Vica Bayley
In offering the so-called “olive branch” to the Wilderness Society, the modus operandi of Forestry Tasmania boss Bob Gordon needs careful scrutiny. By having his staff email a one line reference to this offer to me one minute, then exclusively leaking it to the Mercury as a major new peace initiative the next, Mr Gordon displays a gross lack of integrity, serious breach of trust and disrespect for the process he is supposedly trying to set up.
By running this as an exclusive to the Mercury, and leading them to believe it was a new, formal and groundbreaking initiative, Forestry Tasmania highlight the fact that that there was more media strategy than peace plan behind this “offer”. It also ignores the reality of an existing dialogue.
The Wilderness Society already has a healthy dialogue with Forestry Tasmania. The most recent protest we held was a walk through threatened forests in the Upper Florentine on the Australia Day holiday. Forestry Tasmania was informed of this event one week in advance and no contractors were present on the day. The police were notified before the event and there have been no subsequent complaints from Forestry Tasmania, the contractors or police. The actions of Mr Gordon jeopardise, not enhance, this existing dialogue.
In manipulating the media and sidelining the actual groups and individuals who are proudly carrying out the protests that concern Mr Gordon, he is immediately undermining the peace plan that the Mercury’s editorial praises him for. Let’s face it, Mr Gordon believes he knows who is responsible for organising protests in the Weld Valley, he served summons on them to try to force them to stop. But have they been invited to talk? No. Likewise, spokespeople from protests in the Upper Florentine are on record in the Mercury (26 Feb) effectively saying “what about us?”
The Wilderness Society is prepared to discuss forest issues with Mr Gordon. But, this meeting should not ignore the fundamental reasons why the community wants to see its forests protected, and why parts of the community are prepared to stand up to save it.
Key reasons that need to be discussed include climate change and the massive contribution of greenhouse gas emissions made by the logging industry; threatened species and the disgraceful law change that gives loggers a licence to extinguish our unique plants and animals; and the massive amounts of taxpayer money being spent to build roads into pristine areas and prop up unviable oldgrowth forest logging.
Mr Gordon’s behaviour as head of the state government’s pulp mill cheer squad, the Pulp Mill Task Force, is well documented. It severely damaged the assessment of the pulp mill. We welcome honest dialogue, but I urge him to reform his approach to resolving the current impasse in the forest debate. He can do this by withdrawing logging operations in highly contentious forests and engaging directly with forest based protestors themselves.
Sidelining those actually protesting in the forest, manipulating the media and treating conservationists with contempt will only deepen the divide and place a resolution to the debate further out of reach.
The Dialogue: Gordon_Protests_Dialogue_Feb_07._scan.pdf
