We are family ... Geoff Law, the trees and me

It could well have been the big political mudslinging of the year, the Ashes of the environmental debate in Tasmania - but the Royal Society of Tasmania had a more ambitious goal for the evening.

It hosted the debate (Tuesday, Ausgust 3, 2004) between The Wilderness Society's Campaign Director Geoff Law and Forestry Tasmania's Managing Director Evan Rolley under the banner of "facts" and nothing but it.

President Michael Readett opened the debate in the Stanley Burbury Theatre at the University of Tasmania saying there was no place for politics that night and that he would intervene if political statements were made.

"We are after facts and figures," he said.

Despite the noble and morally sound cause, one could nothing but wonder about the alchemistic tendencies of the Royal Society. The belief that the top environmental lobbyist and the head of the government agency responsible for the uprooting of the biggest trees on the southern hemisphere can be put on one stage in the hope to retrieve facts comes out of the same dusty medieval mystery book as the recipe for making gold: Take ice, take liquid lead, mix them together, done.

Although the outcome was similarly disappointing, Law and Rolley did not act nearly as dramatically as ice and lead. Right from the start of the evening the encounter of both men was somewhat different than most would have expected. At eight o'clock when the debate was scheduled to start, the two of them were sorting out technical problems - together. One was helpful to the other trying to get laptop and projector connected and going. The scene was rather bewildering. As diametrically opposed in opinion as Law and Rolley are, it is hard to believe to see them agreeing on how to open a coke can.

But here they were: Smiling at each other and joking while sorting out the mess of cables and connections. When technology continued to refused cooperation, Rolley even gave Law a supportive hug with his hands as if tosay: "Don't worry my friend, everything will be all right."

The first comical highlight came in question time when Law charged Forestry Tasmania for not having responded to a Freedom of Information request regarding the price of saw and pulp logs. Rolley interrupted Law and threw the correct figures at him and then he added indignantly: "I have given you that information months ago." The audience responded with amused laughter. The scene made it clear that this was not the battle between the suppressed environmental movement and the oppressing government but rather something probably best compared with a family party.

Law and Rolley behaved like an old couple discussing whether it was better to shop at Woolworths or at Coles, and just like a couple, they disagreed in every point. This did not mean that their affection for each other was eroding in any way. The facts, however, did not survive the family chatter very well.

Someone out of the seven hundred-strong crowd asked a badly formulated question on biodiversity. Rolley went to the microphone. He mentioned the Warra research project, which was looking into aspects of biodiversity and the effects different types of logging could have on it. Notions such as "long term ecological monitoring position", "ecological process", "nutrient cycling", "adaptive management", "carbon flows" and "public information" poured out of his mouth and washed the minds of the audience blank. He concluded that all of this was for the sake of "further changes and improvements to the way those forest are managed".

While Rolley delivered his concert of words, Law, who was sitting on a chair behind him, communicated through his body language. His face grimaced, and his head shook in regular intervals denying whatever melody Rolley was playing.

After Law and Rolley had switched places, the latter started frowning and shaking his head while the other took to the baton. His concert consisted of sonatas like "there is one fairly simple certainty with respect to biodiversity and that is, when you replace a native forest with a plantation, there ain't none left", intermixed with generalisations in fortissimo such as "massive rate", "massive scale", "thousands of hectares", "huge amount of biodiversity loss" and "we know for an absolute certain fact".

After another badly formulated question, this time on sustainability, Law and Rolley - to the amusement of the audience - politely offered each other the microphone with this gentle, and forthcoming expression on their facesmeaning: "If you take the apple slice, I take the chocolate cake, but of course if you prefer the chocolate cake, I let you have it."

Law got hold of the cake and delivered his sermon first while Rolley sat in the chair behind him frowning and shaking his head. Then, Rolley got to the microphone and like Law, he let the orchestra play fortissimo. What the audience got to hear was "very significant areas of those forest types" and "ridiculous proposition". The later the evening the more disguised the facts became. While Rolley was talking of serious efforts to get "1080 out of the system" by "assembling a team of very capable scientists", Law's hard facts came down to "I've heard absolute horror stories from people who have used 1080 poison".

