An ecologist who specialises in forest conservation has been accused of deliberately lying to a recent Senate public hearing. The State Member for Narracan Gary Blackwood told the Victorian Parliament on Thursday that Professor David Lindenmayer had “deliberately and blatantly lied” when he claimed that VicForests had been found guilty of systemic breaches, logging slopes over 30 degrees and putting at risk the quality of Melbourne’s water. Source: Timberbiz
Professor Lindenmayer is an ecologist at the Australian National University who specialises in forest conservation.
“But do not take my word for it: the Office of the Conservation Regulator have confirmed that this was a lie – no systemic breaches,” Mr Blackwood told Parliament.
“The Lindenmayer lie was linked to the Snobs Creek area in the Goulburn catchment, nowhere near any catchment that supplies Melbourne with water.”
Mr Blackwood said that Prof Lindenmayer “constantly puts out information that is incorrect, quotes from papers he has written on forest science that have never been peer reviewed and flagrantly abuses the Australian National University process for claiming peer review status for his work”.
“When is the Andrews government going to wake up to this fraud and stop using his fabricated science and blatant lies to support their decisions on native forest harvesting?
“David Lindenmayer is a political activist with no more credibility than other activists such as Sarah Rees and Amelia Young,” Mr Blackwood told Parliament.
“These people have no respect for honesty or rule of the law. He aligns himself with groups such as MyEnvironment, which are bludging on the Victorian taxpayer by not paying over $1 million in court costs awarded against them when they lost a case to VicForests.
“They are determined to shut down a sustainable industry that utilises a renewable product that stores carbon. It is the ultimate renewable, not like steel, concrete and plastics,” he said.
“Lindenmayer, Rees and Young would have us import timber from countries that do not replant what they harvest, costing thousands of Victorian jobs and destroying the environment of another country.”
