Mexico.

Queensland accounted for 75% of land clearing in Australian in 2000, followed by NSW with 18%. Victoria accounted for just 0.4% of the national total – but it is already the most cleared state, with 70% of its native vegetation cover lost.

“Land clearing a political hot potato by Jim Green – “Green Left Weekly” March 14 issue – www.greenleft.org.au

 



©ZaKaiRan AatKa'Nui SheeHan

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