By the time Readett called for winding up, the facts had seeped deep into the soil of catchphrases and hollow adjectives. Law concluded: "Tasmania is in a tragic situation at the moment with respect to forest management. We are experiencing a lose, lose, lose situation. We are losing our fantastic wilderness areas to relentless logging operations. ... We need to turn this around. At the moment we have Federal Government listening, we've got Federal Labour Opposition listening. Michael asked not to get political here, but I think it's very important, it's very important that the politicians understand that this is an issue very close to Tasmania's hearts, that it defines the sort of future we are going to have in Tasmania and that the Federal Government gets the message that it can help out here. It can provide genuine assistance - not for another land grab, for a whole bunch of plantations replacing our native forest as actually documented by the Forest Practices Board: 18,000 hectares of native forests blitzed and replaced largely by plantations, by Forestry Tasmania and by the private sector of forestry over the last seven or eight years. That is an absolute fact."

And Rolley said: "We must never forget is that the conversation about the old forests is not about woodchips. It never was and it never will be. ... It's not about some sort of conspiracy, it's actually about a very difficult issue of managing certainty for the hardwood veneering and sawmilling industry and the types of products that do come from slowly growing forests versus the important issues [around] biodiversity. ... Our forests are changing, the landscapes of forests with or without intervention is changing over time. And if we are serious about maintaining sustainability at the landscape level, then we do need to have a range of different forest types and conditions across the landscape managed with a profound understanding with their impacts both in terms of ecological process as well as the social management."

The main conclusion of the evening was that the Royal Society's recipe for making facts did not quite work out. At the end of the day Law delivered politics and Rolley delivered PR. One can mix, shake and stir PR and politics, one can endlessly combine the two, strange smells may fill the laboratory of the alchemist, and the odours may impact on his conscious and cause him to have visions and revelations, but the facts will not pop up in any of his pots. No, the formula for facts is of a different nature, much simpler than mystical experiments. It comes down to just six short words: Who, what, when, where, why, how?. But as simple as the formula is, it is as useless as a means to resolve the forestry issue.

What matters to the forestry industry is money and what matters to the environmental movement is emotional attachment to the beauty of Tasmania's nature. But while emotional attachment and money are the reasons behind the arguments they do not have enough strength to withstand public criticism. For the sake of producing strong, critically resistant reasons for forest protection or for forest logging the opposing parties engage in an elusive dance on the floor of science and provide facts that are not quite facts, reasons that do not qualify to be reasons, and arguments that are not sound.

Although Rolley and Law treated each other like family members, the debate did nothing to narrow the gap between their views. Curiously enough, it took the two only an extra ten minutes to reach an agreement on where three metres of computer cable had to go, but it probably will take them an extra ten years before they find a common solution for the forestry debate.

The evening also showed that the public is still not able to ask simple, straightforward questions. There is no use in recounting the story of Adam and Eve, there is no use in delivering a lengthy pseudo scientific speech and then ad "can you comment" at the end. Simplicity is enlightenment. "How do you define 'old-growth forest'", "how many forest communities have reached protection targets", "what are your sources", "what do you mean with 'significant'" - these are the questions that have the power to unearth the facts behind politics and PR.

But maybe, the public is not so much interested in facts than in finding evidence that builds a stronger case for one's own view. Facts are dangerous because they serve no one except themselves, and hence they can turn out to be useless if not disastrous for one's opinion. On the other hand, those who can deal with putting their views aside and assess the issue with an unprejudiced mind may well just read the State of the Environment report. Good facts on forestry -- and many other environmental issues - have been compiled in this report long before the Royal Society ventured into the chemistry of the mystics and they will remain there for many meaningless debates to come.

The one thoughtful thing said that evening came out of Rolley's mouth. It brought to the point what the Royal Society did not want to believe: "The whole question of the old forests is about values, and accordingly any consideration is most appropriately part of the political process. You can be informed by the information of science, but ultimately it is part of a political process."

Atlant Bieri is a 3rd year journalism and geography student, University of Tasmania, Hobart

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Tuesday, August 17, 2004

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