May 17 2007: Tree Thieves Sent To Jail
A FATHER and son who conspired to steal tree ferns and timber logs valued at up to $11 million have been jailed. The verdict follows the state's largest flora theft investigation. The County Court in Morwell was told this week that the illegally harvested logs and ferns had an estimated retail value of about $11 million. They were taken from more than 44ha of plantation, Crown land and private property near the Strzelecki Ranges between 2000 and 2004. But Judge Geoff Chettle said yesterday there had been evidence only that the logs had an estimated wholesale value of more than $1.5 million and the tree ferns a wholesale value of about $50,000. The timber included messmate, mountain ash and blackwood. A jury found Michael Gaythorne Caldwell, 62, and Kelly Edward Caldwell, 29, guilty on two counts each of conspiracy to steal. Michael Caldwell also pleaded guilty to theft of a chainsaw and Kelly Caldwell to assaulting a wildlife officer. Michael Caldwell was jailed for four years with a minimum of two years and nine months. Kelly Caldwell was sentenced to two years, 18 months of which was suspended. This means he will serve six months in jail. He was also fined $500. Judge Chettle said that about 4500 lineal metres of tree fern per hectare were removed, and 570 cubic metres per hectare of timber were harvested, in the affected area at Boolarong. The logs were sold to sawmills and the ferns to unsuspecting nurseries. Judge Chettle said the men's conduct took place over a protracted period and it would cost an estimated $316,000 to undo the pillage. "The cost of rectification of the damage that you did is expensive and extensive," he said. He accepted that Kelly Caldwell was following his father's directions but said that the pair had been jointly involved in the enterprise. The Caldwells, of Traralgon, were not charged with theft. Outside court, Department of Sustainability and Environment senior prosecutor Gavan Knight said he hoped the case would send a message that the agency was determined to investigate and pursue such matters. Prosecutor Kieran Gilligan told the County Court trial that the men had caused extensive damage to the harvested site. He claimed that the men appeared to target specific species for their own gain "and were ruthless . . ."In forming a complex network of tracks around the site, the accused aggressively, the Crown says, drove machinery into the landscape causing a large amount of soil disturbance, destroying native vegetation." Last August, Adam Hendrikus Post, 37, was handed a 2 1/2-year suspended jail term for his role in buying illegally harvested tree ferns from the Caldwells and selling them on to unsuspecting retailers.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. FSC certified destruction of rainforest reserve. Under the Heads of Agreement signed in October 2006, Hancock were supposed to leave 100 metres on rainforest in the Morwell River West Branch. In early June the loggers arrive at this site and guess what! Buffers as low as 20m on rainforest and down to as low as 5m on rainforest ecotone. The community has almost had enough! Back to the trenches soon? Effectively all of the machinery in this photo is operating in a promised rainforest buffer under the Heads of Agreement. How can Hancock ever be trusted again? Yellow dot indicates rainforest location.
Strzelecki Cores and Links Map. Red indicates approximate location of rainforest (as identified up to 2002), yellow indicates approximate location of Craig Court.
Aerial photograph of Craig Court prior to the logging. Light green shading indicates approximate location of logging as observed June1 2007. RF1 indicates rainforest gully 1 (images on this page), RF indicates rainforest gully 2 as indicated on this page. Highly likely that rainforest extends all the way through all gullies shown on this photo.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. FSC certified destruction of rainforest reserve. Hancock Watch walked 2 gullies just off Craig Court. This view is looking down gully 2.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. FSC certified destruction of rainforest reserve. Gully 2, note location of recently logged stump located in rainforest buffer. Similar management problems were raised in January 2007 at the first coupe logged under the Heads of Agreement. Hancock have obviously learnt nothing from that debacle and meanwhile have entered another coupe and have done exactly the same thing.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. FSC certified destruction of rainforest reserve. Logging track through supposed rainforest buffer.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Slender Tree Fern, a rainforest indicator species inside gully 2. Visiting the site one month later, this particular fern had been destroyed due to tree fall from woefully inadequate buffers. Regenerating rainforest species sacrificed on the alter of plantation forestry.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Ray Water-fern (Blechnum fluviatile) a rainforest indicator species on the rainforest floor in gully 2.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Ray Water-fern (Blechnum fluviatile) a rainforest indicator species about 20m from logging activities.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Logging inside rainforest reserve and Hancock continue to be certified by FSC, why? This area being logged is supposed to be a rainforest reserve, agreed to by the Victorian Minister for Conservation in October 2006.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Logging machinery parked in custodial land - Messmate forest. What happens to the native forest understorey?
