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Crossing the line from academia to activism

By Mark Poynter - posted Friday, 9 April 2010


Just four-days before the recent Tasmanian election, Hobart’s The Mercury newspaper published an “open letter” to the state’s political leaders written by “an eminent group of professionals” calling for reform of the governance of Tasmania’s forest industry. The letter was re-published the following day in the same newspaper as part of a full-page advertisement by the lobby group Environment Tasmania in conjunction with the internet activist organisation, Get Up.

The so-called “eminent group” included a retired Supreme Court judge, a prominent lawyer, and 26 of the University of Tasmania’s “most senior professors and lecturers”, comprised of:

  • a professor and a doctor from the School of Philosophy;
  • a professor, a doctor and six others from the School of Accounting and Corporate Governance;
  • a doctor and an associate professor from the School of Economics and Finance;
  • a professor, three doctors, and two others from the Faculty of Law;
  • a professor from the School of Sociology and Social Work;
  • the Acting Pro Vice Chancellor - Students and Education; and
  • six doctors from the School of Geography and Environmental Studies.
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The letter justified itself by citing the findings of a public opinion poll which had reportedly found that “most Tasmanians think there is an unhealthy relationship between the timber industry and politicians”; that “the timber industry is a source of corruption”; and that “the major parties are both too weak to take on the interests of big business”.

It then outlined concerns about so-called exemptions given to forestry activities from environmental, planning, and resource management laws and called for these to be overturned. The Mercury described the letter as highlighting a “climate of fear which prevents people from speaking out about their concerns with the forest sector”.

Given the inherent credibility afforded to Australian academia, the broader community could be excused for unquestionably accepting the existence of these problems and the worthiness of reforms suggested by such a diverse and independent group. However, several points put the “eminent group” and the views expressed in their “open letter” into context. These include:

The veracity of the above-mentioned public opinion poll

The poll in question was conducted for an unnamed client by the research unit of a Melbourne-based public affairs company. This company acts for a range of clients, including at least five environmental groups. This includes The Wilderness Society which is conducting major campaigns aimed at closing Tasmania’s native forest timber industry.

As part of its ongoing opposition to Tasmanian timber production, The Wilderness Society has initiated the formation of an umbrella organisation called Environment Tasmania which is hosting a new campaign entitled, Our Common Ground.

As a major platform of the Our Common Ground campaign is to expose the alleged “unhealthy relationship between politicians and the timber industry”, it is difficult to have confidence in the objectivity of the sample selection or the questions that were asked in a survey which has reported exactly the same finding.

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Tasmanian forestry is not exempt from environmental, planning, and resource management laws

The “open letter” is predicated on the claim that forestry operations conducted in accordance with the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement are exempt from the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999.

Forestry activities operate within a regulatory regime that has been specifically developed by the responsible government agencies in accordance with overarching environmental, planning, and resource management laws. This includes the development of state-based Codes of Practice which incorporate purpose-designed planning, approval, and monitoring mechanisms.

Accordingly, forestry operations are more highly regulated than other land use activities and so do not need to follow the same approval procedures. This has been widely misrepresented as an exemption from these laws by environmental groups campaigning against the timber industry.

Last year, an Independent Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, 1999, specifically examined the interaction between the Act and the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA), and whether this provided unfair exemptions to forestry operations.

The Independent Review found that the RFA was indeed ensuring that forest management in Tasmania was meeting the requirements of the EPBC Act, and with regard to the claim of exemptions reported that:

The interaction between the EPBC Act and forestry operations is often referred to as an “exemption”. This term does not, however, accurately reflect the relationship. The rationale for the RFA provisions in the Act recognises “that in each RFA region a comprehensive assessment has been undertaken to address the environmental, economic and social impacts of forestry operations”. Rather than being an exemption from the Act, the establishment of RFAs (through comprehensive regional assessments) actually constitutes a form of assessment and approval for the purposes of the Act.

The relevant knowledge of the “eminent group of professionals”

Calling for legal reform of the management of an activity requires more than just an understanding of the law. It requires a detailed understanding of the activity itself including knowledge of how its regulatory regime was developed and has evolved, including past examinations of its veracity, such as last year’s Independent Review.

