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Forest & Wood Communities Australia continues to defend its members and all who live and work in forest communities against the ongoing ideological war on forestry.

Of interest to us was the relationship between the Fenner School, from which emanates regular anti-forestry opinion, and the media which seems all too willing to splash it on their pages and websites.

All this in the face of international and local science which shows forestry is our best chance to meet climate challenges as a renewable and sustainable alternative to wood sourced from other countries which don’t have the same strict code of practice, and other less environmentally friendly materials such as plastic and aluminium.

But we’ll leave the 1000 fire and forestry experts who specialise in specific fields of research to argue the science. We just want to know why forestry is so routinely and illogically attacked in the media and why alternative science is derided and only reported in cursory attempts at balance.

The people who work in the forests, their families and the communities in which they live are fed up with the stress generated by this determined attack on their livelihoods.

To find out, we put in a Freedom of Information request to the ABC for correspondence between one particular journalist and two academics from the Fenner School.

The journalist’s blinkered view of forestry seemed at odds with the fundamental principle of journalism, which is fair and balanced reporting, while the academics’ work published by the ABC and other outlets is questioned by science supported by more than 1000 scientists and experts.

Around the same time, South East Timber Association Secretary Peter Rutherford, who also sits on the FWCA board, lodged an FOI request with the Australian National University which houses the Fenner School.

See this article for full details about SETA’s request.

The ABC refused to reveal the correspondence requested by FWCA, and then it came as a complete surprise that the Sydney Morning Herald’s most strident Fenner School academic supporter and his counterpart at The Age demanded details of our FOI request.

At least we think that’s they were asking. The jumbled request to FWCA included a demand for a response from Mr Rutherford so it appeared they had their wires crossed.

How they found out about Mr Rutherford’s request to the ANU is curious in itself, but in the interests of full transparency we agreed to respond to the Fairfax media’s demands for answers.

The full email exchange is below.

Predictably only one or two sentences from my detailed response were used in the article while an anonymous ANU source described one subject of the FOI request as “one of the leading forestry experts on the planet”. This is despite 1000 forestry experts in Australia alone disagreeing with his recently published opinions and many other academics, even some at the same institution, considered to be more qualified in the fields of fire and water catchments.

The fawning and unquestioning support for the headline-grabbing minority view continues.

In recent days, the journalists in question have launched fresh assaults on forestry, trotting out false claims of illegal logging and law changes which never happened.

They also continue to amplify the opinion that forestry increases fire risk based on desk-top modelling which only focuses on the harvested area and fails to put it into the context of the whole forest estate.

It’s hard to understand what the motivation is behind these conflated claims at a time when the challenge of climate change needs forestry to meet emissions targets.

Of most concern is the impact the campaign against forestry in Victoria has on the people who work in it. The stress it creates for people whose livelihoods are threatened and the communities in which they live is not considered by these academics and journalists.

Our FOI request was to find out what their true agenda is and we will continue to dig until the truth behind it is revealed.

Join us

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Hi Michael and Miki

May we see a draft of the story you write before publication to ensure accuracy?

I also take this opportunity to invite you both to spend some time in the forest with some of our members to hopefully inspire you to consider forestry from our perspective. I know how busy newsrooms are these days, but we can organise tours of forestry areas in Victoria and NSW at your convenience to give you a perspective on its scale and the various stages of post-harvest regeneration.

It would also be a chance to visit communities which have been negatively affected by poor government policy encouraged by sustained attacks on the industry which play out in the media.

It was something which assisted me in my time as a journalist to better understand the challenges faced by the people who work in our forests and the communities in which they live. I also spent a day in the forest with a leading activist for my story.

After all, a journalist should be curious, not judgemental.

Without that perspective, I may have continued to believe every negative thing written in the media and naively drop a few coins into tins held by activists in koala suits who would have us believe koalas are becoming extinct (they apparently are not). I certainly wouldn’t have been inspired to do the work I do today, which is to give some sort of hope to the people who are directly affected by the continuous and misinformed assault on their livelihoods.

 

To your questions:

We are contacting FWCA about a freedom of information request lodged by Justin Law. Mr Law applied through FOI to gain access to correspondence between Professor David Lindenmayer and journalists. 