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Logging machinery parked in custodial land - Messmate forest. What happens to the native forest understorey?
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. More rainforest buffers trashed by Hancock and certified by FSC at Gully 1.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Rainforest indicator species, Mother Spleenwort on the trunk of this tree fern. This indicates the boundary of the rainforest ecotone, logging has occurred within 10 metres.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Rainforest indicator species, Mother Spleenwort on the trunk of this tree fern. This indicates the boundary of the rainforest ecotone, logging has occurred within 10 metres. One can also see the pink marker tape on a nearby eucalypt indicating the buffer that was marked off prior to logging occurring.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Rainforest indicator species, Mother Spleenwort on the trunk of this tree fern.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Rainforest indicator species, Bristlefern (Crepidomanes venosum) located about 20 metres from logging.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Rainforest indicator species, Bristlefern (Crepidomanes venosum) and Mother Spleenwort (Asplenium bulbiferum subsp. gracillimum) located about 20 metres from logging.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Custodial land on gully line. 70 year old Mountain Ash.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Unidentified fungus.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Unidentified moss.
Mother Spleenwort (Asplenium bulbiferum subsp. gracillimum) located about 20 metres from logging.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Slender tree fern about 15m from logging zone.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Slender tree fern about 15m from logging zone.
June 2007: Strzelecki Ranges - Craig Court - Morwell River West Branch. Slender tree fern about 15m from logging zone. Sawlogs sourced from rainforest reserve. About 25% of the logs leaving this site will end up at local sawmills, the largest log buyers will however be the Maryvale mill owned by PaperlinX.
July 2007: Strathbogie Ranges A10 Road near headwaters of Whitegum Gully in the Broken River catchment. Recent pine logging and herbicide spraying for blackberries. More information here.
08 June 2007 Gippsland Times Logging route row Leslie White
(for more on TIRES funding see here)
WELLINGTON Shire Council will effectively allow loaded log trucks to use a narrow road near Yarram despite the fact it will likely kill a local bed and breakfast business.
Local residents prefer an alternate route for trucks to access the logging coupe which is eight kilometres longer but does not pass by houses or the business.
No councillor referred to the fate of the tourism business while debating the issue at a meeting this week.
Bed and breakfast owner Steve Mark likened the council meeting to an "execution". "If this goes through, our lives as we know it are over," Mr Mark told the council meeting .
"Our bed and breakfast is not viable if this goes ahead. We've never sought council assistance to run our business; we can't see why a logging company can ask assistance from the shire."
If the road is used by log trucks, it then qualifies for improvement funding from the Timber Impacted Roads scheme.
Council would contribute $24,000 towards a new bridge as it would then pay only one seventh of the $168,000 cost to replace the structure.
Council had planned to replace the bridge within the next 10 years. The increase in bridge load limit would allow 22 log trucks per day to use Roberts Rd.
However the road is unlikely to be sealed with funding from the TIS scheme and if it was, council would need to cough up $144,000.
Local residents claimed loaded log trucks using a "goat track" was the worst possible outcome.
Cr Peter Garlick asked council officers whether the road was likely to be funded as well as the bridge.
However at that point he had already moved the resolution to apply for the funding.
Cr Malcolm Hole, who is president of Timber Towns Victoria, claimed failure to apply for the bridge funding through the TIR scheme could constitute a restraint of trade.
He said Grand Ridge Plantations (now known as Hancock Victoria Plantations Gippsland) would have more difficulty accessing its timber via the alternate route, adding the company was one of the shire's biggest ratepayers.
Mayor Beth Ripper said she was duty bound to chase opportunities for funding of public assets.
Cr Garlick said council needed to recognise the importance of the timber industry.
However Cr Peter Cleary said the logging company was not the only ratepayer involved in the decision. "Is council going to spend $167,000 to fix a road for one ratepayer?" he asked.
Cr Bob Wenger said TIS funding would not necessarily continue at the same level in coming years, which meant the road was unlikely to ever be sealed.
Cr Darren McCubbin said it was fair to ask the company to drive an extra 8.6 kilometres for the good of residents.
