SATELLITE images highlight the destruction of Tasmania’s irreplaceable forests but are limited to blinkered snapshots that may be outdated and obsolete. A quick check shows that some of these images predate 2003. In general, you can add a clearfell or more to what already tells a sad story of forest mismanagement across Tasmania.
Take the Styx for example. Between the capturing of this image and this year’s signing of the Supplementary RFA, logging has cleared and burnt at least three oldgrowth coupes, despite the increasing focus and attention of the world on this area. Tragically, all of them lie within about 500 metres of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Each day we continue to lose our world-class forests.
Given the millions of taxpayer dollars spent on PR to sell you the forests debate as finished, you may well be excused for believing this no longer happens in Tasmania. We hear, over and over, about world’s best practice, sustainable harvesting and misinformation campaigns. We’re asked not to think at all.
Think again … Since the signing of the Supplementary RFA, logging has continued in many of the high profile, contentious areas around the state. In some it has been accelerated.
The Styx Valley currently has five active coupes being logged.
Crystal Hill forest on the Blue Tier, the site of a much- loved local walking track, is gone.
Wielangta has seen threatened species habitat logged, some of it illegally and all of this despite the scrutiny of the Federal Court and conservationists’ legitimate arguments for protection.
Bulldozers are surely poised
The moratorium on roading in the Weld has run out and the bulldozers are surely poised.
Many of the tall eucalypt forests of the Tarkine fall outside the new reserves, remain unprotected and under the chipper.
The South Sister community have been forced to withdraw their court case that challenged Forestry Tasmania’s plans to log a particularaly sensitive landscape. Their claim has been withdrawn not because they don’t have a case, but because biased legislation places the burden of proof on the community to prove environmental nusiance is “likely” to happen. There is no onus on forestry to prove that this nuisance won’t happen.
Reedy Marsh residents are battling a huge logging proposal on private land that threatens the very fabric of their community.
Recherché Bay remains unresolved despite overwhelming cultural and historical reasons for protection that transcend race, nationality and time. This is a state and national embarrassment on a global scale.
Thousands of gates in state forests remain locked and the public stay barred from the forests they own.
Above none, but underlying all, is a poisonous pulp mill proposal with its dirty eye on 30 years’ access to the forests Tasmanians love.
Clearly the Supplementary RFA has fallen well short of meeting the conservation needs and demands of the majority of the Tasmanian community and has not solved the conflict over our forests. The forest protection offered to parts of the Tarkine and Styx, some of it shown in the images above, is welcomed as a positive step and a vivid example of where our future can lie. It is to be celebrated and cherished as such.
Already ailing timber industry
We should also cherish an opportunity handed to us that could continue the move forward and take further steps towards this alternative, brighter future. While the Supplementary RFA failed Tasmania in forest protection, it finances another opportunity to move the timber industry away from logging each and every one of the places listed above, and more.
Via government cheques, taxpayers have gifted $250 million to an already ailing timber industry. This $250 million represents a lifeline that has been pledged to shift the industry away from logging oldgrowth forest and towards using the existing plantation resource. Spent wisely and transparently, we can protect oldgrowth forests and grow jobs using these existing plantations.
In an age where social security for Joe Public is harder to get and now known as “welfare”, this lifeline needs to be used honestly and accountably to enact the transition long called for by the community. History shows past welfare gifted to the logging industry has not been wisely spent, hence continued forest destruction and an ongoing forest campaign. Joe Public doesn’t deserve to pay AND continue to lose his forests.
The eagle eye of satellites highlight a sorry tale of a short sighted attitude towards our natural environment and a disrespect shown by those privileged to be entrusted with its care. These images, though several years old, are a valuable record of forests in Tasmania. Tragically, they show what could have been saved. Sadly, they feature something that has since been destroyed. Thankfully, some also show what has been preserved through community protest, participation and engagement.
The Tasmanian community will continue to campaign for forest protection. For the clean air and water they sustain us with, for the habitat of unique and precious animals, for a truly promising future, for a stable and harmonious social fabric and for a viable and acceptable Tasmanian timber industry.
Let the next round of satellite images not show that Tasmania has maintained the status quo of internationally condemned environmental vandalism on an industrial scale. Let these next images show world-class forests protected and cherished for the values our economy currently ignores, and no amount of money can buy back.
VICA BAYLEY is forests campaigner, The Wilderness Society
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