phill Parsons

No announcements on the cessation of logging and the end of the world have come forth since the brouhaha following the Wielangta decision prior to Christmas. We can only assume that all current logging plans are under review and that the advertisements for the additional jobs at the rubber stamp factory of the Forest Practice Authority will appear in Saturdays’ papers, assuming they are not ignoring the implications of the decision by the Federal Court by betting it will be made irrelevant soon.

One has to ask what is the point of a system of classisfications of a degree of threat to a species if it does not result in actions to promote that species recovery.

WELL KNOWN throughout the industry and no secret since Senator Abetz declared it, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is to be amended to overcome any difficulty the Wielangta decision ruling made for development and in particular forestry in Tasmania, where it fails to promote the recovery of threatened species.

The current objects of the Act are below;

Objects of Act

(1) The objects of this Act are:

(a) to provide for the protection of the environment, especially those aspects of the environment that are matters of national environmental significance; and

[This would seem to require action to prevent dangerous climate change]

(b) to promote ecologically sustainable development through the conservation and ecologically sustainable use of natural resources; and

(c) to promote the conservation of biodiversity; and

(ca) to provide for the protection and conservation of heritage; and

(d) to promote a co-operative approach to the protection and management of the environment involving governments, the community, land-holders and indigenous peoples; and

(e) to assist in the co-operative implementation of Australia’s international environmental responsibilities; and

(f) to recognise the role of indigenous people in the conservation and ecologically sustainable use of Australia’s biodiversity; and

(g) to promote the use of indigenous peoples’ knowledge of biodiversity with the involvement of, and in co-operation with, the owners of the knowledge.

(2) In order to achieve its objects, the Act:

(e) enhances Australia’s capacity to ensure the conservation of its biodiversity by including provisions to:

(i) protect native species (and in particular prevent the extinction, and promote the recovery, of threatened species) and ensure the conservation of migratory species; and

(ii) establish an Australian Whale Sanctuary to ensure the conservation of whales and other cetaceans; and

(iii) protect ecosystems by means that include the establishment and management of reserves, the recognition and protection of ecological communities and the promotion of off-reserve conservation measures; and

(iv) identify processes that threaten all levels of biodiversity and implement plans to address these processes; and

The part that has created difficulty is the reading of the object of the act [2] protect native species (and in particular prevent the extinction, and promote the recovery, of threatened species).

The wording is as plain as day although the industry view is that clever argument [sophistry] won the day in court.

To amend the Act the agreement of the Australian Senate is required and as the government holds a majority and the issue is environmental one cannot imagine Barnaby Joyce or any other government Senator who has crossed the floor doing so on this one.

Therefore the vote of the Family First Senator will not be required, their agreement with the government for family impact statements requiring no action.

Returning to sitting on the 6th of February the Senate should face the amendments before the May Budget.

It will be interesting to see what position the Australian Labor Party takes having abandoned the Latham attempt to save Tasmania’s forests at the last election and moved under Beazley and now Rudd to the same position as the government, supporting the unchangeable Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement and the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement that changed the unchangeable RFA by agreement of the 2 parties, albeit meaninglessly, as the Federal Court found, in relation to achieving the Objects of the EPBC Act 1999.

Rudd has moved the Labor position to the Dick Adams factional position. Senator Kerry O’Brian is a member. Tasmanians forests are to be fed into the export woodchip process or a pulpmill, whatever the industry believes is best for it.

So now we have the wonder boy, recruited to turn those lost Labor voters away from voting Green, facing not only expanded uranium mining as a possibility and thus the potential for greater nuclear weapons proliferation, something opposed by the candidate when he stood for the Nuclear Disarmament Party, but also changes to the act meant to protect threatened species that will lessen their protections and may make them more vulnerable.

So, the question is what is the worth of Peter Garrett’s environmental credibility.

Is it a change to the policy on the number of uranium mines, a beautiful false wedge dreamed up by the Liberal strategy team.

Is it the increased rate of destruction of Tasmania’s forests with the advent of the pulp mill in an attempt to win back the 2 House seats Braddon and Bass. After all the additional timber has to come from some forest or other near to the 4 mills.

Or is it allowing the change to the EPBC Act to put all threatened species under greater threat by causing the provision to promote the recovery to have less meaning than it has had to date. The Wielangta decision found that Forestry Tasmania’s actions to promote recovery were wanting in their plans for that forest and therefore by extension have been and still are so.

It will be interesting to see how Labor reacts under its new shadow on the Environment [with Climate Change added but not addressed by a title in the government’s ministry] to this test of their credibility towards threatened elements of the biodiversity.

No announcements on the cessation of logging and the end of the world have come forth since the brouhaha following the Wielangta decision prior to Christmas. We can only assume that all current logging plans are under review and that the advertisements for the additional jobs at the rubber stamp factory of the Forest Practice Authority will appear in Saturdays papers, assuming they are not ignoring the implications of the decision by the Federal Court by betting it will be made irrelevant soon.

One has to ask what is the point of a system of classisfications of a degree of threat to a species if it does not result in actions to promote that species recovery.

We have had many examples but I will use 2.

The Meander Dam did not take regard of the vulnerable vegetation community [an RFA classification] of shrubby Eucalyptus ovata within the impoundment and nor has it aken into account the vulnerable species, the spotted tail quoll that was shown to have a high resident population until they were disappeared.

Recently, after its longest hearing, the Forest Practices Tribunal approved an 1100ha Private Timber Reserve at Reedy Marsh for the Porter’s of Woodville. The Tribunal heard in evidence that each and every of the 8 threatened species would be prevented from local extinction and indeed their recovery would be promoted in the Forest Practices Plans that would follow the declaration of the reserve and therefore it was not relevant to consider them.

The Wielangta decision showed that the government’s business enterprise had failed to do this in its planning process and so I cannot see how Gunns, with fewer resources, could do the same.

So not only does the threat of dangerous climate change driven by human activity mean that we will see changes in the status of a wide range of species with an expectation that the vulnerable and endangered will move inexorably toward the extinct category but that government will be acting to lessen the protections against such an outcome.

phill Parsons will report on these changes if they pass into law.