Carbon-dating results revealed a 600-year-old karri tree was logged in Western Australia and woodchipped according to green groups. This has lead environmentalists to start a campaign. Sources: The Australian, ABC News
The carbon-dating results have prompted a coalition of 27 environmental groups, including the Conservation Council and the WA Forest Alliance, to start a campaign today demanding an end to logging of native timber.
Opposition Leader Mark McGowan said it was shameful, and he vowed to set aside more protected forest if Labor won office.
According to the WA Sunday Times, a WA Forest Alliance spokeswoman Jess Beckerling took a sample from a karri log in a stockpile at Manjimup’s Diamond Mill woodchip plant that showed the eucalypt started growing between 1416 and 1501, so it is 511 to 596 years old.
Tested by the University of Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, it is the first time science has proved karris 600 years old are being woodchipped.
This revelation comes as the government-run Forest Products Commission wants to log more karri forest as part of its forest management plan for the next 10 years. Public comment closes on November 7.
In 2001, Geoff Gallop was elected premier on a policy to stop old-growth logging, but Beckerling said forests with centuries-old karris were still unprotected because the definition of old growth was too narrow.
The FPC argues the industry is sustainable and less than 0.5 per cent of WA’s 2.5 million hectares of native forest is available to harvest each year.
Ian Telfer, chief operating officer of WA Chip and Pulp, which runs Diamond Mill, claimed the carbon dating was “wrong” because karris usually started to die after about two centuries.
But a report by the former Department of Conservation and Land Management using tree-ring analysis found karris up to 400 years of age.
Forestry Minister Terry Redman would not comment on the carbon dating and Environment Minister Bill Marmion said that claims of where this sample came from are completely unsubstantiated and need to be treated with caution.
University of Waikato laboratory head Dr Alan Hogg insisted his results were accurate and the sample had a 91.4% chance of being aged between 511 and 594 years.
