The Queensland Conservation Council, of which I was an early supporter, has lost its way.
It routinely advocates environmentally destructive renewable projects that are not all that renewable, when it is considered that solar panels and windmills are polluting and need replacing, at great environmental expense, regularly.
And its claim that the huge forest areas east of Gympie, in the news because of the Forest Wind renewable energy project (and its axing) are not of concern because the native ecology has already been removed is just ridiculous.
Native forest has not all been removed and the pine plantations constitute one of the world’s most successful tree farming operations, an industry the QCC has previously advocated and which is, like it or not, agriculture.
The plantations have turned what was once called “wallum country“ into prime agricultural land, growing timber renewably.
When conservationists say native hardwood harvesting is no longer necessary because most houses now are built with pine framing, this is where the pine trees grow.
There also seems to be great historical ignorance at large when people say forestry endangers native species, now surviving in national parks.
Most of those national parks used to be forestry areas, where timber was harvested sustainably and the environment was preserved well enough to later be converted to national park.
As former Forestry Department CEO Gary Bacon said, talking about K’gari (formerly Fraser Island), “In 120 years of logging, we damaged the environment so badly it qualified for World Heritage listing.”
All the recreational uses of forests were available under Forestry management, yet this too is cited as an urgent reason for timber harvesting to be stopped to facilitate uses that are all perfectly possible in conjunction with timber getting.
Residents affected by planned transmission lines connecting the Forest Wind project to the grid are also delighted their environment will no longer be ruined, now the state government has literally “pulled the plug” on the whole thing.
– Arthur Gorrie
