Black Friday for Tasmania's Forests

Prime Minister John Howard and Tasmanian State Premier Paul Lennon said they were crossing the borders of party politics on Friday 13th May 2005, when they jointly announced the long awaited federal Liberal policy on Tasmania’s Forests. The launch was done amidst the Styx Valley forests and their towering eucalypts, along with a bus load of journalists and the Forestry Union, the CFMEU. Not a single conservationist to be seen.

Howard and Lennon were to become, as Greens Senator Bob Brown put it, soul brothers in destruction, as they let down the Australian community by breaking a raft of promises (surprise?) and condemning tens of thousands of hectares of old growth forests to the bulldozers and chainsaws.

Gone was the protection of thousands of hectares of high conservation value forests across Tasmania. Of the promise to protect 170,000 hectares of forest, only 58,000ha was given even basic protection from logging, in the form of a formal reserve. The rest, some 60% of the package is a collection of informal reserves which offer no real protection and which may not have been logged anyway.

What has been offered is partial protection in a mix of formal and informal reserves, 73,000 hectares in the Tarkine forests of the NW and 13,000 hectares of the Styx Valley in the South. At first glance this may seem like a huge win, yet these reserves still allow mining and large-scale development such as tourism resorts. This is in stark contrast to federal Labor’s election promise to ensure that these areas were to receive the highest protection possible as National Parks and World Heritage Areas. Small scraps and slithers of largely unloggable forest was also offered protection in places such as The Blue Tier, Wielangta, Eastern Tiers and the NE Highlands.

What have been missed out are forests like the Weld Valley in the far south of the State. This is a place that was mentioned in the Liberal Forest Policy and post election by Liberal Ministers as a valley worthy of protection. The Weld has had its tall forests and wild river recognised by the World Heritage Bureau as a place of international significance, Tasmania’s own Parks and Wildlife Service has also called for its protection. Instead these grand forests will be fed to the woodchipper, its rare and endangered animals, such as the Wedge Tailed Eagle and the Eastern Quoll will be face the threat of the chainsaws.

Gone was the promise of ending 1080 poison on private land. Despite widespread horror at this toxic poison’s effect on native wildlife, Howard has only promised to ‘reduce’ its use. 1080 has been banned in the USA since the 1970’s and has very restricted use in every other state in Australia. Its effects produce a slow and painful death for hundreds of thousands of wallabies, possums and pademelons each year in Tasmania. At present anyone who says they have trouble with wildlife effecting their crops can apply to get some.

A promise to reduce clearfelling in old growth forests sounds good until you work out what is to replace it. Every year 20,000 hectares of native forests are logged in Tasmania, most of this is clearfelled. This outdated and brutal technique clears every single tree, limb and leaf in areas of up to 120 hectares at a time. All the native creatures that live there are either forced to leave or killed. Howard’s promise is to reduce the amount of clearfelling to 20% of old growth forests by 2010. The rest of the old growth face a new method that forestry calls aggregated retention. This really is just clump clearfelling, where the forest is cut up into circular patterns, like a golf course. No real change for the tree or the animals.

Slipped in with the clearfelling promise was an endorsement of old growth Forest Furnaces. Banned in every eastern state, native forest fuelled power stations have been given the blessing of the Howard government. This has been done with the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET), through which the Federal Liberals have allowed the burning of ancient forests to be classed as renewable energy alongside solar and wind power. The electricity from this forest eating plant will be sold to Victorian consumers as clean, green power.

Landclearing has been given the green light until 2010. This is when the Howard government has set a deadline for the end of conversion of native forests to plantations. In the meantime plantation establishment on land where old growth forests once stood, will be moving full speed ahead.

$250 million dollars, which included $2 million for PR work, is to be spent on this horror package for Tasmania’s forests. Prime Minister Howard and State Premier Lennon have called it a ‘Community Forest Agreement’. Without consulting the community or the 15 or so conservation groups that called for 240,000 hectares of high conservation value forests to be given complete protection in national parks. The soul brothers of destruction have said that this will end the forest debate in Tasmania. It will not. The package is an insult and only serves to prop up an industry that has already received half a billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies since the early 1980’s.

Adam Burling