    • FWCA made one request under FOI to gain access to correspondence between one journalist employed by a Government-funded news outlet (ABC) and two academics employed at a Government agency (ANU).

Questions for FWCA: 

Did Mr Law undertake this application on behalf of FWCA? 

    • Yes I did.

Does FWCA support its directors in trying to gain access to emails between journalists and their sources? 

    • FWCA supports better understanding of the connection between the Fenner School and some sectors of the media which appear to support and willing amplify the views of a number of academics on issues which affect our membership.
    • It should be noted that access to information held by government agencies is a legally enforceable right.

Does FWCA support the role of independent scientific assessment of forestry industries? 

    • Absolutely FWCA supports independent scientific assessment of forestry. We support all science which can be replicated and is shared and is free of agenda. We support independent scientific assessments which result from testing hypotheses, rather than hypothesis twisted into supporting preconceived ideas or eco-political agendas.
    • It is our understanding that the ‘Forestry Industries’ are independently assessed by a great many academics, the vast majority of whom appear to support the role of forest management in mitigating climate change by providing natural, renewable timber and fibre under PEFC certification and the strictest guidelines in the world.
    • Internationally, forestry is embraced. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change states: “A sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit.”  – IPCC 4th Assessment.
    • Attached is a copy of a report which appeared in the Sacramento Bee recently which explains how modern forest management practice has been deployed to replicate indigenous land management to reduce the risk of fires in California. It is the view of the vast majority of Australian independent forest academics that a tenure-blind approach to forest management is desperately needed in Australia, but the efforts in getting into step with global forestry policy are thwarted by Australia’s activism culture.
    • Of concern to us is the influence of the Wilderness Society on the ANU’s Fenner School. The attached documents show that the activist organisation, which relies on generating outrage as a business model, has donated significant amounts to the school after ostensibly founding its WildCountry Science Council initiative. It draws into question how an impartial academic institution could partner with an activist organisation which relies on regular media attention on predominantly forestry issues to generate income.

Does FWCA have a view on the work of Professor David Lindenmayer?

    • Yes it does.

How many members does FWCA have?

    • 351 financial members and 1382 social media followers. We are new and are growing, but we get a membership bump each time you mention us, so thanks again for your interest.

Questions for Mr Law: 

Why did you seek disclosure of Professor Lindenmayer’s communication with the media?

    • FWCA issued the request as an organisation, so I did not seek anything independently of the will of the association. For clarity, FWCA sought disclosure of one ABC journalist’s communication with two Fenner School academics. We did so to better understand why the journalist seemed so regularly, willingly and unquestioningly prepared to publish the opinions of some Fenner School academics and whether the journalist had properly tested or investigated the claims before publishing. The resulting stories (which directly impact our members who are routinely and unfairly made to feel guilty for working in or supporting forestry) seemed devoid of curiosity.

Do you support the role of independent scientific assessment of forestry industries?

    • I share the views of FWCA detailed above.

Mr Law, you have already been court ordered to apologise publicly to Professor Lindenmayer for personally and professionally impugning his reputation on social media. Why have you now sought to access his work emails? 

    • I was not court ordered to do anything. Proceedings were dismissed and the statement I made was the result of a mediation. As I was funding my defence personally, and did not have access to pro bono legal representation, the costs of testing the case in court, which I was willing to do under defence of honest opinion and qualified privilege, proved prohibitive.
      I had no idea that my personal views (formed after reviewing several research papers and discussions with respected academics) expressed to just 300 twitter followers (only one of whom appeared to even see it) could cause such catastrophic reputational harm and it was for that that I agreed to retract my comments.
      I’m not sure whether I’m legally allowed to be grateful that they are regularly published by the Fairfax media with its significantly greater audience when you link back to this matter in your stories, but given how much value is attributed to my personal views, I will certainly be more thoughtful in how I express them in future.
    • Again, the request was made to the ABC for access to one journalist’s correspondence.

 

Some additional reading which may be of interest to journalists concerned with the standards of modern science and the influence of activism:

https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/GOING-%E2%80%98GREEN%E2%80%99-Forests-fire-and-a-flawed-conservation-culture–Mark-Poynter_p_180.html

https://www.penguin.com.au/books/science-fictions-9781473564251

https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Wood-Fight-Forests-Nature/dp/0765807521

 


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