Tall stories about Tasmanian forestry

It stretches the bounds of credibility to suggest the decision to take a helicopter ride and the decision to stage a protest were taken independently of each other.

In a few weeks, another documentary decrying Tasmania’s forest practices will be aired on cable television around the world.

It will claim that industrial logging of native forests is destroying the habitat of the endangered wedge tailed eagle. To the casual viewer, the program will appear to be a genuine investigative documentary, compiled by an independent film company. It will feature interviews with Senator Brown, the Wilderness Society’s Geoff Law, an assorted group of eagle experts and thrown into the mix, to add credibility, will be comments by Tasmanian Government public servants and the Managing Director of Forestry Tasmania, Bob Gordon.

The conclusion, however, will be that forestry is driving eagles to extinction. What the viewers won’t know is that the program is being funded by an anti-forestry activist, who has provided $200,000 on condition that he remains anonymous.

How do we know? Well, the producer Brett Shorthouse told Forestry Tasmania, during negotiations about Bob Gordon’s inclusion in the program. While the anonymity of the businessman behind the project would be protected, Mr Shorthouse did reveal, when pressed, that the businessman had recently purchased a property in Battery Point. To his credit, Mr Shorthouse has behaved honourably. He has never attempted to hide, and in fact warned FT about the pro-conservation motivation behind the program.

However, we believe people have a right to know who funded the program, so they can make up their own minds about its credibility.

Another cable television documentary by world champion swimmer Ian Thorpe also raised concerns about transparency and balance. FT was approached by Mr Thorpe’s producers asking permission to enter state forests.

Of course, permission was granted, but our invitation to brief Mr Thorpe and to provide a tour of forestry operations was ignored. Instead, Mr Thorpe chose to interview only environmental activists. We would have loved dearly the opportunity to at least put an alternative view to Mr Thorpe, but the producers refused on the grounds that the program was non political and really about entertainment rather than serious discussion. We were therefore somewhat surprised to learn that Senator Brown was a participant. We can only conclude that although Senator Brown draws a politician’s salary, is the leader of a political party, Mr Thorpe does not believe Senator Brown is a politician.

Readers of Richard Flanagan’s articles in the UK Telegraph and the Monthly magazine might be forgiven for believing the articles were entirely researched by the author without any outside assistance. It might well come as a surprise for those readers to learn that a few months prior to the publication of the articles, Mr Flanagan flew by helicopter to the Styx Valley with Greens Leader Bob Brown. The excursion was organised not by Mr Flanagan, but by Senator Brown’s office. It was Senator Brown’s office that contacted FT seeking permission to land a helicopter on state forests, and we therefore assume the trip was funded by Senator Brown and perhaps, taxpayers.

I am the first to admit that FT does not know the purpose of the trip, and there is every possibility that it was in no way related to the articles written by Mr Flanagan. Nevertheless, it is important for readers, especially those who thought the articles were compelling, to know about the trip. It may assist in helping them to understand why only one side of the forestry debate was presented. To date, Mr Flanagan has not made any attempt to speak to Forestry Tasmania.