In September 1986 the Victorian government released its Timber Industry Strategy. This would be an `official discourse' on how the industry would restructure and develop. In December 1986 the LCC's final recommendations on East Gippsland land-use were released. These would provide increased preservation of forests and give the Government a revised land base on which the timber strategy would apply. Over a decade later, in December 1995, the Commonwealth government released a co-ordinated set of statements dealing with what had become a national forest problem (the Wood and Paper Industry Strategy, Deferred Forest Areas Statement and Hardwood Woodchip Export Policy Statement). Between these two sets of statements there would be numerous points and events of forest conflict. All these statements represent `official discourses of the state', the end products of lengthy and conflictual discursive processes. They all resulted from discursive designs which were strategic mechanisms of government, where, it was claimed, forest problems were investigated and solutions formulated. These `official discourses' functioned as the key techniques of government by which the forest `problematic' would be rendered `rational' and made capable of intervention with the intent of `resolving conflict'. However, the rival forces contesting native forests had become highly organised political identities with well crafted and potent discourses which would produce fundamental and continuing points of conflict.

The chronology of this chapter covers the past decade in this continuing forest conflict, from the latter part of 1986, to early 1996. The focus in this chapter is, official discourses and counter discourses. I will examine further discursive designs on the forest problem, devised at both the State and Commonwealth levels of government. Also explored, are selected implementations of official policy, major points in continuing forest conflict and significant outcomes involved. These are not treated as separate matters nor in chronological order, rather as interconnected processes.

The chapter is organised in four sections: first, the official discourses of the Victorian Timber Industry Strategy (TIS), in particular their relevance to the East Gippsland situation are outlined and examined; second, the resource politics concerned with the introduction of woodchipping in East Gippsland which occurred after the release of the TIS is examined. This will also involve looking at the significant processes and content of the early implementations of the TIS and further discursive designs flowing from the TIS, namely the environmental effects statement on the Value Adding Utilisation System (VAUS) and its public inquiry review; third, critical research undertaken by CSIRO into the question of `what is a sawlog and what is a pulp log' and its relevance to alternative timber industry restructuring in East Gippsland is briefly examined; finally, consideration is given to the widening of the environmentalists' campaign and the progressive involvement of the Commonwealth Government in forest conflict and the emergence of a national forest politics.

The Victorian Timber Industry Strategy (TIS) was released in September 1986, the ninth in a series of major policy statements by the Cain Labor Government since 1982. This reflected the importance the Government accorded the forest issue and East Gippsland in particular. This section examines this central official discourse of the state, and in particular the implications of the TIS in the context of East Gippsland. Also examined are the actions of the DCFL in its early implementations of critical parts of the TIS in East Gippsland.

As indicated in the previous chapter, the context for the development of a timber strategy for East Gippsland had been established by critical findings of both the Ferguson Inquiry and the LCC. Logging levels could not be sustained, and needed to be reduced in some phased manner to a sustainable yield; new National parks were publicly demanded by environmentalists and, in part subsequently recommended; the move to a sustainable yield and these new parks would cause cut-backs in timber resources and employment. If there were to be gains in timber resources and employment to partly offset losses, these could most easily be achieved by the introducing integrated pulpwood harvesting (called woodchipping by environmentalists). This would need to cover all available wood production forests, however, it had been recommended that this should only proceed on the basis that a successful environmental effects statement was undertaken.

In devising the TIS, the Government faced the fundamental reality in East Gippsland: that the adoption of a sustained yield when added to the resource loss from new parks meant that the sawlog resource in forests formally considered uneconomic without pulpwood harvesting, was now of strategic significance if there was to be a timber industry into the future. In raw statistical terms the situation facing East Gippsland was: a net area for timber production consisting of some 9.76 million m3 of sawlogs, of which 2.4 million were to be withdrawn for new parks, leaving 7.36 million of which 3.6 million were in previously regarded uneconomic sawlog-only areas.

The central discursive strategy of the TIS was its claim to be driven by both the acceptance and introduction of modern forest management planning. This discourse expressed the means by which the `official' program for the forests would be achieved. A modern management regime, the TIS proclaimed, would be assisted by public participation and consultation. Further, this management approach would be environmentally sensitive and directed to sustainable and multiple use of a range of forest values and uses where timber was compatible:

Clearly, the TIS was to pursue the goal of timber production as being a vital use of the East Gippsland forests. The discursive style of the TIS, when seen in conjunction with the LCC's recommendations on new National parks, can be considered as the construction by the Government of a twin `official policy discourse' combining: an industry - employment discourse, with a park's - conservation discourse. This essentially involves the incorporation, take-over, and discursive transformation of the core conflictual discourses from industry and the environment movement. This mutated official position was argued to reflect a `balance':

As evidence for the `remarkable degree of support and agreement' claimed for the TIS, the Government could cite the tripartite consultative process set up to assist its construction. Six months prior to the release of the TIS, the Minister Joan Kirner had involved representatives from the VSA, EGC and the relevant unions in what ran to some 20 `corporatist' style policy meetings, where drafts of the TIS were debated. These meetings and the final drafting of the TIS was overseen for the Government by Dr Bob Smith, recently recruited by the Minister to head the Public Lands Division of the DCFL. It was his task to construct the Government's official balanced `industry - conservation' discourse. Smith also had to construct the political language covering how the Government was to handle the politically sensitive issue of woodchipping. On this the TIS stated:

Within the text of the TIS a range of policy commitments of strategic importance to East Gippsland were outlined: the commitment to a sawlog-driven industry; the rejection of a pulpwood only or pulpwood driven industry; value adding forest management and products; regional sustainable yields and multiple forest use; the provision of long-term timber licenses; no rainforest logging; a code of forest practice; the maximum use of sawmill residue; a Value Adding Utilisation System (VAUS) requiring an Environmental Effects Statement into a 3 year 300 000 m3 pa trial in East and Central Gippsland; an employment strategy for East Gippsland; and the increased role for public participation in forest management planning (TIS 1986:ii-iii).

Attention is now placed on some significant details of the TIS policy discourses dealing with wood production. In announcing the Government's commitment to regional sustainable timber yields, the timing was given as "...within ten years" (TIS 1986:33). In the context of East Gippsland's impending decline in sawlogs, a Government document produced immediately after the TIS explained:

This sawlog resource forecast was quite different to what had previously been projected within the discursive designs discussed in the previous chapter. The TIS forecasted a far smaller sawlog decline, 30 %, taking into consideration the new parks. We have noted that the LCC had forecast the sawlog resource under sustained yield, and accounting for its new parks would see cuts of over 100 % in sawlogs produced. How this is achieved will progressively become clear. There are various discursive changes which are relevant to this strategic exercise of power, through discourse and strategic discursive change.

The first and most critical discursive change occurred in the TIS discussion of sustainable use. Without prominence, a strategic new criterion for the calculation of a sustainable yield of sawlogs was given. It stated that in future, sawlog production would be scheduled from all forests with a "...current or potential stand top tree height greater than 28 metres" (TIS 1986:33). On this basis a sustainable yield would be calculated. As alluded to in the previous chapter, this new definition strategically swept away the previous distinction or convention that had sub-divided production forests, especially in East Gippsland, into economic and uneconomic for sawlog-only production. This change of definition involved the replacement of economic criteria with a biological definition of production forest areas. This strategic change represents a major realignment of the prior `resource estimation discourse' seen in the previous two chapters. As seen, the basis of the previous `resource estimation discourses' was located in a private convention based on economics between foresters and industry and later became the basis of official Government resource forecasts and formed the basis for Government inquiries. This was the basis of the LCC's forecast of sawlog decline.

