The photographers’ lament

Rob Blakers An open letter regarding Gunns’ proposed pulp mill from Tasmanian wilderness, landscape and wildlife photographers and publishers.

This letter represents the collective view of the twenty-eight wilderness, landscape and wildlife photographers listed below, all of whom work and have published within Tasmania. The views outlined here have been gained through the course of our professional lives – which in some cases extend beyond thirty years, within Tasmania’s wild and natural landscapes.

At the outset we are compelled to say that we have been seriously disturbed by the flawed processes and one-sided assessments through which this proposal has been forced upon Tasmanian communities, and the apparent contempt that the state government has shown for the obvious concerns expressed.

We regard the pulp mill itself with grave concern. We believe that this mill proposal is problematic for a number of reasons, including toxic emissions, the expansion of plantations into productive agricultural land, increased water usage, and health and safety issues associated with increased log truck traffic.

Diver and sponge garden

Ben Lomond forests

Groom River, Blue Tier

Rattler Range

Tombstone Creek

The Natural Landscape

Our prime focus and area of expertise relates to natural forested landscapes and the wildlife within those forests from which it is proposed that the increased extraction of logs would come. This is particularly so for native forests in Tasmania’s northeast, in areas such as the Blue Tier, the foothills of the Ben Lomond National Park, and the catchments of the North and South Esk Rivers – part of Launceston’s water supply. Logging impacts from the mill would not be confined to the northeast, and iconic areas such as The Great Western Tiers, the Tarkine, the Tasman Peninsular and the southern forests would also be affected.

These are extraordinarily beautiful, diverse and photogenic natural areas, both in their own right and in many cases as adjuncts to neighbouring World Heritage Areas, national parks and reserves.

Impacts upon native forests, should the mill go ahead, would be considerable and irreversible. The mill would require a doubling of logging volumes, (from three and a half to seven million tonnes per annum). Wood sourced for the mill from native forests would be, for an indeterminate period, additional to that which would continue to be exported as woodchips. Tasmanian forest management would be “locked in” to an inflexible, natural-resource hungry future, dominated by a high volume, low value industry. This would put immense pressure on forests, including high conservation-value forests. Increased conversion of native forest to tree farms, loss of bio-diversity, and increased atmospheric impacts of regeneration burns would occur at a statewide level.

In general, the “non-wood” attributes of undisturbed forests – for instance the pivotal role they play in the water cycle by attracting, retaining and slowly releasing moisture, have been severely undervalued in consideration of this project. Further, the lethal impacts on wildlife of logging have been largely ignored. Wildlife mortality during logging is high, due both to the felling of trees that harbour animals, through the laying of 1080 poison (on private land) and through loss of critical habitat.

There has also been insufficient recognition that native forest is not a “free good”, and that the entities comprising a natural forest, which may have been evolving to their present state over thousands of years, have above and beyond any utilitarian value to humans the right to exist for their own sake. The transformation of vibrant, unique, ancient, life-filled forests into undifferentiated pulp, which is fed into a volatile global market is a farcical and tragic example of “value-adding”.

With regard to the marine environment, effluent from the proposed pulp mill may have serious consequences at the proposed outfall in Bass Strait. Tenth Island and the Tamar Estuary at Low Head are spectacular dive sites, considered by many to be equal to or better than anything found on the Great Barrier Reef. Dives in this area allows opportunities to encounter fur seals or experience giant kelp forests, and sponge gardens. Bottlenose dolphins are often seen swimming in the area where pollution would be released and Australian fur seals from the nearby seal colony at Tenth Island feed in this area. Persistent organic pollutants are a significant threat to such animals. Clear, clean water and an unpolluted marine environment are essential if such natural values are to continue to exist.

Hydrodynamic modeling for the mill is widely recognised as being inadequate. Information about the movement of effluent in Bass Strait and persistent organic pollutants through the marine ecosystem is currently lacking, and a sufficiently detailed monitoring program that would identify problems at an early stage has still not been proposed.

Tasmania’s Clean, Green Image

Wilderness photography has played a fundamental role in the creation and evolution of the clean and green image that Tasmania enjoys internationally. Photographs of Tasmania’s wild landscapes and forests have built Tasmania’s reputation as a beautiful, natural island. Tasmania’s photographers have worked hard, in arduous conditions and over a long period of time, to contribute significantly to the building of Tasmania’s ”brand” and ensuring its robustness through our continued work. Nature photography has been used frequently for a wide range of products, providing an important marketing advantage for the Tasmanian tourism industry and for a range of high value niche market goods and services.

There is considerable perception of potential damage to the Tasmania “brand”, should the proposed mill go ahead. This pertains particularly but is not confined to the tourism industry, one of Tasmania’s leading revenue and employment generators. View-fields from roads and from mountains, already tarnished by the visual impacts of logging and much noted by visitors to the state would be further damaged by the increased rate of logging and the further spread of felled forests. The destruction of the very landscapes that have contributed to Tasmania’s image, along with toxic emissions from the pulp mill itself, would seriously undermine the Tasmanian “brand”. The collective work of more than one generation of photographers would be sullied, were this mill to proceed.

In conclusion, we do not support this mill and regard it as a step in precisely the wrong direction for Tasmania. It epitomises a return to the environmentally destructive ways that have historically been so damaging to this beautiful island.

