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I am very happy to have Paul Lennon as spokesperson for the industry: Terry Edwards (Forest Industry Association) on Tim Cox, Monday April 30.
The Mercury: Labor forest policy brawl
Those promises …
MEDIA RELEASE 31 March 2006
HOWARD GOVERNMENT ADMITTED IT BROKE PROMISE IN STYX AND FLORENTINE VALLEYS
‘4730 hectares saved’ instead of promised 18,700 hectares
The Howard Government has admitted it broke its promise to protect 18,700 hectares of oldgrowth forest in the Styx and Florentine Valleys.
“Fresh destruction of oldgrowth forests in the Styx and Florentine valleys is occurring because Prime Minister John Howard broke his promise to protect these areas,” said Wilderness Society Campaign Coordinator, Geoff Law.
In October 2004, the Prime Minister promised: immediate protection of 18,700 hectares of oldgrowth forest in the Styx and Florentine valleys along the Eastern Boundary World Heritage Area. Yesterday, in response to a question by Greens Senator Christine Milne, Senator Nick Minchin denied that the promise had been broken.
However, the Government’s literature about the Howard-Lennon agreement of last May admits that the protected areas in the Styx and Florentine contain ‘4730 hectares of old-growth eucalypt against a target of 18,700 hectares’. (The Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement, Fact Sheet No. 3)
“The Government admits that it failed to meet its promise by nearly 14,000 hectares of oldgrowth,” said Mr Law. “The giant trees in these forests are now being destroyed.”
Mr Law said that logging is having serious impacts on World Heritage values in both the Styx and Florentine valleys.
The logging has created two new flashpoints – one in the Styx, where lone community campaigner Peter Firth has been sitting in a 75-metre-tall swamp gum in the path of logging operations for 10 days; and one in the upper Florentine, where conservationists yesterday protested against the bulldozing of a new logging road into a previously untouched part of the Florentine valley.
The fresh destruction in the upper Florentine occurred in the presence of two Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles – listed as endangered.
“Conservationists are having to do the Prime Minister’s job for him. Even with $250 million allocated to the logging industry, the Government still could not fulfil its promises to the Australian people to save 18,700 ha of irreplaceable oldgrowth forests in the Styx and Florentine valleys.”