This discursive change had the effect of opening up the formerly unused forests of East Gippsland to forward planning as sawlog producing resource areas regardless of pulpwood harvesting. This strategic change was totally overlooked in critiques of the TIS by environmental groups who believed that Government foresters and industry would not log in the so-called uneconomic forests unless pulpwood was taken out. This change in the construction of a sustained yield did not add any additional resource to the known volume of sawlogs. What it did do was release the 3.6 million m3 of sawlogs which had not previously been logged under historical arrangements. This added 3.6 million m3 of sawlogs to the LCC's base of 4 million (based on economic criteria) and hence the critical effect on the substantially reduced sawlog decline predicted in the TIS. I will further explore the impact of this discursive change and additional and related discursive changes when I examine the resource politics of woodchipping and the TIS environmental effects statement on pulpwood removal. Here, I return to the emphasis placed on sawlogs in the TIS. This is contained in a discourse of `sawlog driven' wood production:

This discourse was widely used by the Government and supporters of the TIS and is still used a decade later, to characterise Victorian wood production policy. This discourse is essentially re-stated in the East Gippsland Forest Management Plan released in December 1995 (DCNR 1995). An important operational implication which follows from this policy discourse became an often used discursive claim in later conflict. Under this management regime of `sawlog driven', harvesting rotation lengths were to be geared to the time a sawlog takes to mature (80-150 years). This, the Victorian Government often compared with the Tasmanian and NSW situations, where some native forests were being cut on shorter rotations geared to the export woodchip industry. By proclaiming forest harvesting was to be `sawlog driven', the TIS skillfully added phrases such as `by-products' and `genuine waste utilisation operation', to characterise its proposals for using the bulk product produced in logging operations, the contentious pulp or woodchip logs.

Linked to the discourses on `sawlog driven wood production', `by-product' and `genuine waste' was the emphasis the TIS gave to the discourse `value adding' and `best end use':

Value adding is in fact a central discourse of the TIS. Its components are developed in a whole chapter titled `Value Adding Logging and Production' (TIS 1986:CH 7). This chapter sets out a new scheme for the allocation of harvested logs which is claimed will achieve value adding and best end use, as well as enabling a sawlog driven industry. This scheme was called the Value Adding Utilisation System (VAUS) and its overall operation was presented in the TIS in figure form (reproduced here in Figure 8.1).

It is important to notice how these new VAUS discourses displace the traditional discourse on `integrated sawlog-pulpwood harvesting'. This is achieved with significant change in language. Under VAUS there was no mention of `pulpwood'. Traditional sawlogs were called `quota logs' while the remaining logs (formally understood as pulpwood) are renamed as `residual roundwood'. With such name changes the Government could claim under its new VAUS:

The VAUS was heralded by the Government as unique and without precedent (TIS 1986:65). It was also claimed to be a means of preventing woodchip-driven forest harvesting and management. However, the Government could not introduce VAUS, especially its component of taking residual roundwood from the forest, without complying to recommendations by the Ferguson Inquiry and the LCC for a comprehensive environmental effects statement. On this the TIS gave the commitment to an environmental effects statement into introducing the `residual roundwood' component of VAUS to the East Gippsland and Central Gippsland areas. If the EES was successful this aspect of VAUS would be subject to a three year trial with a limit of 300,000 m3 per year of residual roundwood (TIS 1986:65-67).

The link between VAUS and the possibility of harvesting unused pulpwood, now called residual roundwood, for export woodchips or for new pulp and paper mill developments was given almost no mention within the entire TIS document. A new pulp and paper mill was raised on one occasion only when its possible feasibility was mentioned as one of many references given to a proposed Value Added Processing Task Force established by the TIS. In contrast to this obvious political omission, the role of the VAUS in minimising adverse employment impacts in East Gippsland was accorded a central importance within the VAUS discourse:

To the environment movement, the TIS and its proposals for the VAUS were seen as biased toward the position of the timber industry. In no way were they regarded even as an acceptable `balance' of wood production and environmental goals. Even prior to its official launch, the ACF in association with other major conservation groups had rejected the final draft of the TIS and criticised the limited LCC's park proposals (ACF et al 1986). They claimed the Government had ignored detailed submissions from environment group's "...except where they corroborate and strengthen those of other major lobby groups, in particular the timber industry and the timber unions" (ACF et al 1986:4). The proposed VAUS was labeled a woodchipping scheme (ACF et al 1986:9-10). Within a month of the release of the TIS, Ian Penna, the ACF's research officer, in his Timber Companies in East Gippsland: Public Forests for Private Profit (Penna 1986) condemned the TIS for servicing industry and the VAUS as a clever tactic for introducing a woodchip/pulpwood industry into East Gippsland:

While the timber industry might have been pleased with the contents of the TIS, it turned hostile to the Government when the national park recommendations from the LCC were released in December 1986. The VSA in a widely circulated two page statement titled East Gipplsand Land Use Decisions - A Process of Attrition (VSA, Dec 1986) claimed that "...there is no evidence to indicate that the industry's position was ever seriously argued within Government departments and the LCC" (VSA 1986:1):

The TIS and the LCC's final recommendations, being the official discourses of the state, were available to the public by December 1986. On 11 December 1986 the Premier John Cain toured East Gippsland. His final engagement was to visit a seed cooperative to the west of Orbost. The TTA, Orbost Chamber of Commerce, the timber unions and the local sawmillers had organised for the Premier's touring party to be diverted enroute through the town of Orbost. The main street had been decked in black coffins, the Premier was to be held to account for the death of a timber town. Two thousand people assembled to confront the Premier and it was impossible to hear his words amid the angry protests.

The TIS required that the VAUS, especially that part involving the harvesting and sale of residual roundwood, would require a public environmental effects statement. This EES was to take almost two years to prepare and was not released to the public until June 1988. However in this two year interval, some significant early implementations and interpretations were made under the policy directions of the TIS. These are examined in the context of this section, which deals with the resource politics of woodchipping in East Gippsland.

On the release of the TIS, the DCFL and its regional administration undertook a range of urgent actions concerning wood production. These actions were interconnected and included: setting early targets for the move to regional sustained yield; the preparation and introduction of a new log grading schedule and the related changes in the names of log produce; the issuing of long-term wood licenses and their level of allocation to the region's sawmillers commmencing in June 1987; and the strategic commencement of logging for sawlogs in areas previously considered as uneconomic for sawlog-only production (DCFL 1987).

The TIS had indicated forthcoming changes in log classification. This was given effect by calling sawlogs A,B,C or D grade and the remaining logs `residual roundwood'. The classification of a log depended on the amount of defect the log carried, based on external inspection in the forest at the point of loggng. Now A,B,C logs equated with traditionally allocated sawlogs. The D grade was a new grade of log and replaced what was formally known as `optional logs', of which small amounts were occasionally taken by sawmillers. These D grade logs had previously been included in the Governmemt's estimates of pulpwood and represented a substantial part of the wood resource in East Gippsland. Their harvesting and sale was vital in the short-term, especially since the DCFL planned to allow commencement of logging in the formerly uneconomic sawlog areas in the 1987-1988 season. The reality was, forests previously considered uneconomic for sawlog-only production contained only small amounts of what was now classified A,B and C grade sawlogs. Conversely, these newly opened logging areas would produce large amounts of D grade logs and even larger amounts of `residual roundwood'. With the creation of these new D grade logs, we have another important discursive change which effectively increased the sustainable yield estimate of sawlogs. This was part of the increase which enabled the Government in its TIS to predict a far smaller impact on the industry than was previously projected. This was achieved simply by transferring one category of logs, via a change of name, into the calculation of the available sawlog resource.

