An Informal Report On An Informal Update Of The Secret Informal Talks …

… Yes, it’s a mouthful, but it seems consistent with the circular vortex of issues being reported.

Launceston Environment Center Tuesday August 31.

Meeting starts half an hour late with a accusation of why we all showed-up.

Chairperson believes it is a closed meeting until reminded it went out as an invitation to be spread ‘far and wide’.

TWS represented by Paul Oosting, ET by Phil Pullinger and ACF by Lindsay Haskett.

Meeting proceeds with an explanation of ‘scuttlebutt’ surrounding the three month old ‘secret forest talks’.

They are at pains to explain why a pulp mill is not part of the negotiations, even though it is included in the leaked draft ‘principles’ that the talks are supposed to all agree on.

I ask who appointed the environmental negotiators and if the ‘secret talks’ started spontaneously.

I am told the environmentalists were first approached by ‘the industry’ in the form of NAFI, TCA and the CFMEU. The ENGOs worked to exclude government on the grounds the talks would be ‘captured’.

Hence no ‘Bartlett’s round table’.

The state forestry enterprises were identified as being the last to change, and were ‘holding out’ on progress. They were also the ones creating ‘divisive issues’.

Hence no Forestry Tasmania.

The ENGO reps did not agree they had been captured by commercial interests, and described what they were working on as a ‘gamechanger’ with potentially far-reaching consequences.

The questions fielded were very good and sorry if I have not reported them all.

The secret talks are not necessarily ‘pro plantation’ and some plantations will have to go.

Two things I was interested in were:

• If ET and TWS had rejected the industry advances, where would the industry be now?

• My key question. The industry can stop logging high conservation forests at any time, why do they need conservationists to hold their hands first?

Unfortunately I did not get an answer to either question.

That last question goes to the heart of my ‘conspiracy theory’.

The timber industry has had the power to lobby and write any legislation it likes. It has the knowledge, power and freedom to stop logging high value forests and only plantations right now if it pleases. So why does it
REALLY need to have the legitimacy of the ENGO’s?

They are felling old trees today to keep the pressure on the environmental movement.

The industry knows it can’t sell the high conservation product any more, so in order to get something it wants it will trade something it doesn’t need.

This is where our ‘negotiators’ were called in.

They get a big cheer for saving what’s left of the Aboriginal forestry estate, in return for a red tick of approval to all the forestry money earning ventures the stock exchange wants to get up. Including a pulp mill that will probably end up right where the roads, pipelines and permits point to.

FORESTRY TAS DESTROYING OLD FORESTS TO PREVENT THEIR CONSERVATION
Undermining Gunns’ Attempt at FSC Certification
Kim Booth MP
Greens Forests spokesperson

The Tasmanian Greens today called on Forestry Minister Bryan Green to order Forestry Tasmania to cease deliberately targeting high conservation value forests for clearfelling in an attempt to prevent those areas from being conserved for future generations.

Greens Forests spokesperson Kim Booth MP said the logging of these ancient forests is being subsidised by taxpayers, and the customer is Gunns Limited which is currently trying to achieve Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, an attempt that will be damaged by Gunns being the recipients of materials that are knowingly being sourced from high conservation value forests.

Mr Booth also said Labor has not ruled out that Forestry Tasmania is receiving less than $6 per cubic metre in return for the destruction of these irreplaceable forest areas, and it is his understanding that the price is actually $5 per cubic metre.

“Forestry Tasmania are deliberately targeting high conservation value forests in a cynical attempt to prevent them from being conserved for the use and enjoyment of future generations of Tasmanians, and Minister Bryan Green needs to step in and order this rogue agency to cease its damaging and divisive behaviour,” said Mr Booth.

“Forestry Tasmania are well aware that Gunns Limited are currently attempting to achieve FSC certification, and that Gunns’ being on the receiving end of materials knowingly sourced from high conservation value forests will damage that attempt.”

“These operations are being subsidised by the taxpayer, and Forestry Tasmania receives less than $6 per tonne in return for the destruction of irreplaceable forest. They are not logging these publicly owned forests to make a return to the public purse, they are logging them in order to prevent their conservation, and the Minister needs to step in and order Forestry to get out of high conservation forest areas immediately,” said Mr Booth.