Thread: Rightoh you blokes- give it back, OK?

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

Sadly it goes on. A few years back several trees were removed from national parks in Far North Queensland in what was definitely a pro job. The perpetrator even went to the trouble of burrying logs for a while.

In your case it beggars belief that they could get so far & un-noticed???

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

un-noticed???

He actually had to drive through a number of 'private' gates,a lot of people knew him,and what he was doing,but turned a blind eye.All because of the governments decision of the day,to lock up the wet tropic forest to logging .He was seen as a 'hero' in some peoples eyes.His semi had an oil leak,so the coppers followed it all the way to his place .and all he got was a few months jail for ripping off a couple 100 ton of primary cabinet species(which incidentally got auctioned off for a ridiculous price).Happens all the time,on crown and private land!...MM

Its amasing what people will do to make a "quick buck"!!
Years ago listening to John Laws on the radio a bloke rang in having a whinge about being busted for removing fire wood from a National Park. He had been doing it for a lot of years and couldn't see why he was slugged with a heavy fine. As it turned out he had been doing it for years and only picked up branches that were laying on the ground and only of a size that fitted in his vehicle. He got caught red handed because he turned up with a chainsaw to help him get heavier stuff. Guess how he got caught.......yep the ranger heard the chainsaw. Some "crims" are not real clever

In Many respects, PaW Dec call then what you will have created this problem for themselves.

I am actually in favor of timber folk / crafts persons being able to go into state forests (as opposed to National Parks) - to access wind fallen logs after a big blow - because these are production forests managed for saw log production, but such logs because they aren't fallen within a logging coup, by timber industry where they can be extracted and sent to a mill - get left to waste / rot on the ground.

To my mind (and many others) that's a big waste.

That said DEC / PaW do have a craftwood license system where you can take a trailer into a production forest block with your chainsaw and recover "craftwood" (pieces defined as no longer than 1.5 meters), however because the dept employees really don't want people in there gathering firewood and craft wood for public liability reasons, they set aside a single "diseased" (dieback affected) bock in each district - where its had the guts logged out of it - and the ONLY remaining stuff on the ground isn't suitable for either firewood Or Craftwood because the lot is riddled with white ants.

If a good tree does blow down in sucgh a block and the staff see it - they will sometimes arrange (if they have a loader working out there) to have it loaded on a log truck - and carted to the Barrack silicon smelter in Kemmerton for ~$20 a cubic meter for firewood - rather than let all the people who bought portable sawmills have any access to decent wood OR worse they leave it there and let it burn in the next fuel hazard reduction burn.

So as a result - in many cases DEC / PaW have created "Timber thieves" out of what once were honest guys just trying to make a living, from natures surplus, by denying them access to wind-fallen logs.

Theres an understandable philosophical objection to such waste amongst the wood /craft community.

The problem is when they then cross imaginary boundaries in the forest into areas such as this one (A National Park) and start falling big standing trees - when judging by the stump they had absolutely no idea what they were doing!

This is taking it a bit far IMHO.

While I have sympathies as described above - i would LIKE to think that our magnificent "King Jarrahs" could be preserved... for future generations to marvel at in awe.



Would we rather see something like this, standing in its original environment...??

or



Something like this -sitting in someones dining room?

Personally I would like to think our National Parks and the jewels of our forest could be preserved without being poached.

All the same i think it would be helpful towards that end if DEC / PaW / FPC recognized that the forestry act actually has a clause in it where they have a legislated responsibility to "help foster the timber industry" which means things like make forest leases available to those who want to establish a milling operation for e.g. as well as product available to the developing portable sawmill industry.

In some respects Dec / Paw / FPC are their own worst enemy's in all this.

Maybe some of their past bad decisions are coming home to haunt them.

Again I can't condone taking standing trees in National Parks (and probably no one would) BUT at the same time I have some sympathies for those with portable mills finding themselves deliberately frozen out of our production forests.

I'm sure there will be 2 sides to this eventually I am guessing when it all comes out in the wash - but the blokes with the slabs in their possession will undoubtedly be on the losing side of it.

Lastly one might reasonably ask - how is it that in today's day and age such valuable assets are left totally unprotected in a National Park through such a period of high risk between Christmas and new years? Where were all the national park rangers, who's jobs it is, to protect these assets - were there no fire risks to this National Park, warranting the presence of nat park rangers to supervise the campers - during such a high use period - and wouldn't the public have a right to expect that these staff were out there and could reasonably prevent this type of overt behavior?