In May 1987 the DCFL in an associated move privately asked two companies for urgent submissions dealing with investments, enabling the processing of large volumes of the D grade sawlogs. There was no move to publically advertise the availability of these volumes (Anon per comm 1992). By August 1987 the two companies, Andrews Sawmills (a small scale salvage miller) and Hallmark Oaks (a new venture by two large scale established sawmillers), were each granted 15 year licences to 40,000m3 of D grade logs. Both companies, on the basis of woodchip sales contracts with HDA, immediately proceeded to construct large dimensional woodchip machines, in association with existing sawmill plants. By early 1988 both these companies were processing the bulk of what was publically represented as D grade sawlogs directly into woodchips for supply to Harris Daishowa for export. In fact, in 1988 HDA's Commonwealth export licence was extended from 850,000 tonnes to 1 million tonnes to accommodate the new processing arrangements in East Gippsland (HDA Resource Assessment Commission submission 1990).

The granting of these licenses and the quick construction of the two large scale woodchip machines initially caught environmentalists off guard. However, by March 1988 the EGC strongly criticised the State Government over these actions and accused the Government of introducing woodchipping by stealth and claimed quite rightly (Anon per comm 1992) that D grade sawlogs were being woodchipped (EGC News, March 1988).

The ECG was also alarmed when in February 1988, the State Government called for expressions of interest from companies willing to undertake full feasibility studies into developing a pulp and paper mill which would use the residual roundwood available in the Gippsland region and the subject of the VAUS EES. This action was justified by the Government, who referred to the TIS which had proposed that its Valued Added Task Force was to investigate "...the feasibility of establishing and/or extending Victorian based facilities for pulp and/or paper manufacturing to utilise residual roundwood" (TIS 1986:63).

Initially the Government received around ten expressions of interest to undertake the feasibility studies (Anon per comm 1988). Included was a submission from HDA who declared its interest in building a pulp and paper mill in East Gippsland. However, HDA's strategy if successfully selected, involved the direct support of its Japanese parent company who authorised a budget of $ 6 million to conduct the study with the express plan of delaying it, in order to delay any development and thus protect its interest in the resource for export woodchips (Anon per comm 1988).

The prospects of using residual roundwood to support either an export woodchip operation or a pulp and paper mill development in East Gippsland depended on the introduction of the full VAUS. This required a successful environmental effects statement. The VAUS EES (DCFL 1988), as already indicated, was not released or placed on public exhibition until June 1988. The long delay in its release was most likely the result of Government concern, with the impending State election to be held in September 1988. This timing would allow the Government to consider public submissions on the VAUS EES after the election. It would also allow the ALP Government to go into the election campaign presenting a sawlog driven non-woodchip policy; for in its campaign policy statement titled Green Print For The Future the Government stated it would:

Yet as I have indicated, this was not the case with its licensing of new D grade sawlogs to two East Gippsland sawmills who, thinly disguised as stand alone woodchip plants, directly chipped these sawlogs for sale to HDA.

The EES document stated that the DCFL intended to conduct a trial of the `residual roundwood' component of VAUS in both the Central Gippsland and East Gippsland forest management areas. The central purpose of such a proposal was "...to assess the impact of trialling the VAUS...by comparing and evaluating the incremental impacts of logging under VAUS against logging without VAUS" (DCFL 1988:1). What in fact the EES document contained was a description of the substantial changes in forest management and wood production arrangements which had already been introduced since the release of the TIS in 1986. Further, what the EES proposed was an additional three year trial to assess the environmental and social impacts of removing from logging areas, some 300,000 m3 of residual roundwood. This wood was, all those parts of logged trees that did not grade in as a sawlog (grades A to D). It was stated that this 300,000 m3 would come from .765 million m3 pa of uncommitted residual roundwood in forests logged for sawlogs based on sustainable yields (DCFL 1988:22). It was also indicated that in East Gippsland the long-term sustained yield had been set at 255,000 m3 pa, comprising 180,000 m3 of sawlogs in A to C grades and 75,000 m3 D grade sawlogs. This harvesting level would produce "...as a by-product a sustainable yield of residual roundwood of 695,000 m3 pa ..." (DCF 1988:93).

What is significant in the EES is its discussion of what was termed `high and low yielding' forest areas. This classification replaced the former distinction between economic and uneconomic for sawlog-only production. As noted earlier the TIS had replaced this latter economic distinction with a new biological definition of production forests and this was used to calculate sustained yield levels. The EES revealed that in East Gippsland, of a sustained yield of 255,000 m3 pa of sawlogs, 48 % was to come from high yielding sawlog areas (the former sawlog-only forests) and the balance, 52 %, would come from low yielding sawlog areas (formally the uneconomic sawlog-only forests (DCFL 1988:13). Now the net effect of these changes was that significantly more forest area would need to be cut annually to produce the required amount of sawlogs. This was the situation that had arisen from aspects of the DCFL's implementation of parts of the TIS. Regardless of the EES proposal, these actions were already producing increased volumes of logging waste, possibly three times higher than previously produced when logging was confined to high sawlog yielding forests (Anon 1992 per comm, Geary 1992 per comm).

The VAUS EES concluded that:

The EES document was subject to public comment between June and September 1988 and produced over 300 submissions (MPE 1988). The vast majority of these submissions were from environmental organisations who collectively condemned both the proposal and the EES as being the means of introducing broadscale export woodchipping and a possible pulp mill into the forests of East Gippsland. Under normal legislative and administrative procedures, the VAUS EES and any submissions received, would be reviewed by public servants within the Ministry of Planning and Environment prior to final advice to Government. However, in this highly contested case the Government used a procedure under the Environment Effects Act (1978) and established a formal panel of inquiry into the EES. This panel was to hold public hearings and receive further submissions on the EES's proposals before reporting back to the Minister for Planning and Environment. This action represented another discursive design which would further delay the DCFL in its attempts to move on the harvesting and sale of residual roundwood.

On 13 December 1988 the Government announced the composition of its EES inquiry panel and the two companies it had selected to proceed with feasibility studies of a pulp and paper mill for East Gippsland. A three person inquiry panel was announced chaired by Professor Fred Gruen, an economist from the Australian National University and included Alf Leslie a retired forester with international experience, and Dr Andrew Smith, an academic environmental expert. It also announced that Australian Paper Mills (APM) and North Broken Hill Holdings (NBH) had been selected and would be given six months to develop their mill proposals. In making this announcement, the Government again highlighted that the resource for such a mill would result from the `waste' generated in sawlog production, and linked this to its policy of `best end use' (Cain, press release 1988:2). The Government also moved to distance itself from the Tasmanian situation by claiming:

At this time pulpmills had become very much a public topic, with NBH's battle with the environment movement over plans to proceed with a massive pulp and paper mill at Wesley Vale in northern Tasmania. Involving the use of organochlorine compounds, in particular dioxin, such developments had in fact emerged worldwide as environmental controversies due mainly to their pollution side-effects. In March 1989 the Wesley Vale venture was abandoned when the Commonwealth Government intervened (Dargavel 1989, Economou 1992, Mercer 1991:99-102, Toyne 1989).

