Vica Bayley
The CommSec report highlights the risks being thrust upon the Tasmanian public. Forestry Tasmania’s annual report outlines another year of dismal financial performance. Forestry Tasmania should not be allowed to take any further risks on behalf of the Tasmanian public.
Forestry Tasmania’s financial woes stem from an over-reliance on export woodchipping and Japanese paper companies’ rejection of Tasmanian native forest woodchips in preference for plantation sourced product. Their profit for the year is artificially boosted by the inclusion of millions of dollars of taxpayer money handed out to fund plantation establishment and construct new roads into wilderness areas.
The wood supply deal to feed Gunns’ proposed pulp mill continues Forestry Tasmania’s dependence on a high risk, bulk commodity exports. Worse still, the deal locks in the continued destruction of Tasmania’s forests and industrial scale logging of the upper catchments of already stressed water supplies.
