Peter Brenner
These forestry practices have been harmoniously chugging along to everybody’s great contentment for a long time. Why? Because there is a political will (and resulting legislation plus funding) to do the right thing. The forest is officially regarded as a multi-purpose, high value public asset that needs to be carefully managed in a balanced way (the sort of outlandish fights over forestry practices we are currently enduring in Tasmania took place in countries like Switzerland between about 1850 and 1890). In Switzerland national forestry legislation has been in place since around 1890.
THE current pulp mill/forestry dilemma in Tasmania should be used as a moment for reflection. Reflection on the business practices that have clearly seen their day and should be replaced by far sounder considerations, responding to the necessities of a resource strapped world in global warming mode.
We should treat the debacle as a wake-up call for decision makers to get their heads around integrated sustainable planning, creative and responsible resource management, and a healthy respect for political and legal processes. Time therefore to seriously give Tasmania a chance to start moving into the “new economy” approach.
Sustainable forestry
The Tasmanian forestry is sustainable only in some sort of crude engineering sense, in that timber gets harvested and is replaced by new plantations. (If it did not do that we would have to call it forest mining). And yes, there is a high degree of professionalism within this very narrow bandwidth of forestry practice: workplace health and safety, logistics, technical gear etc. A kind of militaristic approach to an essentially agricultural pursuit.
Could there be better forestry practices than this? Absolutely! But some basic economic and political issues have to be revisited. Check out central Europe and ask yourself why there are sustainable forestry and timber processing principles in a highly populated area such as central Europe, using:
• no clear-felling,
• no chemicals,
• no encroachment on water,
• no air pollution,
• no eye sores.
These forestry practices have been harmoniously chugging along to everybody’s great contentment for a long time. Why? Because there is a political will (and resulting legislation plus funding) to do the right thing.
The forest is officially regarded as a multi-purpose, high value public asset that needs to be carefully managed in a balanced way (the sort of outlandish fights over forestry practices we are currently enduring in Tasmania took place in countries like Switzerland between about 1850 and 1890).
In Switzerland national forestry legislation has been in place since around 1890. In 1993 it was streamlined to further clarify the national policy of sustainability and biodiversity. The legislation is built around a three pillar approach. The equally weighted pillars are:
• Timber harvesting
• Recreation
• Forests’ protection role
Here are Switzerland’s (popn: 7m) achievements under this policy:
• a vibrant, technically advanced, creative imber processing industry, employing around 100,000 people; the (second largest industrial sector employer in Switzerland after the chemical industry) using mostly local timbers,
• all forests publicly accessible and extensively used for recreational purposes by a proud, appreciative and environmentally educated population,
• billions of dollars generated annually by nurturing protection forests for erosion control in mountain areas (land slides, rock falls, avalanche protection, water supply)
Could Tasmania choose a comparable approach? The answer is yes. It changed tack when whaling and sealing was abandoned for more civilised industries. It’s time to redirect its forestry practices as well.
However, there must be a sober and unbiased assessment of our island options. Decision makers can and should play a decisive role in a turn-around process towards truly integrated forestry practices (who else could do it?). The information is out there. Intelligent and knowledgeable minds are available within and outside Tasmania. But it takes the will to discard the myopic goggles, through which still too many Tasmanians habitually view their economic, social and environmental situation.
Now compare the highly successful and balanced European forestry model with the Tasmanian practices. Viewed in a greater context, the Tasmanian forestry practice really does look rather destructive, as it:
• uses harvesting practices that show little regard for natural processes or sustainability in a wider sense (biodiversity, soil preservation, water management, use of chemicals, degradation of landscape and many more),
• is allowed to invade large tracts of valuable arable land with timber monocultures at a time where it has finally dawned on large numbers of Australians that we are facing a monumental nationwide agricultural food production crisis that calls for very careful and knowledgeable management of productive soils and water catchments,
• has so far shown little interest or even actively disregards the needs of smaller scale Tasmanian downstream timber processors, from local and regional sawmills to furniture producers and similar,
• uses vast quantities of chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, 1080, fertilisers, fire accelerators),
• violates water management issues despite existing (absurdly minimalist) regulations
• creates significant atmospheric pollution on a recurring annual basis.
• has created a State-wide obsessive and debilitating psychological blackout of real world models, thus clouding all aspects of Tasmanian educational and civic dialogue with simplistic myths.
One does have to wonder how any of this can be called world best practice and why any decision maker would wish it on a population, or would base an economy on it.
Pulp mill
Seen in the above context it becomes clear that a pulp mill of the proposed magnitude and in the proposed location (not only the Tamar region, but Tasmania in general as an island far from global activity hubs) cannot be a contemporary answer to downstream manufacturing of forest products or sensible land use.
Bulldozing democratic and professional checks and balances out of the way cannot be the remedy to myopic planning. As a decision maker you are constantly asked to take short term aspirations from constituents and lobby groups on board. However, you are also asked to provide leadership and help people understand the bigger picture, which – after all – is vitally important in this age of transition to a smarter, resource preserving society.
Tasmania unfortunately badly lags behind in the positive developments that are currently underway worldwide. Diehard clinging to ultraconservative and by now stale views of social, economic and environmental issues should be overcome and the inspiration of creative social and physical resource management embraced.
In doing so decisionmakers would be taking a significant step in leading Tasmania towards the “new economy”. Such a Tasmania would then be truly attractive to the new breed of investors. Investors, who understand the social, economic and environmental gains to be had from strong, integrated sustainability policies responding to the call for energy conservation, development of renewable resources and decentralised economic activities.
Take courage and help Tasmania turn the corner!
Peter Brenner is a Swiss/Australian citizen (been in Tasmania for a total of 13 years) and former “Head Information” of the Swiss Timber Information Council (Lignum). He presented this to Tasmanian MPs.