Despite the Wesley Vale experience during the first half of 1989, both APM and NBH mounted expensive public relations campaigns in East Gippsland to promote their mill development plans. Both released printed information materials and conducted public meetings. NBH set-up a staffed community information shop in the main street of Orbost. In turn the EGC mounted a public campaign against a pulp and paper mill. In association with supporters in the Australian Labor Party known as `Green Labor', the ECG organised a large protest meeting in Orbost. Held in April 1989, the meeting featured the anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott and Christine Milne who was nationally prominent in the Tasmanian anti-pulp mill campaign. The anti-mill campaign in East Gippsland focussed on the resource use question, with claims that a mill development would involve mass scale woodchipping of the forests. Also raised were serious concerns with a construction of this kind:

However, as was the case with HDA's declared plans, it is most probable that neither APM nor NBH had any real plans to proceed with investment in East Gippsland. Both had existing pulp and paper plants throughout Australia. What they were engaged in was a game of preventing the other from developing additional pulp and paper capacity in Australia, effecting the existing distribution of the market (Anon per comm 1992). The State Government seems to have been convinced of the intentions of these companies and in April 1989 it released further documentation indicating the imminent prospects of a mill development (DCFL 1989). This document included a timeline for decisions on the mill with the starting point being the findings of the VAUS EES inquiry panel. The DCFL had also called for submissions from companies interested in processing the 300,000 m3 of residual roundwood during the three year trial proposed in its VAUS EES.

The Gruen inquiry panel received public submissions (MPE 1989), and held public hearings from February to April 1989 and submitted its unanimous report in May 1989. The inquiry highlighted at length, the difficulty with a `sawlog-driven policy' as legitimation for undertaking logging in what were inherently low yielding sawlog forests, producing residual roundwood as the dominant log product (Gruen 1989:39-45). The report still offered two important observations, giving tacit approval to the discourses contained in the TIS. In particular it supported Government claims about harvesting all residual roundwood as part of its VAUS proposals:

Here the inquiry was working within the Government's discourses of `by-product' and `waste' and recommended that the VAUS trial should proceed, but on the basis of a reduction in the volume of residual roundwood harvested from 300,000 to 150,000 m3 pa, and that the trial be conducted over a six, not three year period. These recommendations were accepted by the Government. The DCFL still pursued hopes for a pulpmill and by now had become concerned with marketing the increasing amounts of residual roundwood which was being generated from its logging of low yielding sawlog forests in East Gippsland. The Government announced the reduced VAUS trial allocations of residual roundwood in October 1989. Licenses went to NBH (100,000 m3 pa), APM (25,000 m3 pa) and Andrews Sawmills (22,000 m3 pa) and the DCFL expected that all this wood would be moved in the 1989/1990 summer logging season (Anon per comm 1992).

However, during 1990 all of Australia's major pulp and woodchip companies, in the wake of Commonwealth intervention in the Wesley Vale case, were supporting a vigorous `resource security - before investment' campaign. In this context the East Gippsland pulpmill proposals from APM and HBH did not materialise. NBH's VAUS trial wood remained in forest coupes. Plans for processing to woodchips in local sawmills and exporting, using HDA's private wharf facility at Eden, were blocked by HDA and did not proceed. HDA had a strategic interest in preventing NBH from establishing an export woodchip operation in East Gippsland and was actively cooperating with APM and local sawmills in order to frustrate NBH and retain the prospect of HDA using the East Gippsland resource (Anon per comm 1988, Anon per comms 1992). Along with its own VAUS trial allocation, Andrews Sawmills processed APM's allocation, with the bulk of these woodchips going directly to HDA for its export operation. Clearly the operational side of the VAUS trial was in disarray from its outset. The DCFL meanwhile, moved to establish a well resourced scientific research study program into the ecological and social impacts of residual roundwood harvesting (DCFL 1990, DCNR 1993:175-181).

The clear winner of the additional low quality wood, harvested since the early implementation of the TIS in 1987, was HDA's export operations. With the removal and sale of wood for the new D grade licences and the VAUS trial residual roundwood, HDA was able to negotiate with the Commonwealth to lift its woodchip export quota from 850,000 tonnes in 1987, to 1 million pa by 1990 (HDA 1990). By 1990 Andrews Sawmills was producing 89,000 tonnes of woodchips and Hallmark Oaks 61,000 tonnes for HDA. As already noted, much of this type of wood resulted from the introduction of logging into East Gippsland's low sawlog yielding forests (mostly from degraded forests).

With the prospects of a pulpmill development on standstill, and with increasing volumes of residual roundwood being produced in its logging operations, the Government made a dramatic policy turnabout. In October 1990, the new Minister for Conservation and Environment (DCE was the restructured DCFL), Steve Crabb, announced that State Cabinet had approved the removal and sale of all low quality logs being produced in the State's forestry operations. In its public prospectus released in November 1990, the new DCE advertised for the commercial development of some 1.1 million m3 pa of the now called `lower graded hardwood logs', of which 575,000 m3 was available in East Gippsland and 240,000 m3 in the ajoining forest area to the west, now called the Tambo Forest Management area (DCE 1990). This decision, a reflection of the new Minister's strength in Cabinet, overrode the previous commitment to a 6 year limited volume VAUS trial, which to all purposes other than the continued commitment to a research program, had been abandoned.

This decision was condemned by the environment movement as a direct move to introduce "...woodchipping on a massive scale throughout the state" (ACF 1991:4). Before turning to the environment movement's campaign I will briefly consider a critical piece of research which dealt with the large volume of `residual roundwood' (conventionally called pulp or woodchip logs) available in East Gippsland and how it might be processed. The research was commissioned by APM and Andrews Sawmills as part of their agreement with the Government in obtaining `residual roundwood', as part of the East Gippsland VAUS trial. I consider this research here for three reasons; first, the commissioning of this research resulted from aspects of the `resource politics over woodchipping' considered in this section; second, the findings of this research represent a fundamental challenge to the `resource estimation discourse', changes within this discourse and associated power effects of this discourse examined in this and the previous two chapters; thirdly, this research provides the basis for a radically different option or future for forest employment, and for the forests in East Gippsland. What this research was about was answers to the important question `What is a sawlog - what is a pulp or woodchip log'. This research is examined in the next section.

During 1990-1991 a research study was conducted by Gary Waugh of the CSIRO's Division of Forest Products. This was the first study of the product potential of low quality logs (`D grade sawlogs' and `residual roundwood') constituting the great bulk of timber resource in East Gippsland (Waugh 1991a). This study was based on detailed sawing trials of these logs, the so-called `waste by-product' of a sawlog driven industry. Samples included residual logs from all strata of production forests being used in the VAUS trial (Waugh 1991a).

The initiative for this research came from earlier studies by the CSIRO for Andrews Sawmills. As part of their VAUS trial applications, both Andrews Sawmills and APM financially supported the more extensive study of the pulpwood/woodchip resource. Both companies wished to situate themselves as supporting the Government's `sawlog-driven' forest management. A piece of research of this nature fitted the strategy.

On the basis of the earlier small scale studies for Andrews Sawmills, the CSIRO had shown that a sawing strategy for logs below C grade sawlogs would yield a solid wood recovery of between 14-20 % (Waugh 1988a, 1988b, 1989). It was also indicated that such a strategy would be more profitable than simple woodchipping and that there was additional employment benefits from such an approach (Waugh 1989:9).

The sawing trials found that existing log grade systems failed to adequately predict the actual potential of each log for further processing beyond simple woodchip production. It was shown that when sawn, at least 8 % of logs classified in the forest as either D grade sawlogs or residual roundwood, were as productive as traditional C grade sawlogs. This was a 3 % improvement on Ferguson's estimate. Further, the research found that if the remaining logs were processed in specially designed recovery sawmills, it was technically possible to recover large amounts of solid timber product with a clear financial benefit over directly woodchipping these logs. The results had indicated that "...if the best 50% [of residual roundwood logs] is selected for sawing, a sawn recovery of about 25% can be anticipated from that portion of the logs which are sawn" (Waugh 1991b:6).

