Forestry: the graphic truth

Paul Oosting

For the first time Tasmania’s clearfell future is exposed by new internet technology …

A SOFTWARE program providing a unique combination of the global satellite imagery program Google Earth and Forestry Tasmania’s logging plans, mapping and coupe details gives a bird’s eye view of the logging year ahead. Google Earth, with the new Forestry Tasmania logging plans for 2006/2007 gives a virtual tour of habitat loss, water degradation and climate change logging.

For the first time, people the world over can access the virtual reality of proposed logging in Tasmania via the internet. Technological developments now give us previously unseen viewpoints, and linking these to Forestry Tasmania’s website provides alarmingly graphic illustrations of the scale of woodchip driven landscape change in Tasmania.

These images highlight the close proximity of logging operations to The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. They also clearly show industrial scale logging and landclearing across the state, especially in the proposed wood supply zone for Gunns’ Tamar Valley pulp mill.

While studies show that logging and landclearing are having a detrimental impact on biodiversity values, water catchments and climate change, it is difficult for the public to get beyond locked forestry gates for a true understanding of the scale of the issue. This new technology helps unlock those gates.

This program provides people all over the world the chance to see Tasmanian logging practices for themselves. Concerned public, overseas customers and international forest certifiers can take a virtual tour of what is happening in Tasmania’s forests.

The Google Earth program also has a graphic fly-over which instantly transports the user from Gunns’ export woodchip facilities in Tasmania to the factories of their Japanese customers.

The trip from a Tasmanian woodchip mill to the yards of Japanese paper makers highlights the reality of the export woodchip industry. Huge piles of Tasmanian native forests lay piled on wharves awaiting export or processing. This flyover is accessed by clicking on the pop-up box on Gunns woodchip mill at Longreach.

The program is available for public access The Wilderness Society’s website, www.wilderness.org.au