Thursday, May 13, 2004
Commonwealth Press Release

Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, has claimed "We don't need rainforests; they are of no commercial value."

This announcement comes on the back of a decision by the Commonwealth Government to scrap funding for the Rainforest CRC (Co-operative Research Centre) and the Great Barrier Reef CRC in Queensland, favouring instead to fund research into better techniques to extract coal.

The Cooperative Research Centres were set up by the Hawke government twelve years ago to improve collaboration between research and development in academic and industry circles. An additional goal was to aid in the development of products for commercial use.

"The criteria against which this year's applications are being considered have been tightened up," said Australian Government Science Minister Peter McGauran.

"Where the work of a CRC is shown to have only a tenuous industrial application, funding has not been renewed."

"Its all about giving the taxpayer value for money."

"Research into rainforests provides no economic or consumer benefit. So what's the point of it?" He concluded.

Supporters claim that the Rainforest CRC is one of the world's top three research institutes into rainforest ecology, management and sustainability. It has completed important work in tourism management, feral pigs, invasive weeds and the impact of climate change on the forest ecosystems.

Among the winners this year is the mining industry with the establishment of a $129 million CRC for Mining. The government itself will be pumping in $27 million over the next 7 years; industry providing the rest.

This decision surprised many analysts. Although the Chairman of the CRC Committee (that makes funding recommendations to the Government) is an employee of the Rio Tinto Mining conglomerate, it was not expected that he would recommend funding for a CRC from which his company would directly benefit.

Among the projects that the Mining CRC will be developing is a new dragline system to get coal and minerals out the ground faster.

"This investment in mining technology demonstrates this government's commitment to developing non-renewable energy sources." Claimed John Howard, with pride.

"We got a cushy deal at Kyoto, and we have said that we will allowed ourselves an 8% increase in emissions by 2010, and Queensland has said it is going to stop chopping down trees. Really all we need to do now is bung a few wood chips in with the coke at our power stations and we are in the clear."

"The reductions in emissions made by Europe will more than cover up for our mess."

"We will probably we able to bring the burning of oil shale on line too. And continue to steal oil from the poorest nation in Asia, East Timor." He added.

When challenged on whether the continued expansion of the non-renewable energy market and open cast mining was a sustainable policy, he replied,

"We may have the sunniest climate in the world and are surrounded by windy ocean breezes, but it turns out we live on an island that is virtually made of fossil fuels, bauxite and uranium. It is our duty to dig it up, sell them and burn them. It's a good wheeze."

The loss of funding to the Rainforest CRC (due now to expire in 2006) will be a great loss to the scientific establishment that seeks to uncover the process and effects of global climate change. With a better understanding of the impacts of forests on the carbon cycle we will get more accurate data for future carbon accounting and a fuller picture of the likely reductions in CO₂ emissions that will be required to arrest economic expansionion's impact on global warming.

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