Growth pains and gridlock come to Hobart, and building more roads is not the best way out

Hobart is a city with growing pains. As Australia’s second-oldest city, it might be likened to an octogenarian suddenly experiencing a teenage “growth spurt”. Growth is occurring both in visitor numbers and new residents.

The morning traffic builds up on the Tasman
Highway at Montagu Bay. Congestion has
become a hot issue for Hobart residents.

The March 3 state election has drawn attention to several growth-related issues, including housing affordability, rental vacancies and traffic congestion. These issues are not new for many Australian cities, or indeed for cities globally. But in Hobart they are almost as surprising as the city’s midwinter 2017 nude swim.

Read the piece on The Conversation - “Growth pains and gridlock come to Hobart, and building more roads is not the best way out.”

Prime greater glider habitat going, going, gone @$80/ cu m

$80/cu m – that’ll be roughly the value of timber from Barjarg Flat coupe, once the trees have been converted to firewood. Vicforests is at pains to convince everyone that only the rubbish leftover from their logged coupes is used for firewood, but one look at the yard that sources firewood from local forests, puts paid to that fiction. These images show that Vicforests is plundering local forests for a quick buck and the lowest quality forest product – firewood! Firewood is not a by-product of local logging – it appears to be driving the whole enterprise!

The sign on the gate gives some indication of the values driving this business.

Firewood is certainly a useful commodity, but can Environment Minister d’Ambrosio honestly sit on her hands while some of the best Greater Glider habitat in Victoria might be turned into firewood by Vicforests? Perhaps these photos of the local firewood yard just outside Mansfield will help convince her that the process that is meant to protect threatened species, also allows their habitat to be logged for firewood – the system is broken!

Read the Our Strathbogie Forest News story - “Prime greater glider habitat going, going, gone @$80/ cu m.”