Some of Salvador Dali’s most famous works contain bent and dripping wathes and clocks - very typical of the time frames that Gunns and Co work to!

He’s also pretty good at lines in the sand.

Now that cartoon is a statement Karl!!
Not just a cheap throw away line, it is
sharp and pointy as a Dagger!
Interesting times ...

The ads to which you refer, Karl, the Our Common Ground promotion of the forest industry, look like a preview for a re-run of the creepy American TV series of the 60’s/70’s The Twilight Zone. Later productions were introduced by Alfred Hitchcock who put on his scariest voice for the occasion.

The ads should have been run past someone with a working Crap Meter before they were aired. The needle would have gone right off the dial.

Did the architects of these OCG ads decide to model them on the equally creepy Forestry Tasmania ads with which most people confuse them?

I’ve asked the question before in relation to many of the bizarre events unleashed by the pulp mill shit storm: What the hell is going on?

The profoundly obscene public love affair with mono-culture tree plantations (pulp mill feedstock in the main) by governments, former MIS companies most of which themselves have disappeared into the twilight zone, and now, apparently, by cashed up ‘enviro’ group/‘enviro’-corporates, has an alarming side-effect to which Tasmania is particularly exposed - foreign take over of our resources of land, forest and water. More of that in a minute.

In reference to the ‘enviro’ groups, their messages of late are, at one end of the scale, profusely incoherent, and at the other, an utter betrayal of rural communities throughout southern Australia.

As many have been warning for some time, the gross mismanagement of our forest, land and water resources in Tasmania has exposed this island to foreign ownership.

Here is some of the latest.

Tamar Tree Farms. This is a partnership with Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsubishi Paper Mills Ltd and Tokyo Electric Power Company. The Tamar Tree farms Joint Venture aims to establish 1700 hectares of plantations per annum on a mixture of freehold, State forest and private property in the north-east of the state. The objective of the adventure is to supply woodchips from an estate of 25,500 hectares. Forecasts estimate 500,000 tonnes of wood to be available annually from 2012, for use, one presumes by Mitsubishi Paper, but that may be a false assumption.

Plantation Platform of Tasmania (PPT). This is a partnership with Forestry Tasmania, Daio Papaer, Kawasho International, Nakabayashi, Nissan, Nikei BP, Kobunsha and NBS Ricoh. PPT aims to create 7,500 hectares of eucalypt plantations in NE Tasmania over 15 years. The plantation timber will be used for woodchip production and processed in Japan by Daio Paper.

For the starry eyed exponents of the Hampshire pulp mill option, it should be well known by now that the home-grown plantations at Hampshire are not available for a home-grown ‘acceptable’ pulp mill located at Hampshire because they are wholly or almost wholly locked up in Japanese Joint Ventures.

Furthermore, there is no shortage of pundits pointing to the degree to which Gunns is exposed to a fire sale of resources or outright foreign ownership. One suspects that foreign financiers have not been interested in investing in the proposed pulp mill because it is unprofitable (without massive tax payer subsidies and on-going guarantees of the sort that only governments can make) and that is without considering community opposition and lack of social license.

The unanswered question is: have governments given or about to give those guarantees? Back to the OCG advertisements. At face value the ads promote tree plantations. The various groups involved in the promotion (Our Common Ground, Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania - there may be others) have set themselves up as the community voice. Have they informed themselves what the community thinks before presuming to speak as the community voice?

Karl this cartoon is about as funny as a life be in it T-shirt at a funeral.
I,m afraid the only thing that is weird is the dribble that is currently emanating from the Greens West Tamar councillor and candidate for the up-coming 2010 election - Karl Stevens.
Indeed Karl was clearly elected to the West Tamar Council on a anti-Tamar Valley platform.

Karl you recieved a significant vote from West Tamar Electors including myself. I even campaigned for you.
Those same electors inculding myself would not want you to be public attacking the very groups that you were elected to work with to fulfill your election mandate - To campaign against the TV pulp mill.
Your parties own constitution requires you to promote and assist other individuals, associations, organisations, and community networks, in working for the objectives of the Party and to promote the development of, and participate and communicate with, the Green political movement locally, nationally and globally.
It also says that “The actions and activities of all Members in public office will be consistent with The Charter”.
Karl, is this cartoon and your other recent public attacks on other community groups consistent with your parties constitution and how your electors would have you conduct yourself publicly?
Is your new allegiance to the small group of paranoid angry ants who are leading you up the garden path consistent with your parties constitution?
Is your behaviour consistent with what your electors would have?
I dont really care what your new brand politics are Karl, but you are an elected public official and now on your parties ticket for the 2010 election. You have a responsibility to them and to the people who vote for you.
Or do you disagree?
In saying that, I do not speak for the Tas. Greens. I,m not even a member.
But most importantly Karl. I gave you my vote.
In that respect I have a right to give you my opinion. I earnt it when I gave you my vote.
By all means continue what you are doing Karl. Its a free country. But dont expect your actions to go unnoticed. Dont expect me not to continue to ask you these questions if you continue to conduct yourslef in this way. I,m sure you have much more respect for the intelligence of the punters than to think we wouldnt.
At this stage I am putting it on the public record that whilst I voted for you in the past, you have now lost my vote because you have lost my confidence. You are not the Karl Stevens that i voted for.
And Karl, please dont accuse me of trying to silence you or threaten you as some here have recently, some who talk a lot about democracy and freedom of speech but practice the opposite.
I expressed similar concerns directly to you at the Tim Morris’s Lyons Greens stall at Deviot market on Sunday. I had hoped you listened to me. One of your electors and major supporters.
But clearly you didnt.
I am merely offering an opinion and expressing concerns about your recent political statements which I know are shared by many of your supporters. As I said. I voted for you and therefore have the right to a say.