This conclusion represents a considerable challenge to what has historically been regarded as a `sawlog' and what was then a `pulp or woodchip log'. It does this by totally contradicting the very basis of the conventional operational definition of logs in the forests. These conventional definitions underwrite the existing and conventionally accepted `resource estimation' position of the Government and its foresters. This conclusion offers the basis to a possible discursive transformation in the official resource discourse which could have dramatic impacts on the nature of the timber industry and its use of the forest.

In simple terms this research indicates that with technological restructuring, the so-called `waste' logs would support a sawn recovery industry, providing up to an additional four jobs per volume of logs processed than could be achieved by the established strategy of simple woodchip processing (see Table 9.1 in the next chapter for supporting analysis). When applied to the East Gippsland timber industry, the CSIRO research suggests that with the appropriate investments in sawn timber recovery technology, it would be possible to use around one half (300,000 m3 pa) of the estimated sustained yield of residual roundwood (pulp or woodchip logs) as sawlogs. This would create between 80-100 jobs in further processing alone and would produce an additional 40,000 m3 pa of finished solid timber products in East Gippsland (Waugh 1991b:7).

This research also has the possibility of informing both an industry restructuring strategy and a forest restoration plan for low yielding forests in East Gippsland. These strategies combined are quite different to the immediate prospects for this resource: either being left in the forest after logging, or being removed to directly support a large scale export woodchip development or pulp mill.

These research studies and the prospects they inform are historically significant. They represent the first detailed assessment of the large lower-quality resource available to industry, resulting from Government decisions to log in previously regarded low-yielding forests. These forest areas were extensive, comprising 177,000 ha of East Gippsland wood production resource base (Waugh 1991b:4). It was from these forests, the vast bulk of pulp or woodchip logs would originate if restrictions on their removal were removed in East Gippsland. As noted earlier, the forest ecology of these areas had been substantially altered by past selection logging and broad scale harvesting for pulp or woodchip logs, and the small volume of sawlogs was seen by industry and the Government as the only prospect for them (see chapter 5). This research and the alternative industry scenario it supports could see employment maintained in the timber industry based on using about one half the volume of wood proposed under a high volume woodchipping scheme. This would be achieved using one half the forest area currently proposed to be logged on an annual basis.

An alternative industry strategy, by reducing the pressure on the forests, can create the possiblity of pursuing the restoration of the degraded forests in East Gippsland. A sawn recovery strategy is far less intensive in its logging requirements and could be more easily tailored to the restoration requirements of these forests. It for instance, would enable: the more careful management of forests in order to achieve their original species composition; the ability to identify sensitive parts of the forest ecosystems, which could be subject to low-level utilisation, or not logged at all; and provide more scope for the retention of important habitat requirements (Waugh 1991b:1-2).

I will return to the prospects outlined above in the next chapter where I use the findings of this research to suggest a prescription for change for the timber industry and the forests in East Gippsland. Attention is now turned to the ongoing `Green' campaign and the progressive involvement of the Commonwealth in forest disputes.

The major part of this chapter has been concerned with the development and implementation of the Government's industry - employment discourse, in particular, its attempts to introduce pulpwood or woodchip log harvesting in East Gippsland. This was vigorously opposed by the environment movement who claimed the forests would be subject to massive woodchipping. This final section concerns the fate of the parks - conservation discourse, and as Dargavel noted, neither the timber industry nor the environment movement would remain satisfied with Government forest use determinations. Further, both would continue their political campaigns over boundaries around forests to be used for wood production and for preservation. This section will examine the evolution of the forest campaigns by the environment movement, and the progressive involvement of the Commonwealth Labor Government in forest use disputes and protracted conflict.

Part of the EGC's national park demands were met in the LCC's final recommendations in 1986. However, the basis of ongoing forest demands and conflict over logging was established when the EGC nominated its `total parks demand' for entry on the Commonwealth Register of the National Estate in April 1986. This preemptive action, taken prior to the LCC's park recommendations, was designed to involve the Commonwealth Government in land-use determinations. By October 1986, the EGC's preservation demands were on the interim list of the National Estate, pending investigation by the Commonwealth Heritage Commission as to whether these forests would be given full inclusion on the Register.

In December 1986, immediately after the LCC's final National park recommendations were released, the EGC warned the Victorian Government over scheduling any of the `interim National Estate forests for logging during the summer season and threatened direct action blockades (see Map 8.1 for the LCC's new National parks and the National Estate claims by the EGC). On December 23 1986, after a heated Cabinet meeting on the subject, the Premier announced that no logging would occur in forests on the `interim list' during the 1986-1987 logging season. This announcement was made as an attempt to avoid pending forest protest action over the `National Estate forests' (Anon, an adviser to the Premier, per comm 24 December 1986). It was noted by the responsible Minister, that if this action was extended into a total long-term logging ban it would involve a withdrawal of an additional 1.5 million m3 `high quality' sawlogs from the industry (The Age 24 Dec 1986).

The protection from logging of what it called the `National Estate forest' formed the central demand in the EGC's campaign during 1987 and 1988. The campaign demanded the State Government include all forests nominated for the National Estate in its National Park Reserve System. The Victorian Government rejected the demand that these forests be referred to the LCC for further investigation and in late 1988 decided that part of these disputed forests would be scheduled for logging over the summer period. This led to direct forest protests and 75 protestors were arrested.

In late 1989, the Commonwealth Heritage Commission had finished its assessment of forests proposed for inclusion on the Register of the National Estate and formally included some 443,000 hectares of East Gippsland. The formal listing of these forests reflected their significant biological values, in particular old growth and wilderness value. Of these areas, some 368,450 hectares or 79% were already in Victorian National parks, but the balance were in forest areas scheduled for logging and comprised around 20% or 35,800 m3 pa of the planned regional sustained yield in East Gippsland (Andriotis 1990:3).

The listing of these disputed forest areas on the Register of the National Estate was an important and powerful strategy of the EGC, for it had the effect of drawing the Commonwealth Government into the East Gippsland conflict. This was to open up a new discursive field around which protest could be focussed. This happened because of the legal and technical responsibility the Commonwealth Government had for the protection of the National Estate. This Commonwealth responsibility included the requirement that actions and decisions of Ministers of the Commonwealth Government should not affect the integrity of the National Estate. Consequently, a granting of an export woodchip licence involving logging in National Estate could be a breach of legislated `care'. Environmental activists relied on pressuring the Commonwealth to intervene and stop any State Government logging of National Estate forests. Because the National Estate listing placed no such responsibilites of `care' on the State Government, inter-Government disputes had arisen in various regions.

In the East Gippsland case, the formal listing of forests as National Estate areas, and the State Government's proposals to continue logging in these forests, lead to major environmental conflict during the summer of 1989-90. As Economou pointed out:

During the summer environmental activists set-up blockades of logging coupes in National Estate areas demanding Commonwealth intervention. The timber industry mounted counter protests by blocking the Princess Highway with log trucks. The Cain Government responded with the use of police powers to force the removal of the logging blockades. Over the summer 340 environmentalists were arrested in the forests (Friends of the Earth 1993:2). With a federal election not far off, and the Federal ALP attempting to win the `Green' vote, the action of the Cain Government in continuing logging and a similiar dispute in National Estate forests in south east NSW led the Commonwealth Government to intervene. By January 1990, the Commonwealth, using its export woodchip powers, secured a compromise deal with both the Victorian and the NSW Governments over National Estate logging. This deal saw the environmentalists remove their blockades.

