The meeting was well attended and started on time.
Vanessa Bleyer (Lawyers for Forests) was the facilitator and Emma Anglesee and Bev Ernst spotted questions from the audience.
The panel was: Lindsay Haskett (ACF), Paul Oosting (TWS), Phil Pullinger (ET), Lucy Landon-Lane (Pulp The Mill), Kim Booth (Greens MP).
As an ex-insider ( HERE ), I can say this is a very tight group. Most were either in the ‘No Pulp Mill Alliance’ or the Bass Greens or both.
Panel members spoke first, and generally we heard nothing new. The talks were a ‘pivotal point’ and a ‘window of opportunity’ to solve a ’30 year conflict’. With the timber industry in collapse, caused by their own ‘bad management’, the ENGOs had an opportunity to ‘re-align’ the industry in Tasmania and then apply this solution to the rest of the country.
The GFC was not mentioned as contributing to the problems of the industry.
Lucy Landon-Lane said the talks were only a beginning, and she had been assured they did not include a Tamar Valley pulp mill.
Kim Booth said the talks would ‘unlock the forests’ that had been tied up by the logging industry for so long, and with community support and certification we could have new outcomes. The Greens could play an important role, unless the Liberals voted with Labor in Parliament.
The questions were good.
Tim Thorne asked if the talks had tried to move the industry away from woodchips and into carbon storage.
The panel’s attitude was to always agree with the questioner, often without answering the question.
Buck Emberg asked if Gunns was present in the talks? No. That contradicts Greg L’Estrange’s recent statements.
John from Lilydale asked which politicians were briefed. They were: the Premier, the Federal Forestry Minister and the Greens MPs.
A quick rundown on some of the answers…
The panel had no legal power to relinquish existing contracts.
The ENGOs did not consider foreign ownership of Tasmanian resources when agreeing to a mostly foreign owned pulp mill.
Plantation logs were OK for sawmilling. Actually milling them would be good research and development project for Tassie. Plantation logs make great furniture.
Mike Scott asked why there was no clear statement from the ENGOs giving their position on plantations and a pulp mill, and if legislation such as Private Timber Reserves, the Forest Practices Act, LUPA, MIS and PAL would be repealed.
The ENGOs decided they were going to be ‘constrained’ publicly, and Kim Booth said the Greens wanted to merge the Forest Practices Act with LUPA and that MIS schemes could no longer be insured.
Frank Strie’s question was an impressive speech covering a whole-of-catchment approach as well as FSC constraints on post-1994 plantations. When it comes to timber few people will challenge Frank and none did.
Other issues canvassed:
More plantations equals more chemicals, remnant bush is not preserved because it is not ‘HCVF’, the forest industry cannot be trusted, the forest talks were a closed process, they gave Gunns an instant share and investor boost, how many people in the Tamar Valley were consulted?, why did you tick the pulp mill box? Etc.
The meeting unanimously agreed to a motion rejecting a pulp mill in the Tamar Valley.
Interestingly, this was the one thing the ‘Statement of Principles’ failed to do. Given that the TWS representative was the ‘pulp mill campaigner’, and that after 5 months of talking to the industry they still failed to clear a pulp mill from the Tamar Valley.
Whenever questioned on the inclusion of a pulp mill in the Principles, the Alliance-Greens-ENGOs all go into a scripted mantra that they only support a closed-loop, chlorine free mill with community acceptance.
So why did they fail to write THAT mill into the ‘Statement of Principles’?
The dual ‘elephants in the room’ of landscape domination by plantations, and a pulp mill that the ENGOs have now agreed to, means these ‘Principles’ as they stand will never have community acceptance in Tasmania.
Mercury report and comments …
SIGNATORIES to the forestry peace deal heard at a forum in Launceston last night of community concerns that the Gunns Tamar Valley pulp mill may have been boosted by the agreement.
A meeting of 50 people put questions to and was addressed by Wilderness Society, Australian Conservation Foundation and Environment Tasmania representatives about aspects of the Statement of Principles.
Pulp the Mill spokeswoman Lucy Landon-Lane said differences between anti-pulp mill groups should be put aside.
“I know there were a lot of people concerned that it opened the possibility of a pulp mill,” she said.
“We must commit to work together towards the common goal to stop a pulp mill in the Tamar Valley.”
Tasmanian Greens MP Kim Booth said the party unequivocally opposed the proposed mill.
Environment Tasmania spokesman Phill Pullinger said any pulp mill would have to be at an appropriate site and scale, chlorine-free, plantation-based, closed-loop and subject to a full assessment and approval process.
“The Tamar Valley is not an appropriate location because of the air inversion,” he said.
Forestry professional Frank Strie said the groups should have consulted properly before entering the talks.
“A lot of the goalposts you have set will be blown out of the water,” he said.
“To go into a half-baked process and put posts there saying ‘not negotiable, not negotiable’ is wrong.”
Mr Strie said making the burning of biofuel not negotiable was too restrictive.
