Environment
Save Wielangta Forest
Fiona Scott
Save Wielangta, Premier Bartlett and Prime Minister Rudd. You have been elected to support the people and you have the power to intervene. Please intervene to stop this destructive, marginal profit logging from happening. The loss for all of us, if you don’t act, will be greater than any gain made by one unethical/no future business. Re-write the Tasmania RFA overnight, reverse the Howard-Lennon pact to log Wielangta, or give notice to terminate the RFA altogether. Please Act. Wielangta Forest is Tasmania’s Amazon, yet to be discovered as a resource of diversity.
Save Wielangta Forest
HAVING lived on each side of the Wielangta Range for most of my life, it is distressing to see the unethical manipulations of governments and business being supported again & again.
Wielangta forest represents a rare gem of diversity given its topography and species isolation in each valley. Sadly this was recognised as a commercial threat when industry and politicians ensured that the Wielangta area could never be Nationally Estate protected. These unscrupulous people established the National Estate register with a land size benchmark at 64,000 hectares, which effectively excluded Wielangta from any form of protection under the National Estate legislation. The decision was formulated to support commercial interests, nothing else.
Sly, sneaky…yes that is the industry game.
Now the profit has gone and so too, the real opportunity. Discoveries unmade or suppressed represent a loss for medical researchers, a loss for tourism, and a loss for Tasmanians that will live past 2020.
Tasmania suffers at the hands of a limited and unintelligent program for money making in the State. Like when Mr Rundle removed hypothecation from our road maintenance, our taxes, without telling the people, to pay for his 40% pay rise. Like when North broken Hill and TPFH have already logged all coupes in Wielangta Forest on Tasmania’s south east, taken their money elsewhere and then the government gives GUNNS the right to smash, trash and poison the only remaining Reserve… To the detriment to the wedge tail eagle, swift parrots, stag beetle and now, a rare orchid has been documented at the same site in the past few weeks.
Economics and business dealings in Tasmania seem to have been handled in the same way for years, with an inferiority complex & desperation to improve popularity of the State. Relegating our politicians to the acts of desperate little boys, offering sweetners and incentives to bigger corporate boys to impress and get investment in or keep it. I personally witnessed this in over 4 different governments and each party politician was the same.
Desperate politicians with no vision beyond 4 years, are easily manipulated by big business, and Tasmanians are not getting the best deal. We are being taken for a ride that is going to leave us with nothing. No resources or self supporting economy.
The courts decided that while it was unlikely that the forestry industry or body would take steps to protect the endangered species threatened by logging in Wielangta, the legality of the contract entered into required the Premier and or Prime Minister to intervene to veto the operation. Forestry Tasmania put a road through despite previous court actions that have called for a halt until decisions were finalized. Sabotaging any dissent with the introduction of disease and degrading the site. The Forest Practices Plan is unchanged from three years ago, despite parrot expert Peter Brown describing the forest as some of ‘the finest Swift Parrot breeding habitat’ he had ever seen and despite the mass of new information unearthed by the trial and since. Forestry seem determined to bear out Justice Marshall’s conclusion that they are unlikely to take the ‘far more protective stance’ required to protect the beetle, eagle and parrot.
The Senate inquiry into Australia’s environmental laws is welcomed, noting the catastrophic decline of endangered species and the impact of climate change on top of other threats. The terms of reference include the ‘effectiveness’ of Regional Forest Agreements in protecting biodiversity. This is not enough or soon enough to save what is currently threatened. Premier Bartlett and Prime Minister Rudd, it is up to you ….
Save Wielangta, Premier Bartlett and Prime Minister Rudd. You have been elected to support the people and you have the power to intervene. Please intervene to stop this destructive, marginal profit logging from happening.
The loss for all of us, if you don’t act, will be greater than any gain made by one unethical/no future business. Re-write the Tasmania RFA overnight, reverse the Howard-Lennon pact to log Wielangta, or give notice to terminate the RFA altogether. Please Act. Wielangta Forest is Tasmania’s Amazon, yet to be discovered as a resource of diversity.
Sometimes the small things are important, like children, like breathing, like having enough to eat. Wielangta Forest is not big but it is a ‘Tardis’ on the inside with new & endangered species being discovered daily. Clearly logging this last reserve is not the highest and best decision for all concerned. You have our future to consider…at least seven generations hence.
The ANU report just released confirms our finding that old growth forest is of vastly more value as carbon sink than any re-growth or plantation. Saving Wielangta Forest is more valuable to our economy that logging it.
The ANU collated field and satellite data, and found the international standard for the carbon storage potential of temperate forests was a long way out …
Untouched forests store 3 times more carbon – Reuters
Thank you for your time and ethical actions.
Regards
Fiona Scott