Known as the `East Gippsland Forest Agreement', the deal involved a six month moratorium on logging, while the State Government undertook a study of all prudent and feasible alternatives to logging in areas on the National Estate Register. Part of the `Agreement' involved a commitment that both Governments would cooperatively develop a formal decision-making process to be used by the respective Governments in deciding under what conditions logging could be undertaken in forest areas on the National Estate.

In October 1990, 6450 hectares of National Estate forests were included by the Victorian Government in the East Gippsland National park reserve system. These forests contained some 240,000 m3 of sawlogs and further reduced the sustainable yield by 5000 m3 pa. As a consequence of this decision, 83% of the National Estate forests claimed by the EGC was now protected from logging (DCNR 1993:108). However in late 1990, Steve Crabb the new State Minister for Conservation and Environment, announced that in order to meet commitments to the East Gippsland timber industry, logging would be carried out in a number of forest areas on the National Estate. This decision was taken after the federal election along with a further agreement for the Victorian Government and the Australian Heritage Commission to undertake a joint study of the National Estate values of the East Gippsland forests (Woodgate et al 1994:1).

With these `Agreements' over the disputed National Estate forests `...Canberra had at last become embroiled in Victorian land-use affairs' (Economou 1992b:109). The future of the National Estate forests, and more generally the future of the timber industry in East Gippsland, would be increasingly influenced by the active involvement of the Commonwealth Government in forest and land-use conflicts and policy that emerged during the 1990s. To further understand the context in which the Commonwealth Government found itself and the approach it took, it is important to briefly look at some elements of the conflict over natural resource development, versus preservation, which had arisen in Australia in the 1990s.

Since its election in 1983 the Hawke Federal Government had been drawn into a series of State forestry/land use disputes. On this period (1983-1990), Economou observes:

The Commonwealth Government's interventions during this period were, however, marked by ad hoc responses to environmental flash points, and its actions were often driven by short-term electoral and political considerations (Economou 1993). In the absence of any overall policy directions, the Commonwealth drew on a range of powers to enforce short-term solutions to conflicts as they arose. This period saw the Commonwealth intervene using its obligations under the World Heritage Convention: in the Franklin River dam - wilderness dispute of 1983; World Heritage logging disputes in the Tasmanian Southern and Lemonthyme forest areas leading to the Helsham Commission of inquiry in 1987; a World Heritage logging and employment dispute over tropical rainforests in Queenland's Daintree region in 1987-1988; and the 1989-90 National Estate logging conflicts in South-east NSW and East Gippsland. In the face of mounting protest over the proposed Wesley Vale pulp mill development proposal, the Commonwealth used its foreign investment powers to insist on stricter environmental controls (especially over dioxion effluents), causing the developers to abandon the project in March 1989.

While involved in finding solutions in a number of controversial forest conflicts, often alienating State governments, the environment movement, industry and the trade unions, the Commonwealth Government was faced with a long-term political strategy and an integrated set of demands from environment groups across Australia. Environment movement organisations, such as the ACF and the Wilderness Society, had grown in membership and resources as a result of recent public disputes and were attracting strong electoral influence (Bean, McAllister and Warhurst 1990). In addition to the increasing appeals to intervene in particular State forestry/land-use decisions, environment groups were demanding that the Commonwealth Government involve itself in land-use and resource management as a primary focus of government. Environment groups demanded the Commonwealth Government intervene over the States and implement a national system of conservation reserves that would protect old-growth native forests. They centred their campaign around the wilderness, bio-diversity, spiritual and passive recreation and tourist values of native forests. Peak environmental organisations had by this time developed and deployed public discourses covering each of the elements to these demands. In this total package of demands and discourses one can detect the full maturity of a powerful anti-industrialism and post-distributional discourse on native forests, one that reflects the two decades of struggle by `new class' environmentalists to achieve their class position in the forests. In addition, the peak environment organisations demanded the Commonwealth Government force a phase-out of logging in native forests, especially invoking its export control powers to effect the immediate ban on export woodchiping. It then backed these demands with economic proposals for the creation of a plantation based wood products industry (Cameron and Penna 1988, Clark 1991, Clark and Blakers 1989, Hall 1992).

As Economou (1993) has argued, the Commonwealth Government was also facing counter pressures to its ad hoc environmental decision making and interventions into State land-use and forestry issues. This pressure came from: parts of its own bureaucracy which held development and growth agendas; divisions within its own Caucus and Cabinet between pro-environmentalists and pro-economic development forces; and State governments, trade unions and the timber industry. All these forces demanded resource security and complained that there was a clear lack of clarity concerning environmental guidelines and procedures (Economou 1993).

As mentioned earlier, the Commonwealth's intervention in the Wesley Vale pulpmill development dispute had caused the major timber companies to threaten an investment strike in the face of uncertainty over long-term access to native forest resources. The national lobby group for the timber industry, the National Association of Forest Industries (NAFI), publically claimed that as a result of conflicting Commonwealth policies, it was collectively withholding some $ 7 billion of investment projects with the potential to produce massive export earnings (Mercer 1991:24). NAFI ran a well funded media and political campaign based around the theme `growth and regrowth for Australia'. This campaign theme attempted the linking of economic growth from the timber industry based on the ability of the forest to `regrow'. NAFI also funded the anti-environmentalist campaigns of rural groups who had formed the Forest Protection Society to counter the actions of the environmental movement.

In this context, the post-1990 Hawke Federal Government, it has been suggested:

The start of this claimed `pro-active, long-term policy-making' was in fact mid-1989 when the Commonwealth Government established the Resource Assessment Commission (RAC) to hold inquiries into contentious resource use issues. The first inquiry, commenced by the RAC, was into options for the use of Australia's forests and timber resources, held betweem December 1989 and November 1991. The RAC has been likened by Economou (1993) to the Victorian LCC and represented a discursive design where all conflicting parties were encouraged to make representations to a neutral umpire. In mid 1990 the Commonwealth Government also set-up and resourced working groups incorporating environment groups and industry to help investigate and formulate policies on Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESDWG). This process involved a working group dealing with forest-use, it reported, along with the RAC, in November 1991.

It has also been suggested that both the RAC and the ESDWG represented an attempt by the Hawke Government to extend its Accordist policy approach to industrial relations into environmental policy:

In a move to facilitate on-shore investment, particularly in the wake of the inter-governmental debacle over the Wesley Vale pulp and paper mill development in early 1991, the Commonwealth Government announced plans to develop Resource Security Legislation. This was designed to provide a process with the States where both levels of government would have an agreed assessment procedure for investment proposals involving native forest resources where the investment was over one billion dollars (RAC Vol 1 1991:552-562). The bill was eventually rejected in the Senate by the combined votes of the opposition parties. In another and not unrelated policy move, at a Special Premiers Conference in July 1991, the Commonwealth and all State and Territory governments announced the shared objective of "Phasing out woodchip exports from native forests in favour of downstream processing of the resource (pulp and paper mills) by the year 2000. Such projects being subject to environmental and economic assessments" (Our Forests 1994:1).