As the internet profiles of the 26 University of Tasmania scientists and academics who signed the “open letter” suggest, very few have any experience in forestry or land management, it appears that the majority of the group has little more than a distaste for native forest timber production and (presumably) a determination to end it. This seems particularly pertinent to those working in unrelated disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, accounting and economics.

The danger of publicly supporting causes of which you are not fully versed is perhaps illustrated by the case of Professor Tim Bonyhady. He was a leading signatory of a similar “open letter” by 100 academics and scientists opposed to Tasmanian forestry operations which was published in The Australian just prior to the 2004 federal election.

Professor Bonyhady is now the Director of the Australian Centre for Environmental Law and the Centre for Climate Law and Policy at the Australian National University. Last year, he was one of three academics who conducted the Independent Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999, which (as described above) found that Tasmanian forestry is being well managed in accordance with the Act.

Further to that, the Independent Review noted that:

As a consequence of the Tasmanian RFA, 79 per cent of old growth forest and 97 per cent of high quality wilderness is in reservation. This exceeds the global target of effective conservation of 10 per cent each of the world's ecological regions, set out under the Convention for Biological Diversity. These achievements, which often go overlooked or unremarked in debate, deserve greater public recognition.

It seems that Professor Bonyhady’s exposure to the full suite of facts surrounding Tasmanian forestry have caused him to re-evaluate his earlier thoughts on this issue. It is likely that a good many of the signatories to this “open letter” would follow a similar path if they were to objectively evaluate all the facts, rather than unquestionably accept skewed views generated by incessant anti-logging activism.

The ideological position of the eminent group of professionals

Several of the group are long-standing opponents of Tasmania’s timber industry causing one commentator to describe the group as “the usual suspects” when their “open letter” was published.

The two non-university signatories and several of the other academic signatories have been closely associated with the Environmental Defenders Office which has in the past provided legal assistance to environmental activists opposing Tasmanian forestry operations.

In addition, two of the academics are associated with partially-completed PhD studies specifically examining the governance of Tasmanian forestry with respect to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999. These studies would now seem to be rather aimless in view of the findings of last year’s Independent Review of the Act.

The publication of the “open letter” also sparked various descriptions of the University of Tasmania’s School of Geography and Environmental Studies. This included a reference to it as being “characterised by a certain ideological cast” and as “a hot-bed of radicalism” These descriptions cast doubt on the objectivity of the school’s six signatories to the “open letter” with regard to forestry issues.

Indeed, at least one of their number has reportedly been a participant in earlier anti-logging campaigns, including travelling to Japan at the behest of the Rainforest Action Network to assist their international campaign against Gunns Ltd and Forestry Tasmania.

Clearly, there are no laws preventing anyone from having personal views about forestry or any other topical issue. However, it is clearly problematic for academics and scientists to try to embellish the credibility of their personal views in the public domain by linking them to their employment at an educational institution respected for being apolitical and scientifically objective. Indeed, it raises questions such as:

  • Does the University of Tasmania endorse the views detailed in an “open letter” signed by 26 of its “most senior professors and lecturers”?
  • Does the university have a formal policy on academic participation in political activism?
  • How can the university ensure that its students are receiving an education free from partisanship and political bias?
  • Does the university have policies or procedures to deal with the teaching of viewpoints which are demonstrably wrong?

These are serious matters that need to be addressed by all Australian universities if the community is to retain confidence in the integrity of its educational institutions.

In recent years, the overtly-political letter from “concerned scientists and academics” has become almost as predictable a part of the pre-election landscape as the party leaders’ debate. This fits with an increased tendency for some scientists and academics to eschew the publication of well researched, peer-reviewed papers in favour of trading on their perceived credibility to create media headlines.

This has been particularly problematic in relation to forestry which seems to provoke strong feelings amongst academics from a wide range of disciplines. While they may feel compelled to support environmental activism, their limited understanding of forestry issues can actually add support for perverse outcomes.

While the environmental movement obviously welcomes scientific and academic support for their causes, others see this as a dire concern. Indeed, respected international commentator on the environment, Bjorn Lomborg, recently warned that those who “misuse their standing as scientists to pursue a political agenda eventually undercut the credibility of the scientific discipline, making us all worse off”.

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About the Author

Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 40 years experience. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and his book Going Green: Forests, fire, and a flawed conservation culture, was published by Connor Court in July 2018.

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