The district manager Drew - makes the comment that they have xyz hectares of forest estate to protect with only limited staffing resources & as a result value the input of eyes of the public towards observing and reporting such activities, BUT the "truth of the matter" is that the same manager has a dedicated nat park ranger staff to employ and deploy, for such known busy periods, in what is only a very small by comparison "national park environment" within that large production forest estate....

Its not like hi handfill of Nat park rangers are responsible for the whole production forest estate - their job description says they SHOULD have been working throughout that period within the national park to protect OUR the public's interest in our National Parks.

This same district manager collects revenues from us the public users - "access fees" to these national parks, so shouldn't we have a right to expect that these finds are expended to protect our valuable assets during the highest use / threat (fires) period - between Christmas and New years?

Really this is a bit of an indictment on the manager - because he has both the revenues and expenditure budget and specific staff dedicated to this purpose, to protect on our behalf, these highly vulnerable and desirable assets.

It shouldn't have been possible for this to occur is the inevitable upshot.

So there is a fair assumption that this manager & his staff dropped the ball at such an important and vulnerable time.

It shouldn't be possible to have pulled this off - if the dept were doing it's job properly.

I see some aspect of systemic failure here... so maybe when running sch an article (making public comment) the department should accept that this has just pointed out the weakness in their ability to carry out their legislated responsibilities?

That's how I would see it anyway.

Obviously others mileage might vary.

A thoughtful post by you there TT.

I regard this as wanton vandalism and theft by the perpetrators and one hopes they get their just desserts.

Puts me in mind of a case I was told of where a huge Red Cedar tree was blown over by a cyclone up north.
Apparently the powers that be would not let it be salvaged, not even trimmed limbs could be taken.
The log now lies alongside the road, a very visible reminder of bureaucratic intransigence.

Originally Posted by artme

A thoughtful post by you there TT.

I regard this as wanton vandalism and theft by the perpetrators and one hopes they get their just desserts.

Puts me in mind of a case I was told of where a huge Red Cedar tree was blown over by a cyclone up north.
Apparently the powers that be would not let it be salvaged, not even trimmed limbs could be taken.
The log now lies alongside the road, a very visible reminder of bureaucratic intransigence.

The old Cedar was hollow Artme,but there was a bit of good wood in some of the heads,as well as some large spurs(around the base) and chunky roots.I walked along it not long after it fell down,and found some orchids that i thought i might souvenir,however after some soul searching,decided that leaving them there was the better option .I do know of one chap that did go chasing a few 'BITS AND PIECES',but only enough to fit in a backpack.The tree had almost no sapwood,and the timber was very dark in colour..it was a stunning tree,one that i visited many times,and its splender is still embedded in my memory bank.All its offspring will hopefully one day attain a ripe old age too..MM

Originally Posted by artme

A thoughtful post by you there TT.

I regard this as wanton vandalism and theft by the perpetrators and one hopes they get their just desserts.

Puts me in mind of a case I was told of where a huge Red Cedar tree was blown over by a cyclone up north.
Apparently the powers that be would not let it be salvaged, not even trimmed limbs could be taken.
The log now lies alongside the road, a very visible reminder of bureaucratic intransigence.

True story! Cyclone Larry dropped some magnificient trees. The Gadgarra Red Cedar, is most probably the tree you are thinking of. Some amazing Kauri Pines went down with thousands of tons of others.

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

True story! Cyclone Larry dropped some magnificient trees. The Gadgarra Red Cedar, is most probably the tree you are thinking of. Some amazing Kauri Pines went down with thousands of tons of others.

He's talking about the Gadgarra Cedar alright..quite a few Kauri's ended up in Lake Barrine too...MM

The log now lies alongside the road, a very visible reminder of bureaucratic intransigence.

That's such a terrible waste. It happens within our national parks - windallen logs in national parks should stay there as natural animal habitat. Rot and fires etc will eventually turn them back into nutrients in the soil (Albeit it will be a long time) but in that period they are habitat to animals and insects and lizards etc.

If its alongside a major road, its a shame the face of it couldn't maybe be "carved in situ" to present as a monument as you say to "bureaucratic intransigence".

