Christine Milne
Senator Milne said “Premier Bartlett’s ignorance is matched only by his crassness and crudity in dismissing world-leading scientific research on our forest carbon stores.
Bartlett’s forest carbon ignorance costly for Tasmania: Greens
Milne: Canberra, Tuesday 21 October 2008
Premier Bartlett’s ignorance of the global significance of forest carbon and the economic opportunities that it provides will cost Tasmania dearly in both financial and biodiversity terms, Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne, said today.
Senator Milne has just returned from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Congress in Barcelona where protection of standing forests was seen as a global priority in the climate effort. Investment in the ecosystem and climate services mature forests provide is central to the “New Green Deal” that is to be launched in Europe tomorrow by top global economists and UN leaders.
Premier Bartlett, on the other hand, told The Australian newspaper that “I don’t think the logging of old-growth forests is necessarily related to climate change” and called the clear global position that standing forests are more valuable than logged forests “bullshit”.
Senator Milne said “Premier Bartlett’s ignorance is matched only by his crassness and crudity in dismissing world-leading scientific research on our forest carbon stores.
“As the world recognises that old growth forests provide hugely valuable services in providing clean air and water and storing carbon, Tasmania’s Government is moving to destroy our most valuable resource and the rich biodiversity forests contain.
“Does Premier Bartlett think he knows more than Lord Stern, the IPCC, UNEP, IUCN and the World Bank, who are all advocating ways to stop
logging in tropical and temperate forests across the globe? Does he think he knows more than the countless entrepreneurs who are already investing hundreds of millions of dollars in protecting those forests in the voluntary global carbon market?
“Premier Barlett made much of generational change but it is now clear that he is the younger face of the Bacon Lennon old guard with its closed mind and open wallet logging industry policy. Ignorance is neither kind nor clever.”
“The world is changing. The old economic model of short term profit, of ‘chop it down, dig it up and ship it overseas’, is being swept aside by the tide of the new, green economy.
“Just as Franklin D Roosevelt restored economic stability in the wake of the 1929 stockmarket collapse with his New Deal, so too the Green New Deal is designed to inject global investment spending into securing the environment for future generations.
“If Premier Bartlett is unwilling or unable to get on board with the new economy, he should get out of the way and let those who are ready to embrace the future lead Tasmania into the 21st century.”
