Wilderness Society: Where we stand

PAUL OOSTING, The Wilderness Society
The Wilderness Society welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the debate around the future of the forest industry in Tasmania and how it can be reformed away from its current environmentally and socially destructive impacts.

For Tasmanian Times readers we have broadly outlined our position below. Constructive feedback is always welcome and we encourage you to contact us directly if you have any suggestions or input.

The Wilderness Society continues to work to stop Gunns building its environmentally destructive pulp mill in the Tamar Valley. We have worked for even longer to stop destructive logging practices and to see proper protection for Tasmania’s unique native forests. We are totally committed to a resolution to the conflict over logging of native forests and the pulp mill.

With the right political leadership, the divisions over forestry that have been the hallmark of Tasmanian society for years could be healed. We could protect our native forests, create jobs, and build a positive future for our kids and grandkids.

To achieve this, we believe that the Tasmanian timber industry must adapt and change to satisfy market, community and conservation needs and move away from its current dependence on the logging of native forests. We recognise the need for a diverse, viable and socially acceptable timber industry in Tasmania. The products, employment, culture and economic contribution of the timber industry are all important aspects of Tasmanian life.

The Wilderness Society believes that a transition away from logging native forests and into reliance on existing plantations is possible with minimal disruption and massive environmental, social and economic benefits. Indeed, in relation to the current pulp mill debate, we have publicly held a position of support for a 100% plantation based, TCF pulp mill in an appropriate location since at least 2005, when these words appeared on a brochure we published. Sadly, since then we have had to add the prerequisite that any mill development be properly assessed to community standards and expectations, something we had originally assumed would be standard practice in any developed country.

The Wilderness Society also acknowledges that there are significant social, economic and environmental concerns about the establishment and management of plantations in Tasmania. These are issues to be properly addressed as outlined below.

The Wilderness Society would support a strong, internationally competitive forestry industry based on existing plantations in Tasmania. In order to achieve this support the issues outlined below need to be addressed.

Native forest protection in secure formal reserves and an industry transition

To give confidence that new plantation based value-adding developments in Tasmania do not shift feedstock requirements back into a dependence on native forests due to economic or political circumstances, Tasmania must:
•Immediately protect all identified high-conservation-value forests on public land in secure formal reserves, and;
•Commit to the rapid transition of the industrial forestry industry away from logging native forests, including on private land, to only logging existing plantations;

The Wilderness Society does recognise the need for some high value, low volume native forest harvesting in identified areas for craft, specialty timber and other niche users.

Plantation establishment in Tasmania

Plantations have been established in Tasmania at a huge environmental, social and economic cost. Historically mono-culture plantations have been established over vast areas of high-conservation-value native forest including oldgrowth and rainforest. This has impacted on biodiversity, visual amenity, weed and other feral species distribution.

Many important water catchments and the quality and quantity of their water flows are now suffering from the impacts of inappropriately located plantations. This must be addressed in consultation with the community to protect water supplies.

In order to understand and address the impacts of plantation establishment Tasmania must:
•Rule out the conversion of any native vegetation type to plantations;
•Review the plantation estate with ecological principles such as Integrated Catchment Management in mind so as to assess the sustainability of current plantings, and;
•Ban genetically modified tree crops and replaces these plantings in subsequent rotations with multi-species plantings.

We recognise that in some areas multi-species plantations can be an important part of ecological restoration processes, including those planted for commodity production.

More recently plantations have been consuming high-value cleared agricultural land, impacting on rural communities and productivity. These plantings are heavily subsidised, costing the taxpayer millions and creating an uneven playing field where real agricultural opportunities are being denied and Tasmania’s traditional culture of rural succession is being interrupted with young farmers artificially forced off the land or out of the market by well funded, publicly subsidised plantation companies.

In order to remove the inequity and address rural productivity issues:
•Managed Investment Schemes for forestry should be abandoned;
•Remove any and all other subsidies on plantation establishment;
•Plantation establishment on prime agricultural land should be banned, and;
•A review of plantations established on high productivity cleared agricultural land should be carried out and cross referenced with the projected production needs of the state, with the view of potentially returning some areas back to agricultural land on the next rotation and finding alternative areas for plantation establishment if needed.

