Forestry Tasmania’s plan smokescreen for ongoing Native Forest destruction

Media Release 17/2/2010

Forestry Tasmania’s plan smokescreen for ongoing Native Forest destruction

Important areas like the Weld, Styx, Florentine and Tarkine still up for logging

Tasmanian environment groups says Forestry Tasmania’s new speciality timber plan is a smokescreen for the ongoing destruction of some of Tasmania’s most celebrated ancient forests. These include the Tarkine, Upper Florentine valley and the Styx, places that should be permanently protected as national parks.

Director of Environment Tasmania, Dr Phill Pullinger, says Forestry Tasmania is using widespread support for the craft, furniture and boat-building sectors to hide an aggressive plan to keep logging ancient forests. He said this wood is not used for speciality industries, but is instead sent off-shore as woodchips.

“Last year speciality timbers represented less than half of one per cent of the timber taken out of Tasmania’s native forests,*” said Dr Phill Pullinger, Director of Environment Tasmania. “Yet Forestry Tasmania is cynically using Tasmania’s craft, furniture and boat-building sector as a smokescreen to log more native forests on an industrial scale,” he said,

Dr Pullinger provided pictures to show recent (Oct 09) clearfell and burning activities undertaken by Forestry Tasmania in an area rich in speciality species rainforest in the Tarkine (photos C/O Holga Strie)

Vica Bayley, spokesperson for The Wilderness Society said that Forestry Tasmania are using the craft sector as an excuse to entrench logging in iconic areas.

“The fact is these logging zones will be used as a smokescreen for logging-as-usual, including the destruction of ancient forests in the Styx, Weld, Upper Florentine and Tarkine, entrenching current conflict.

“This plan endorses the logging of tens of thousands of hectares of native forest, including oldgrowth and rainforest across special areas of Tasmania that the community would like to see protected,” said Mr Bayley.

“It looks like a business as usual approach to logging with clearfelling and modified clearfelling in High conservation value forests that will cultivate ongoing conflict in Tasmanian and does nothing to resolve the conflict over the way we use our forests,” said Mr Bayley.

‘Any specialty timber plan must come hand in hand with a vision to protect iconic areas of forest and move industrial scale logging into the existing plantation estate,” concluded Mr Bayley.

* Last year (08/09) 12,497 m3 of special species timber was taken from State Forest out of 2.6m – less than 0.5%
Dr Phill Pullinger Director Environment Tasmania The Conservation Council. Vica Bayley, The Wilderness Society