The Dec PaW people, ARE restricted by their acts and regulations etc - as well as their departments internal written policy's.

I know this having worked for them & my son still does.

It's still very frustrating when you know "what goes on behind the scenes".

They do have a LOT more flexibility behind the scenes in creating their "written policy" and access to wind-fallen logs in state forests is perfectly legal to do - (and has been done successfully in the past) here in WA - its just that someone decided they didn't want to do that any more for public liability reasons - so they wrote up an internal policy against it.

That could EASILY be altered - with just the stroke of a pen.

Back when I worked for them (1987 - 1995) there was the local "lewis-saw" invented in our area - and we did make wind - fallen logs within state forest available to the 7 or 8 portable millers in our area/district.

It took one forester one afternoon a week to go out and measure up the volume of the fallen tree and write out the permit to buy the log (pay the royalties) and collect receipt the cash.

In one year he collected some $30K in royalties - on wind fallen logs royalties in state forest. That was about his entire salary... so one afternoon a week he earned his entire salary for the dept and the other 4.5 days a week they got to use his services for nothing.

Now since the policy changed to prevent that, those royalties are lost & those logs go to waste - in a production forest.

The "argument" from head office to put a stop to the practice - was that the public liability costs if a portable miller was out there in the forest sawing up a wind fallen log and a tree branch fell on their head from a nearby tree, on a windy day - DEC / PaW dept could be sued.

So as a result the "internal policy" (in direct contravention of the legislated responsibility on the Dept to foster the timber industry) is to deny portable saw millers access to production forest and to completely waste that resource and deny the govt those royalties - which could be utilized to better manage our national parks perhaps from tree poaching between Christmas & New years!.

Like I said - I suspect that this theft they are bemoaning could well be related back to poor decisions they have made in the past.

Did a thief/thieves "justify this theft" - to themselves by saying that DEC /PaW are the real forest vandals and thieves by wasting all the wind-fallen logs within production forests and by denying owners of portable mills access to resource that legally they own as a member of the public.

Is it possible that someone was deliberately sending DEC/ PaW managers a little message about their legislated responsibilities under the forests act to manage those production forests & foster the milling industry - in the best interests of the public who after all own the resource and who the department just manages it for & who also pay their wages?.

Stil no excuse for taking such a magnificent tree from a national park - but might not their own poor management practices... be what has in part precipitated such a heinous act?

Where does ALL of the responsibility, really lie?

I can see both sides of this argument having worked for DEC / Paw in the past, and also afterwards had a timber business based around a portable sawmill.

I still had access too logs - but had to buy them under contract and pay the costs of having them transported to the mill (where no bramnches could fall on my head while cutting them up) - rather than utilize the portability properties of the sawmill by taking it into the forest to the wind- fallen logs.

Logs had to be cut from the production forest, to supply my contract while wind-fallen logs went to waste.

Most people would think that ecologically - that's wrong.

I can't see it changing any time soon.

I also can't see people not resorting to stealing trees from national parks under this style of mismanagement of the resource.

I would argue that perhaps the poor management of the resource is contributing to making ordinary hard working portable sawmill operators into the kind of thieves who could justify to themselves the actions like we see in this newspaper report & go steal a jewel's of the forest from one of our national parks.

I reckon their will be 2 sides to this story when if it eventually all comes out in the wash (i.e. ever gets to court).

Maybe DEC PaW won't try too hard to catch these thieves, lest their mismanagement practices does become public in the subsequent court case.

One other thing tho....

What becomes of the timber left behind in the NP?

Shouldn't it be recovered (primarily as evidence of the crime & a DNA source) into the local DEC yard and sawn up and used within the NP for signage etc - rather than lay there and be burnt in the next lightning strike wild fire within the national park?

If anything its certainly an eye sore in a Nat Park IMHO.

If it was me it would be cleaned up.

Lots of issues behind this I would reckon.

Originally Posted by Timless Timber

That's such a terrible waste. It happens within our national parks - windallen logs in national parks should stay there as natural animal habitat. Rot and fires etc will eventually turn them back into nutrients in the soil (Albeit it will be a long time) but in that period they are habitat to animals and insects and lizards etc.

If its alongside a major road, its a shame the face of it couldn't maybe be "carved in situ" to present as a monument as you say to "bureaucratic intransigence".

The Dec PaW people, ARE restricted by their acts and regulations etc - as well as their departments internal written policy's.