Chris Bell
Rob Blakers Matt Brain
Jon Bryan Grant Dixon Liz Dombrovskis
Rick Eaves Wolfgang Glowacki
Loic le Guilly
Dennis Harding
Martin Hawes
Mark Humphries Dave James
Ian Jeanneret
Geoffrey Lea Ted Mead Geoff Murray Matthew Newton Kip Nunn
Simon Olding Kirsty Pilkington Ian Riley
Joe Shemesh Andy Townsend Melva Truchanas Glen Turvey Ian Wallace Dave Watts

Chris Bell
One of Australia’s premier landscape photographers, Chris is the publisher of three internationally acclaimed Tasmanian large format books.

Rob Blakers
Publisher of Tasmanian wilderness books, posters, cards, calendars and diaries for over 15 years.

Matt Brain
Large format photographer, with numerous published works.

Jon Bryan
One of Australia’s leading marine photographers.

Grant Dixon
Widely published nature, travel and adventure photographer and professional natural scientist. Grant has photographed extensively on all seven continents.

Liz Dombrovskis
Publisher of the photographs of the late Peter Dombrovskis, pre-eminent amongst Australia’s landscape photographers.

Rick Eaves
Extensively published, both in Australia and internationally. Numerous images have been used by Tourism Tasmania and regional tourism bodies.

Wolfgang Glowacki
Fine arts photographer specialising in the finer detail of nature.

Loic le Guilly
Internationally credited landscape and commercial photographer. Publisher of Tasmanian calendars.

Dennis Harding
Professional landscape photographer and author of seven major Tasmanian books and numerous tourism pictorials, as well as a large number of calendars, posters, cards and DVDs. Many of his images have been seen in books and magazines around the world.

Martin Hawes
Wilderness photographer, writer and wilderness management consultant. Martin has been photographing Tasmania’s wild places for over 35 years. His photographs have appeared in numerous publications and he has authored two books. Martin’s recent works include the multimedia production The Island (2000), and the ‘imperfections’ exhibition (2005).

Mark Humphries
Publisher of “Wilderness: The essence of a wild land”, an acclaimed folio of Tasmanian landscape images.

Dave James
A mix of zoologist, climbing instructor and photographer, Dave has been elsewhere enough to know Tasmania is special at a global scale.

Ian Jeanneret.
Professional landscape, wildlife and travel photographer.

Geoffrey Lea
Publisher of Tasmanian landscape images on postcards and posters for the past 18 years. His photographs have appeared on Australian stamps, in national and international magazines and in Tasmanian tourism advertisements. He was Tasmanian Professional Photographer of the Year in 2003 and is Australian Landscape Photographer of the Year in 2006.

Ted Mead.
Multiple winner of Australian Nature Photographer of the Year awards. Ted’s extensive national collection is represented in the world’s premier stock agencies and his work has been extensively published around the world. Recipient of an Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship in 2006.

Geoff Murray.
Large format photographer with very extensive credits both within Tasmania, and internationally.

Matthew Newton.
In recent years Matthew Newton has produced feature articles on Tasmania for the New York Times magazine, National Geographic Belgium, Qantas the Australian Way and Australian Geographic, among others. He worked as stills photographer on the AFI award winning documentary Wildness: the story of celebrated photographers, Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis and was Director of Photography on Real Life Water Rats screened on ABC.

Kip Nunn.
Publisher of photographic cards and book, and the photographer of a recently produced Old Growth Forests poster, featuring a stunning photograph of the Upper Florentine Valley at dawn.

Simon Olding.
Studied Scientific Photography at RMIT and has an extensive record as a professional photographer. He has been represented at the Monash University Gallery, Kilcardy Gallery, Wilderness Gallery, and the Tasmanian Land Conservancy Gallery.

Kirsty Pilkington
Kirsty is an artist who specialises in photographing animals and birds that capture her heart. Her work has been represented in numerous exhibitions. Her initial models, orphaned wildlife she reared by hand, inspired a range of quality cards to help raise the profile of animal advocacy and encourage their care and respect.

Ian Riley
Ian is a Hobart based landscape photographer, currently using a large format view camera to record images of natural Tasmania.
Joe Shemesh.
Extensively published photographer and highly acclaimed Tasmanian natural history cinema-photographer, with many tourism and nature based film commissions, including Messages from the Tarkine (2004).

Melva Truchanas
Publisher of the photographs of the late, esteemed, Olegas Truchanas, Australia’s first and foremost wilderness photographer.

Andy Townsend
Andy has photographed extensively in Australia, New Zealand, North America, Northern Europe and Antarctica. He has had a variety of work published in diaries, calendars, magazines and books around the world. Award winner in the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Glen Turvey.
Operations manager for Team Discovery – a provider of outdoor corporate team building facilitation. Glen has a Diploma of Art & Design (majoring in photography). His work has been published in numerous books and magazines and he has supplied images to Tourism Tasmania’s image library.

Ian Wallace.
Tasmanian landscape photographer. Ian conducts photographic workshops (with Loïc Le Guilly) at Cradle Mountain as well as producing a range of cards, posters, calendar and books. Featured as a Tasmanian Living Artist in 2005.

Dave Watts
Internationally recognised wildlife photographer, with Australia’s largest and finest photographic collection of rare and endangered species. Dave has a very extensive collection of wildlife images from across the globe, and has authored 13 books. His work has been featured on numerous Australian stamps, and in calendars, posters, cards, and a myriad of other publications world-wide. Recipient of Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship.