Opening a new front in the neverending Tasmanian War

NEIL SMITH
The forces of darkness – the forestry industry – have taken a new tack in their neverending efforts to shape the world the way they want it, and nullify opposition to the greatest extent possible. At least, that’s the way I see it. I refer to the recent article on TT by one Eric B Johnson (or Johnston) and the ensuing correspondence: Wilderness Society ‘welcomed to the real world’
Johnson styles himself a senior partner in a firm of forestry consultants. Firm of public relations consultants, more likely. He or his bosses have, it seems, come up with a new strategy to split the opposition. Picking on an issue on which they believe they can paint one segment of the anti-pulp-mill community (The Wilderness Society) as lukewarm in their opposition, thus antagonising another segment.

A classic divide-and-conquer tactic, when one thinks about it. And it moves the battle to an entirely new arena, by airing it on Tasmanian Times where the average reader has a certain amount of intellectual sophistication. If Johnson and his buddies can foment serious public disagreement in such a forum, it’s covering one more base largely immune to the traditional transparent inane propaganda utterances of Barry Chipman and the like.

Johnson runs the line that plantation forestry – short-rotation pulpwood forestry at that – has the ability to save the world from global warming. This is such utter nonsense that I first commented that “Eric’s claptrap was obviously aimed at the more moronic sort of swinging voter”. And I more or less ignored his claims about what he may or may not know about The Wilderness Society. I’ve changed my mind. The global warming stuff was a useful little adjunct to weave in to his account of how TWS allegedly supports “his” pulpwood industry and make them look sillier. And easier to criticise. In his later blog comment he goes as far as to say that TWS “agrees that plantations will reverse climate change”.

Unfortunately it appears as though quite a few TT commentators have fallen for Johnson’s trap, as there has been quite a battle of words raging. Peter Henning of all people (whose moral standpoint is above reproach and whose judgement is normally impeccable) has found it necessary to ask a whole string of quite demanding questions of Gemma Tillack after she took it upon herself to reply on behalf of TWS.

Sensible questions they are. But it might be better to tackle any differences in a more private forum. Or maybe wait until TWS has time to articulate policy in a detailed fashion on a thread of their own, if they want to. Certainly don’t let the likes of Eric Johnson dictate the terms of debate.

I myself preferred to attempt (twice) to draw Johnson on his assertions re the global warming “cure”. Show me the evidence. I am actually quite worried about this issue. Fit for only the more moronic sort of swinging voter it indeed is, but there is a good likelihood that the Rudd government are going to Copenhagen determined to be moronic too. So keen are they to appease forestry interests nationally that they may quite easily ignore all the scientific detail and hide behind one thin logical thread – that paper contains carbon that was taken from the atmosphere. Constructs as ludicrous as this must not gain credence by being ignored when they are articulated. In the rush to bash someone who is mostly on one’s own side.

Of course no scientific citations are forthcoming from Johnson. I’m fairly sure he isn’t interested in science. Just an agent provocateur who is now happily watching the bunfight.

So what did Gemma Tillack say? I have to confess I was a little disappointed in the incompleteness of her piece. But when it’s looked at again the main points are:

1. “immediate protection of the world’s intact natural forests is an urgent and crucial step that needs to be taken” (to avoid a huge amount of CO2 emissions).
2. if the world is going to continue to use timber and paper (in whatever amount, and she didn’t imply growth in the sector), and we are not going to log native forest, then there obviously must be plantations (in Tasmania and/or elsewhere).
3. management techniques used on plantations (in Tasmania) are currently unacceptable. Improvement is obviously possible, given political will.

Gemma’s piece is far from an endorsement of the way forestry and plantations are run now, and does little to support Johnson’s assertions. She states that “the carbon temporarily stored in paper products is released into the atmosphere as greenhouse pollution within three years on average” – hardly sees it as a global warming cure. She’d also like “a movement away from high-volume, low-value plantation-wood products”. People could be employed to “high prune and manage plantations to produce high-quality eucalypt sawlogs and sawn timbers”. Lower volume = smaller plantations.

It is understandable that different segments of the anti-pulp-mill movement, or the environment movement more generally, will have different concerns and emphases. The Wilderness Society is the Wilderness Society. Their raison de etre is protection of native forest (other types of wilderness being already well protected in Tasmania). They would want to protect forests even if carbon emissions were not an issue. And so they should. Preventing increased native forest logging is almost certainly their main reason for opposing the Tamar Valley pulp mill. Others, quite legitimately, are more concerned with ocean pollution, or Launceston’s air, or the water the mill would use, or their nearby clean-and-green businesses. So be it. The more different tacks we can take to stop this monster the better.

TWS’s focus being what it is, perhaps a plantation-fed pulp mill is not the same bogey. But they have also said any mill must also be closed-loop and not in a sensitive airshed. That level of opposition may not be enough for some, but it’s still a responsible and realistic attitude all things being considered. Complementing the great work of TAP, the Wilderness Society (Paul Oosting et al) have performed brilliantly in getting the anti-mill movement to the point it is now at. They can, for instance, take most of the credit for turning the ANZ Bank away from supporting the project.

Perhaps TWS has not, as a Society, been as vocal as some would like against the relentless expansion of pulpwood plantations across high-quality farmland. But, then again, they are not the Save Our Farms Society. That could well be someone else’s job. Plenty of individual members of TWS are indeed vitally concerned, and doing what they can in that arena.

We are not all perfect, and we don’t have an infinite amount of time. With somewhat different outlooks on life we each perceive some problems as being more important than others. We associate with others in focussed groups to do something useful about those we worry most about. This might not be running someone else’s precise agenda. But so be it. Those of us in Tasmania who are generally opposed to the way things are done by Gunns, Forestry Tasmania and the Bartlett Government need to try to stay as friendly as possible so that we remain effective when it counts.

Certainly don’t rise to the bait set by clever little weasels newly recruited by the common enemy.

Editor’s Addendum: Tasmanians Times is free and open to all-comers. But it publishes on trust. Trust that an article purporting to be from a particular writer is, in fact, from a real writer holding their own worldview. Because of the peculiar and sometimes oppressive nature of the Public Sphere in Tasmania anonymity is reluctanctly allowed. But it is a requirement that the full identity of the writer be known to the Editor. It appears Eric B. Johns(t)on is not a real person. As have readers, TT – which is a hard-pressed one-and-a-very-big-bit-person-band (with support from dozens of wonderful people) – has been fooled. This is a matter for regret, but as Neil Smith points out in his article above, revelatory of the sometimes vicious and deceptive nature of this debate. Shame that trust has become another casualty. Lindsay Tuffin