I know this having worked for them & my son still does.

It's still very frustrating when you know "what goes on behind the scenes".

They do have a LOT more flexibility behind the scenes in creating their "written policy" and access to wind-fallen logs in state forests is perfectly legal to do - (and has been done successfully in the past) here in WA - its just that someone decided they didn't want to do that any more for public liability reasons - so they wrote up an internal policy against it.

That could EASILY be altered - with just the stroke of a pen.

Back when I worked for them (1987 - 1995) there was the local "lewis-saw" invented in our area - and we did make wind - fallen logs within state forest available to the 7 or 8 portable millers in our area/district.

It took one forester one afternoon a week to go out and measure up the volume of the fallen tree and write out the permit to buy the log (pay the royalties) and collect receipt the cash.

In one year he collected some $30K in royalties - on wind fallen logs royalties in state forest. That was about his entire salary... so one afternoon a week he earned his entire salary for the dept and the other 4.5 days a week they got to use his services for nothing.

Now since the policy changed to prevent that, those royalties are lost & those logs go to waste - in a production forest.

The "argument" from head office to put a stop to the practice - was that the public liability costs if a portable miller was out there in the forest sawing up a wind fallen log and a tree branch fell on their head from a nearby tree, on a windy day - DEC / PaW dept could be sued.

So as a result the "internal policy" (in direct contravention of the legislated responsibility on the Dept to foster the timber industry) is to deny portable saw millers access to production forest and to completely waste that resource and deny the govt those royalties - which could be utilized to better manage our national parks perhaps from tree poaching between Christmas & New years!.

Like I said - I suspect that this theft they are bemoaning could well be related back to poor decisions they have made in the past.

Did a thief/thieves "justify this theft" - to themselves by saying that DEC /PaW are the real forest vandals and thieves by wasting all the wind-fallen logs within production forests and by denying owners of portable mills access to resource that legally they own as a member of the public.

Is it possible that someone was deliberately sending DEC/ PaW managers a little message about their legislated responsibilities under the forests act to manage those production forests & foster the milling industry - in the best interests of the public who after all own the resource and who the department just manages it for & who also pay their wages?.

Stil no excuse for taking such a magnificent tree from a national park - but might not their own poor management practices... be what has in part precipitated such a heinous act?

Where does ALL of the responsibility, really lie?

I can see both sides of this argument having worked for DEC / Paw in the past, and also afterwards had a timber business based around a portable sawmill.

I still had access too logs - but had to buy them under contract and pay the costs of having them transported to the mill (where no bramnches could fall on my head while cutting them up) - rather than utilize the portability properties of the sawmill by taking it into the forest to the wind- fallen logs.

Logs had to be cut from the production forest, to supply my contract while wind-fallen logs went to waste.

Most people would think that ecologically - that's wrong.

I can't see it changing any time soon.

I also can't see people not resorting to stealing trees from national parks under this style of mismanagement of the resource.

I would argue that perhaps the poor management of the resource is contributing to making ordinary hard working portable sawmill operators into the kind of thieves who could justify to themselves the actions like we see in this newspaper report & go steal a jewel's of the forest from one of our national parks.

I reckon their will be 2 sides to this story when if it eventually all comes out in the wash (i.e. ever gets to court).

Maybe DEC PaW won't try too hard to catch these thieves, lest their mismanagement practices does become public in the subsequent court case.

One other thing tho....

What becomes of the timber left behind in the NP?

Shouldn't it be recovered (primarily as evidence of the crime & a DNA source) into the local DEC yard and sawn up and used within the NP for signage etc - rather than lay there and be burnt in the next lightning strike wild fire within the national park?

If anything its certainly an eye sore in a Nat Park IMHO.

If it was me it would be cleaned up.

Lots of issues behind this I would reckon.

People were denied access to the forests(after cyclone larry) purely for their own safety..it was too dangerous to retrieve logs as there were simply too many hangups.As for the Cedar,it was hollow,the main bole had very little heartwood..it was not a terrible waste at all,it was buggered!..MM

There do seem to be a lot of differences betwixt Qld forest management and WA's.

This tree there was about 50% of the least desirable section of the bole left behind (heartwood etc) & what was taken has been estimated at $50K (Maybe in finished slab tables) certainly not in timber volume @ going royalties rates.