The major problem facing the Commonwealth Government was to develop a cooperative approach to land-use and forest policy and decision-making with the State Governments. Progress on this was made during 1992, with the signing of the Inter-governmental Agreement on the Environment (IGAE) on 1 May 1992 (IGAE 1992). The aim of the the IGAE was to provide:

The IGAE was the first formal result in Commonwealth-State cooperation on forests and environmental policy. During the remainder of 1992 the Commonwealth worked with the States to develop a `national forest policy strategy'. This process involved the release for public consultation of a draft strategy document in June 1992, which in the main, was based on the findings of the RAC forest inquiry and ESDWG groups forest-use report (there had been earlier attempts by the Australian Forestry Council back in 1983 to formulate such a policy statement; see the preamble of the Draft National Forest Strategy for Australia cira 1986 in Dargavel and Sheldon 1987: Appendix). This lead to the development of the National Forest Policy Statement (NFPS 1992) signed by the Commonwealth and the States at the Council of Australian Governments, on 7 December 1992.

The NFPS presented a major `official state discourse'. Like the earlier Victorian Timber Industry Strategy and the LCC's land-use determinations, the NFPS represented Governments undertaking a twin policy discourse; on the one hand, commitment to forest conservation/preservation, and on the other hand, commitment to sustainable forest industry development and employment. The NFPS outlined a method where these twin discourses would be achieved. This involved both levels of Government undertaking `comprehensive regional assessments' of forests leading to formal `Regional Forest Agreements' between the Commonwealth and each State Government. The purpose of a Regional Forest Agreement was essentially to reach a final position in which the native forests would be divided up between a `conservation reserve system' and a system of `commercial production areas'.

The NFPS declared the end of 1995 as its timetable for the achievement of what was termed a `comprehensive, adequate and representative' national conservation reserve system. The NFPS also made specific mention that until the proposed forest assessments had been completed "...forest management agencies will avoid activities that may significantly affect those areas of old-growth forest or wilderness that are likely to have high conservation value" (NFPS 1992:11). This was interpreted by environment groups as a commitment to allow logging only in areas that were subject to scientific assessment and found to be not required for the establishment of the national conservation reserve system. Further, the environment movement expected that the Government would use its export woodchip licence powers to enforce logging restrictions (Christoff 1995:23).

At the time of the release of the NFPS the major environment groups, in particular the Wilderness Society, were organising public campaigns over the summer of 1992-1993. These campaigns focussed on the Commonwealth Government demanding that it ban the export woodchip industry by refusing to renew all licenses for 1993. A major part of this campaign centred on the Commonwealth Government's responsibility to protect bio-diversity contained in native forests. This was a direct result of its signing the International Convention on Biological Diversity at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. It was a very short summer indeed, for on 4 January 1993 Alan Griffiths the Minister for Resources, annouced that he had renewed all nine export licenses for hardwood woodchip operations from native forests. This led the Director of the Wilderness Society to write:

Work progressed slowly on implementing the NFPS during 1993. In late 1993, the new Minister for Resources Michael Lee again renewed all export woodchip licenses for 1994, requiring only that logging permissions be refused in 12 forest coupes throughout Australia. The Wilderness Society claimed the Commonwealth Government was blatantly refusing to protect forest areas on an interim basis, pending finalisation with the States, of a national conservation reserve system. The HDA-Eden woodchip facility was picketed during the summer by environmental activists over the export licence. During March 1994 Federal Cabinet debated the annual export woodchip licence process, where it was decided that in future renewals, the Minister for Environment would provide advice to the Minister for Resources covering which forest areas should be excluded from logging pending the full implementation of the NFPS. As Christoff comments, "It was on the basis of this decision that green groups expected a more favourable outcome in 1994" (Christoff 1995:23).

During 1994 progress on the NFPS was slow, however the Commonwealth did release a discussion paper to State governments and key interest groups in March 1994. This paper contained very preliminary views on the processes necessary to achieve regional forest assessments leading to regional forest agreements. As we will see what was of more significance in 1994 was the decision of the new Minister for Environment John Faulkner, to grant funds to conservation groups in each State to provide him with "Substantiated advice on areas they consider to have high conservation value". This advice was to be further assessed by Faulkner's departmental agencies before he formed his final recommendations to the Minister for Resources on forest coupes, to be given interim protection from logging by the Commonwealth in the 1994 export woodchip licence renewals.

Of the 3500 coupes to be logged during 1995, a central coordinating organisation of conservation groups in each State provided recommendations to the Minister for Environment amounting to 60% of logging coupes that were to be reserved on environmental grounds. The Minister subsequently rejected about 500 of the recommended coupes and finally provided advice to the Minister for Resources that 1297 coupes (40%) be given interim protection from logging, in his decision to renew export woodchip licenses for 1995. The Minister for Resources, David Beddell, decided that only 85 of the recommended coupes would be protected and he proceeded to issue export licences. In fact Beddell increased the overall export quota for 1995 by 764,000 tonne or 11% above the 1994 quota (Christoff 1995:23).

This decision outraged the environmental organisations, who threatened massive summer protest action and warned the Government of an electoral backlash. The decision also sparked division within the ALP and drew extensive national media coverage. The situation was further complicated on 10 January 1995 when the Federal Court (Justice Sackville) ruled that a previous export licence was technically invalid because the Minister for Resources failed to correctly assess the environmental consequences of the logging proposed to produce the woodchips (Sackville 1995). Sackville's judgement caused legal doubts over the validity of all export woodchip licenses and required Executive amendement to Administrative Procedures to overcome this Court decision (Gibb 1996:556-557).

As protest mounted during December 1994, the Prime Minister Paul Keating, intervened to take charge of the forest issue (Prime Minister 1994). On 27 January, he announced that 509 of the contested logging coupes had been identified as needing urgent environmental assessment and until this was completed they would be protected from logging. Along with this policy decision, the Prime Minister announced that the goals of the NFPS would receive urgent Government action and that a special Forests Task Force would be set-up within his Department to coordinate the implementation of regional forest assessments leading to Regional Forest Agreements between the Commonwealth and each State government (Prime Minister 1995a).

Within weeks a coalition of pro-industry forces organised a massive blockade of Parliament House in Canberra and demanded the Government protect logging and sawmill jobs. After intensive talks between the protestors and senior Ministers the blockade was lifted. Within the next month the majority of the 509 contested coupes were released for logging and the Government issued lengthy discussion papers on the process to be followed in achieving Regional Forest Agreements. It also announced that export licence renewals for 1996 would be based on regional forest assessments and not on a coupe by coupe basis (Prime Minister 1995b, Minister for Resources 1995a).

The remainder of 1995 was taken up with the Commonwealth Government attempting to formulate solutions to what was now a national forest political problem. This work was undertaken by the Prime Minister's Forest Task Force who coordinated information on forest policy across various departments, all of which were allocated special funding (approx $ 45 million) for new staff and operating expenses (Prime Minister 1995b). The strategy of the Commonwealth was to prepare what it called Deferred Forest Assessments (DFA), which would form agreements with each State Government on forest areas to be protected within regions until a Regional Forest Agreement was in place. As well, the Commonwealth set about developing a Wood and Paper Industry Strategy, promoted as placing the wood products industry on a value-adding long-term investment path with enhanced employment prospects, and which would avoid the political damage over its export woodchip licence decisions in late 1995 (Prime Minister 1995c).

On 1 December 1995, with the forthcoming election in mind, the Commonwealth Government released its coordinated forest package with funding commitments of some $ 198 million (DFA 1995, Minister for Resources 1995b, WPIS 1995). The package consisted of its DFAs, which contained forest area protection until Regional Forest Agreements were in place with State Governments, its industry strategy with funding for displaced workers, and its 1996 export woodchip licence renewals and a related policy statement. On the latter, the Commonwealth placed a national ceiling of 5.251 million tonnes. This represented an 11% cutback on the 1995 export quota and included new regulations stating this quota would be reduced by 20% each year in regions unless there was significant progress toward a Regional Forest Agreement.

