Australasia's home for timber news and information

Institute of Foresters critical of IVG

The Institute of Foresters of Australia has released a paper titled Critique of the Work of the Independent Verification Group saying the IFA has been ignored throughout the Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental Agreement process (IGA). Source: Timberbiz

The IFA says that the release of reports by the Independent Verification Group (IVG) appointed to advise the IGA was disappointing when correspondence with the IVG Chair indicated the IFA would be engaged to peer review the reports.

The IFA notes that Clause 2 of the IVG’s Terms of Reference (ToR) required “an independent and transparent verification process to assess and verify stakeholder claims”. The IFA considers the IVG reports require peer review to meet Clause 2 requirements, and this has not been done.

In absence of such a review, the IFA has prepared a brief critique of selective IVG reports to test if they are factual, science-based, and draw justifiable conclusions.

According to the Critique the IFA believes that the IVG process and its reportage is highly flawed, largely due to constraints imposed by timing and the narrow Terms of Reference that limited its ability to widely consider the proposal for new forest reserves in the context of existing Tasmanian forest management, including the substantial extent of already existing parks and conservation reserves.

The report says that it is not surprising that the areas of forest identified by ENGOs and assessed by the IVG have conservation values as Tasmania’s forest practices are designed to conserve such values.

The IFA has written to Prime Minister Gillard and Tasmanian Premier Giddings indicating that the IFA has serious misgivings on the way these reports have been developed, presented and promoted and cannot support the IVG or their findings or the process that lead to them.