Plantation management  

The Wilderness Society recognises that the management of the existing plantation area is currently subject to vigorous public debate and much improvement is required, including an end to:
•The use of harmful chemicals including the triazine group of chemicals, synthetic pyrethroids and any of the other chemicals with known human or ecological toxic impacts, and;
•The use of lethal means when controlling damage from browsing native animals, including 1080 and cyanide poison.

Far more rigorous controls over aerial spraying are needed to avoid contamination of water supplies and other issues such as chemical trespass via spray drift. This could possibly be addressed by stricter control of the spraying techniques and improved planning of plantations in relation to catchments and property boundaries; however a full ban on aerial spraying is preferred. Priority should be given to the protection of water supplies and the prevention of contamination of food and water resources for wildlife and people. It is recognised that chemical contamination is also caused by some traditional forms of agriculture and also needs review and reform.

In addition, the notification and involvement of community stakeholders and environmental NGOs in the planning and management of plantations is essential.

Demand Management – the consumer’s role

The Wilderness Society believes that consumers have an important role to play in relation to all environmental issues, globally. As consumers we all create demand for products from plantations, whether wood or paper, and as such can directly affect where products are sourced from and how those sources are managed.

The Wilderness Society believes consumers should:
•Reduce the use of all wood and paper products;
•Recycle wood and paper products;
•Give first preference purchase of wood and paper products that are derived from recycled sources or contain the highest percentage of recycled content, and;
•Give second preference to the use of FSC certified plantation wood products.

The Wilderness Society has run, and is running consumer education campaigns to increase community awareness of environmentally destructive practices and products. For more information on environmentally responsible paper purchasing and the latest version of The Wilderness Society’s paper purchasing guide visit www.wilderness.org.au/paper

Climate Change

Preliminary scientific analysis suggests that if we protected all of Australia’s native forests tomorrow, they could pull an additional 136 million tonnes of CO2 out of the atmosphere each year – that’s more than 40 times what the average coal fired power station emits annually! Protecting native forests is the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to address climate change.

The Wilderness Society is working with a range of environmental organisations to put forward a real plan on climate change. The new report ‘Plan B’ outlines five essential measures that are proven and ready to be implemented to strongly address the threat of climate change:
•A National Energy Savings Program – includes a green overhaul of buildings in Australia over the next decade to create new jobs and reduce the 30 per cent of carbon emissions that buildings account for;
•Fast Track to a Renewable Energy Economy – includes doubling the current Renewable Energy Target to 90,000 gigawatt hours by 2020 and phasing out coal-fired electricity plants;
•Shift to Low Emissions Vehicles and Sustainable Cities – includes setting targets for fuel efficiency, development of sustainable transport infrastructure and incentives for development of electric vehicles;
•Protection of Native Forests as Carbon Stores – includes ending logging of old growth and high-conservation value native forests to permanently protect the huge amount of carbon stored in them, and;
•A National Green Jobs and Industries Plan – Up to 80,000 green collar jobs are possible in Australia by 2030 if incentives through government policy are provided, such as through the development of the renewable energy sector, sustainable agriculture and tourism

The Wilderness Society is also working hard to ensure the next global climate deal protects natural forests in developed and developing countries.
You can read the full report at: http://www.wilderness.org.au/articles/environment-groups-representing-400-000-australians-unite-to-oppose-emissions-trading-legislation?utm_source=frontpage&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=plan-b

The Wilderness Society is willing to work with the plantation sector, the community and government to help address all of the above sustainability issues.

Existing plantations, while needing significant improvement, give Tasmania the opportunity to move beyond the decades long conflict over native-forest logging, to protect our forests for the climate, water and biodiversity values they provide and to establish much needed stability in the timber industry by creating resource security and a social license.

We also look forward to continuing to work with the community to stop Gunns’ pulp mill, properly protect our native forests and protect the environment for the health and wellbeing of all.

Paul Oosting
paul.oosting@wilderness.org.au