Crs Garlick, Ripper, Gault, Jeff Amos, Jenny O'Neill and Hole voted to apply for funds to upgrade the bridge. The resolution was adopted.
Bush showdown by LEAH METHER 14 June 2007 Latrobe Valley Express
THE $7 million deal for the State Government to buy back high conservation rainforest in the Strzelecki Ranges from a private logging company is under threat, according to an environmental group.
Friends of the Earth Australia has accused Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP), the parent company of Grand Ridge Plantations, of breaching an agreement not to log certain areas which provide important buffers to the rare and sensitive rainforest in the `cores and links'.
The cores and links is a 8482 hectare area of HVP owned forest in the Strzeleckis which includes `core' rare cool temperate rainforests and `links' from Gunyah Gunyah Rainforest Reserve to Tarra Bulga National Park.
The government reached agreement with HVP to buy back the environmentally significant area in October last year in what was believed to be an Australian first.
The agreement was for more than 8000 hectares to be protected, however in a compromise HVP would be able to undertake a once-off harvest of 1500 hectares of plantation in the area to meet its contractual obligations to Australian Paper's Maryvale mill. After this harvest, the 1500 hectares would be regenerated and permanently preserved along with the rest of the cores and links.
Since signing a Heads of Agreement (HoA) on the deal in October, the company, government, and community and environmental signatories have been negotiating the finer details of the plan. The HoA is not the final agreement, rather it is an evolving document that sets out the framework for the contract.
But Friends of the Earth, which is not a signatory to the HoA, claims the entire deal may now fall through.
Friends of the Earth researcher Anthony Amis said HVP had breached the HoA by logging within 10-20 metres of cool temperate rainforest at a coupe at Craig Court on the Morwell River West Branch, just off Grand Ridge Road.
It is understood the community and environmental groups that signed up to the agreement are also unhappy with HVP and believe the process, spirit and intention of the HoA has not been followed.
Mr Amis said under the HoA the company had agreed to leave buffers of 100m from rainforest in the Morwell River West Branch and 60m around Morwell River.
"According to the HoA none of this coupe should have been logged at all," Mr Amis said.
"This is the second breach of the HoA that we have witnessed within eight months of Hancock signing.
The way Hancock is behaving is jeopardising the agreement. People are totally fed up with Hancocks' arrogant attitude."
Mr Amis said members of local community groups had met with HVP at the end of May to express their concerns about Craig Court, but the company went ahead and started logging the area anyway. "With a company attitude like this we can't see the deal progressing much further," Mr Amis said. "All logging in Craig Court should stop immediately. If they're going to continue it's going to raise the heat of the community and if the deal falls through it's going to look very ugly to the company."
But Grand Ridge Plantations (GRP) general manager Owen Trumper strongly rejected accusations the company had breached the HoA, saying it was "absolutely not correct".
"There's no question in our mind we're living up to the HoA we signed and have kept the community group well informed of the progress in our harvesting."
Mr Trumper said the company was working from aerial maps signed off under the agreement which identified those areas of the cores and links which could be harvested and those that were reserve.
He said the area in question, Craig Court, was clearly within the harvest area and all parties were aware of this. "There are no errors, people's signatures are on the map. There are no questions whether this is in the harvest or reserve area."
He said the company had first mentioned its plans to harvest Craig Court late last year so it should not have come as a "big surprise".
However Mr Trumper did admit when HVP went into the area at ground level, additional rainforest had been found and the company then enforced its standard practice of a 30 metre buffer around these points.
This is where the contention lies as Friends of the Earth argue the buffer for this rainforest should be the same as the others in the cores and links.
But Mr Trumper said if HVP imposed this buffer, it would eliminate too much of the plantation and the company would not be able to meet its contractual obligation to Australian Paper.
Mr Trumper added HVP was "absolutely dedicated" to making the agreement work.
Strzelecki Forest Community Group signatory Suzie Zent said while she could not comment on the current allegations from Friends of the Earth, allowing any harvesting in the cores and links had been a "huge concession" on behalf of the community.
"The community didn't want any logging in the cores and links," she said.
The Express contacted Environment Minister John Thwaites' office and was provided with a statement from a DSE spokesperson.
"DSE is investigating the concerns raised by environment and community groups that logging is occurring in breach of the Heads of Agreement signed last year," the statement said.