Well not being big on TV, I’ve missed the ads.

As a landscaper, I can’t get my head around monoculture plantations.

They just don’t work.
They can’t.

If they did, we could have mangoes growing at Liawenee, or Fagus plantations in Darwin.

Why do we enjoy success with diversity, yet struggle with plantations?

Why do “tree farms” only exist with copious and unsustainable inputs?

In reality, they are seen by the money men as
$$$ per hectare.

“We get x dollars per tree, x trees per hectare, cover the state with monoculture and we have a nice neat easily calculated income. Add some subsidies here and there to cover off on failed crops and tardy growth, and hey presto, we are on a roll”.

As with the King River, just quietly ignore the environmental consequences of the monoculture tragedy.

Personally, and unfortunately, we have these existing plantations, and use must be made of them, but a complete overhaul of their management needs to occur.
I remember hydrologist, David Leaman, saying that it could take up to 500 years to correct the woes created by the plantation epidemic.

I can’t get my head around the new environmental spring that has risen as an apparent apologist for the forest industry.

Mike Bolan is right.
Take away the forest industry subsidies.

When they are gone, the industry will morph to a sustainable model.
Without props, it will have no choice.

But don’t ever consider supporting monoculture plantation as a way forward in the endless Tasmanian forestry debacle.

Thank you David #5,
As so often, you made you point very well.
Tree Monoculture Plantations of the scale and in the locations they are in Tasmania will not last the test of time.
The MIS tax system requires that each rotation needs to be harvested before a new crop will be planted. This means this prohibits self seeding and it excludes alternative management practices like “stump sprout” in selective management.
Clearfelling is locked in.
There will be fundamental changes in the concept of forest, plantation and catchment management in this state.
Responsible forestry is about working with ecological principles. Clearfelling is not part of that.

How soon attitudes change when particular individuals see (perhaps ) a political profession in their future plans,  Just like “Peter Garret” ... 
                    d.d.

pilko is right, this type of satire should be stopped because it isn’t funny, worse it has upset someone.

Obviously Karl must have been saying something negative about someone in particular and pilko knows who it must be.  Without being a member of the various groups involved, s/he expects to police whether public comments are appropriate thereby proving that s/he is a perfect candidate for our party! In fact, his/her comments read like a job application for us.

The only answer is total censorship of any critique, negative views or difference from accepted policy.

Join us now and be at peace with yourself and others with an authoritative, approved and authorised single perspective view of the world.

My response to Councillor Stevens is not soley in response to the cartoon. It is in a response to a whole series of public gaffs and roguish attacks by Karl on other individuals and groups that his electors and supporters would have him work with constructively. It is in a sense the final straw. If #7 is referring to me he is way off the mark.

Fantastic cartoon, Karl.  It sparkles with clarity, rigour, good sense and an incisive and succinct evaluation of the issues, so cleverly nailed with humour and sophistication.

It sits very well with your work as a West Tamar councillor and as an elected representative of the Greens.  Just as your voice is loud and clear in public, so I am sure it is loud and clear within the policy-framing apparatus of the political party you represent.

Power to your voice there.  We have had enough of the caucus conformity and stultifying group-think of the Labor-Liberal accord.

Well done you!!

Correct Frank (6). What has to be established is to what may be considered acceptable in a plantation. The current practices and management is repugnant and artificial.

The argument gets bogged down in that people rarely consider alternative models and management.

Personally,my view is if plantations must exist it must do so in that it very closely mimics what should be there, occurring naturally.
Dangerous sprays and industrial burning would play no part.

This cannot happen under the current regime and with dodgy management as it would mean loss of returns to investors.

Doing it on the cheap, (and nasty), is far more profitable.

This thread is definitely weird, but I doubt very constructive!

Excellent work representing the views of the community at large, as opposed to a noisy minority Karl.

Whoever pilko is, he or she may have voted for you but that doesn’t mean they own you does it?

You speak for many of us in your work.

Well done and thanks for the laughs mate.

#8 & #13. Unlike your self I have the courage to be direct with Councillor Stevens and tell him, as all voter have the right, what I think.
Nor do I need to create bogus friends to elicit support for my comments.
You on the other hand cant even get your bogus email adress right let alone comment under your real name (cjcornish@hotmail or cornishjc@hotmail?)
Most savvy readers know who you are.

When dealing with Tasmanian forestry you sometimes have to meet them on their own terms. Because FT never budges from its grotesque distortions of reality, Karl was probably just seeking some common ground.

John Hayward

Several of us sharing this joint with one BB account and I got it wrong.

Your paranoia is showing ‘pilko’ - everyone is against you - only your interpretation is correct - everyone else is wrong wrong wrong.

Re #14
Hey!
I want my email back.

signed,
Bogus