Letter to the Editor, The Age, 25 March 2009.
IT WAS not surprising that Alan Ashbarry's letter (24/3) denying Australian forests are being ravaged by logging came from the same Tasmania that hosts the most intensive native forest logging in the OECD.
Damage control down here consists mainly of reclassifying reality. A block of native forest that has been clear-felled, burnt, deep-ripped, herbicided, and resown with seeds of commercial eucalypts remains on the Tassie books as "native forest". A shining gum plantation is classified as "forest". As old-growth forest is steadily flattened, the consequent increase in the percentage of such forest listed as "reserved" is proudly trumpeted.
If you want a true picture of what goes on down here, look out the plane window. And weep.
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