40 football fields every day

[miriam_e]

That's how much forest the loggers in Tasmania are clearing every day. And now they are whining that their activities may be curtailed and some jobs might be lost.

Bigger picture, people!

Just how long do they think those forsets and the logging jobs were going to hold out at that rate anyway? If they keep going their few stupid jobs will last just a little longer. But restricting their operations to farmed trees means their kids can inherit a long-term industry ...and the rest of the world gets to keep some of the most beautiful and most important forest in the world.

And if you think 40 football fields of land a day is fast just wait till after the election. If the Libs get in, the loggers are poised for a frenzied onslaught that will make the current rate look peaceful.

What is the biggest money earner in Australia? Farming? No. Mining? No. Manufacturing? No. Education? No.

Tourism.

How much money do loggers bring into Australia? They sell these ancient forests off at bargain basement prices. Once they are gone, they are gone forever ...and will tourists bother coming to look at rows and rows of plantations? silted up rivers? the absence of wildlife? (because they also, for some reason I can not fathom, burn the remainder of the land that they can't log, and poison the animals!

And these people expect sympathy for losing these unsustainable jobs???

Comments

[alecto23.livejournal.com]

Every time I start to try to have sympathy for loggers and woodchippers and people who have in good faith gotten themselves jobs in that industry, every time I think how sad it is that they'll be losing their jobs and understand their position of desperation...well, then I think about the poor slavers whose livelihood was cruelly taken away from them when slavery was finally abolished. Now, I'm not equating logging with slavery—but when something is wrong and harmful and to the greater detriment not only of one nation, but of humanity and of the planet, you don't make excuses for keeping on doing it. And if you're in that industry, perhaps you should start looking around for another kind of work. This is where the government could step in and start retraining loggers to become foresters, or farmers, or something constructive rather than something destructive. But I guess this is where difference of opinion comes in and this is where I get labelled a tree-hugging hippie freak. *sigh*