I just hope they catch whoever did it.

Theres no chance DEC / PaW FPC call them what you will this week, will ever open up access to wind fallen logs in production forest to portable saw millers.

Typical of govt decision making the WA state govt of the time gave development grants to the inventor manufacturer of portable lewis saws and many people bought them, base don the idea they would get better utilization of wasted resource in wind-fallen logs.

Then FPC DEC PAW decide in their wisdom they don't want to manage this resource access for this new industry sector that govt helped foster.

So with the stroke of pen under "Public Liability" - suddenly they evaporate the resource the new industry was established on - access to wind fallen logs & in dong so make the individuals investments in these machines (and kilns etc etc) into a dead loss situation.

If these investors / industry participants who have been misled into investing into the industry - get p!ssed enough about it - I can understand thei renationalisation that DEC PaW & FPC have broght this on themselves thru their totally unfair bloody mindedness and intransigence & mismanagement of the resource.

In short if DEC etc don't want to manage it equitably and responsibly - then all bets are off and its every man for himself, and thinks like national park boundaries - become meaningless.

In short these people will manage it their own way - and in doing so - they have proved that DEC PaW FPC - can't police these stupid laws they have created - so the laws are effectively meaningless.

I reckon in these peoples minds - its open season.

They will "manage it themselves".

It's my contention that Govt of the day, DEC / PaW / FRC etc have brought this debacle on themselves with poor resource management - poor accountability to their clients, poor resource management, loss of faith in their abilities by just about everyone & the proven inability to be the stewards of the resource on behalf of the community - no matter how many National parks etc they might choose to enact.

I see similarities / Parallels occurring within the fishing industry most likely over the sudden proliferation of marine parks vesting's without any management funds or staff to police these laws- the industry will manage it themselves and fish where they want - including Marine Parks.

You can only enforce the laws that the public accept.

The public and industry have lost faith in Govt Dec PaW and FPC to manage the National Parks, state forests and timber industry.

I would say an ever increasing number of industry participants have lost all faith and declared all bets off and every man for themselves - in short open season... and the truth is these peons running it couldn't police it even if they wanted too.

Thats why DEC will sweep this under the carpet - they don't want the truth to come out!

They don't want their dirty linen aired publicly...

They don't want to world to know they dropped the ball & no one has any faith left in them to manage the community owned forest and national park resources any longer.

That's my take on it after watching some 20+ years of their mismanagement from within and without.

As always others mileage may vary.

50,000 HA of government forest.....

Government debts are going ballistic, taxes are drying up daily and if the depression hits I can guarantee they will rescind their position. They will sell.

This government has the moral positioning of a prostitute. There is nothing more perilous than a dying bureaucracy.

Post T.C. Yasi I spent about 6 weeks on emergency clean up work before we started on salvaging what we could.

Part of that time I spent helping to clean the power line corridor off the Karreya Hydro station... runs out through all that lovely, locked up, no longer owned by the people of Qld, World Heritage Listed Wet Tropics Rainforest.

Across just three in ridges there my professional estimate is that I cut well over 2 million dollars (wholesale) worth of cabinet timber
- mostly silky oak, bit of maple, bit of cedar -
plus a whole heap of structual timber
into pieces small enough that they could be shunted off the line with an excavator.
So they could lie there and rot.
I'm all for protecting the rainforest. I'm all for the sustainable harvesting of native forest timber. I'm a conservationist but not a preservationist I guess... the latter camp being where most aussie "conservationists" really stand.
But that was just waste. Towns that are nearly destroyed just down the road and are going to need timber to rebuild... but you can't take these blown over and need to be cut up trees because well... they're on the wrong side of a line of a map so they have to remain there to rot.
Stupid, stupid , stupid!!!!

I hope they catch these b@$ta@rds, I really do. But the entire issue of National Parks management in a lot of states needs a shake up. And don't even start me - 4 generations in the FNQ timber industry - on World Heritage Listings.

Great post John!!!

MM, your usual knowledge and wisdom is also well expressed!!

The conservation/preservation argument is a vexed one not helped by the stubborn
views of either side.

Standing dead trees are an important part of any ecosystem, as are fallen dead trees.
I just want to see some balanced thought going into the decisions on what to do with
these resources.

In many ways we are fools unto ourselves. We lock up resources and yet import from
areas where forest protection is of little concern.