Because of the extent of existing data on the ecology of East Gippsland and socio-economic significance of the timber industry (DCNR 1993, 1995, 1996A, Woodgate et al 1994), East Gippsland was chosen as the first of the defined regions where a Regional Forest Agreement would be formulated. In early 1996 the State Government advertised internationally the development rights to the East Gippsland region's uncommitted woodchip logs, the so-called `waste' logs which it now called residual logs. In its prospectus (DCNR 1996b) the Government called for immediate export woodchipping proposals and believed that once it signed an East Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement with the Commonwealth, there would be no export licence barriers in the region.

Given the extent of forests taken from the industry for preservation claims and the long-term struggle of the environment movement to prevent the introduction of broadscale export woodchipping in East Gippsland, it is an historical irony that the Victorian Government in 1996 is still able to offer 650 000 tonne of logs on an annual basis for export woodchipping (DCNR 1996b), for in 1969 it had first unsuccessfully offered the equivalent volume for export woodchipping. The question remains, what will happen to this resource? The next chapter will speculate on this subject.

The period covered in this chapter (1986-1996) can be characterised, as Dargavel (1987) characterised the previous decade, as one of dispute and struggle over the boundaries in the forests, between preservation and commercial wood production. This chapter has focused on a decade in the continuing conflict over the forests of East Gippsland where the struggle over boundaries was to continue and intensify.

This struggle increasingly involved the Commonwealth Government in protracted regional forest conflicts. This was to produce a national forest politics, involving ongoing and prolific governmental inquiry on the forest problem facilitated through extensive and public discursive designs and new forest assessment methodologies. These formed the basis for the production of some significant `official state discourses' on the forests which attempted to resolve what became a highly visable and volatile `problematic of government'.

The highly discursive nature of the events of forest conflict in this period had significant effects, producing some major changes in the material non-discursive formation of wood extraction in East Gippsland. These changes show the operation of `relational dependencies' between discourses, and between the discursive and the non-discursive. These changes mark-out a new period in the history of East Gippsland wood extraction.

These changes were first seen as the effects of the Cain Government's attempt to resolve the forest conflict with its official discourses released in the latter part of 1986. During this time the Victorian Timber Industry Strategy (TIS) and the LCC's National park recommendations were released and formed a strategically constructed twin policy discourse: a parks-preservation discourse with an environmentally sensitive industry-employment discourse.

These `official state discourses' had substantial and in some areas, quite fundamental material effects. The new National parks considerably reduced the resource levels to industry and extended the area of forest given-over to preservation. Importantly, most of these newly preserved forests were future high-yielding sawlog forests (above the 40 m3 convention). The TIS declared the Government's move (progressively over the next ten years) to a regional sustainable yield. This was one important element in the TIS's `environmentally sensitive industry' discourse. Combined, the new parks and a regional sustained yield would have the effect of substantially reducing the traditional annual cutting levels (and hence employment levels) which had historically been a deliberate part of the industry structure in East Gippsland.

Yet, as detailed in the body of this chapter, the actual level of sawlog reduction was not of the magnitude that had been forecast in `official' advice to the Government by the LCC, based as it was on the Government's own resource data. This most important effect, in quite radically achieving a much reduced impact on sawlog resource levels and thus employment, was the result of decisive discursive changes in the TIS. These changes illustrate Foucault's theoretical insight to the operation of power through discourse. In particular, they illustrate the power of critical discursive change involving the transformation or mutation of discourse.

The TIS had strategically changed the definition of sawlog-production forests, rendering the very problematic of the 40 m3 sawlog-only convention at an effective end. This had the material effect of providing additional annual sawlogs (a 55% increase to the revised sustainable-yield). The additional material effect included the low-yielding degraded forests into the annual-cut. This radically increased the area logged and the volume of pulpwood left in the forests. Additional sawlogs were produced by simply calling the best of these waste logs D-grade sawlogs and moving them via secretive licences as part of the new sawlog-volume. These new `sawlogs' were woodchipped rather than sawn, but the action generated an immediate boost to employment.

Also the TIS had effectively changed the basis of the traditional conflict over logging waste, pulpwood and woodchipping. This was achieved through the TIS's new discursive centrepiece; its sawlog-driven/Value Adding Utilisation Scheme (VAUS) discourse. This discourse had almost totally deleted any reference to integrated pulpwood harvesting and export woodchipping. It said wood production would be sawlog-driven and value-adding, with best-end use of wood and that there would be `waste utilisation' of `residual logs' (pulpwood) subject again to an EES.

These official discourses provided a division of the forests between the two competing forces, further re-shaping these forests. Despite the Government's hopes, this strategic deployment of governmentality failed to finally resolve the conflict. The basis of this continuing conflict lay in the undecided positions which had been constructed by industry and the environmental movement, and these once again reflect the powerful articulation of the central discourses of National parks/preservation and woodchipping/resourcism across the continuing East Gippsland forest conflict.

Environmentalists strategically pursued the expansion of the boundaries of `preserved' forest by commencing action on `National Estate' forests (a Commonwealth legal/policy area). This was a critical event (a critical moment) for it set-up the progressive intervention of the Commonwealth in the East Gippsland forest conflict.

The industry bitterly attacked the need for another EES into the now called `residual' logs (pulpwood). It intensified its demands for the removal and processing of this `waste', and in the aftermath of the failed Tasmanian pulpmill proposal at Wesley Vale, ran a `resource security before investment campaign'. The industry also continued to exploit the employment question against continuing preservation demands and developed the `Growth and Regrowth' motif in its public discourse promoting the positive benefits of native forest logging.

The direct involvement of the Commonwealth into the East Gippsland conflict was a strategic achievement by the environment movement. Such involvement was part of a wider scene of regional forest conflicts throughout Australia where the Commonwealth had continually been involved in ad hoc and short-term resolutions. It was, as Economou noted, the time of change in the ALP-led Commonwealth Government's forest strategy. From this time I described the advent and political trajectory of what I call a `national forest politics'.

The `national forest politics', in East Gippsland was based on the Commonwealth's attempt, in the style of the Cain Government, to devise a long-term and final solution to the forest problem. The rapid events at the national level up until early 1996, described in this chapter, very much replicate the discursive approach forged by the Cain Government: series of public government inquiries, extensive public participation, attempts at corporatist style policy formation, direct action forest protests, `official state discourse' and implementations.

The Commonwealth relied on a series of discursive designs in order to generate long-term policy solutions. Like the Cain Government, the Commonwealth produced official discourses based on the twin policy discourses; an industry-employment development and a preservation discourse (the creation of a National conservation reserve system for native forests). However, this National approach to the native forests problem became a protracted, polarised, ritualised and institutionalised conflict producing little in the way of common ground, or social, ecological equity, or technology driven solutions. It was dominated by a continuing struggle over the boundaries in the forests between resoursism and preservation.

Once again it was a strategic, highly public and richly discursive battle in late 1994 and early 1995 over the boundaries in the forests between export woodchipping and the interim protection of areas desired by environmentalists for the National conservation reserve system which forced the Commonwealth to act. It moved rapidly to assess and determine a settlement in each region. Such settlements, to be Regional Forest Agreements, will attempt a final long-term division with legal lines on maps between preserved forests and logging forests, on which no further restrictions would prevent export woodchipping.