Ecology, Health and Justice

A paper written by an environmental academic and activist, published in the USA and recently circulated in Tasmania by Dr Alison Bleaney (1) contains information and analyses that environmental, including forest protection activists could benefit greatly from studying. The hard fact of the situation in Tasmania is that, after several decades of campaigning and struggle, the destruction of Tasmania’s forests continues at full blast. Despite the recent secret talks on forestry and regardless of the hopes of some participants and keyhole observers, forest destruction continues. Both a pulp mill and Paul Lennon are back in the limelight as result of these talks.

The paper referred to above argues in very convincing terms that wilderness protection is an important and indispensable part, but far from the total, of the struggle to protect the environment. The author of the paper, C.R. Palamar, argues the Mainstream Environmental Movement (MEM) in America seems to be “losing strength.” Palamar’s analysis of the situation is that the main focus of the MEM has been wilderness and the playgrounds of the well-off, leaving relatively untouched the questions of public health and social justice and ignoring the serious issues of the destruction and degradation of the health, lives and living spaces, especially of non-white minority groups and the less well-off.

The situation summarised in the Palamar paper has a parallel in Australia, although there are of course important differences. In Australia, and especially in Tasmania, the Greens Party has made important headway in several respects. What is significant about this headway is that (in addition to the fact that environmental issues have been a significant part of political discussion in Tasmania and some other States for several decades) Bob Brown’s election as a Greens Senator was preceded by his principled public stand on the refugee issue and his public virtual endorsement by the outstanding ALP figure and Minister in the Whitlam Government, Tom Uren, that followed this stand of Dr Brown’s. From this and from other policy statements it can be seen that the Greens are not simply a single-issue party focused on wilderness, but that they have generally adopted an increasingly wider focus, including on some important social issues.

Palamar points out that the Love Canal pollution issue(2) and several other important environmental campaigns in the USA that did involve ordinary people, including people of colour and poor people, did make an impact. Palamar also writes, for example, “… that humans have right to a clean environment, women have a right to bear and feed their children without poisoning them, and infants have right to unpolluted breast milk. As industrialization continues unabated, these issues expand in severity and scope, people become more aware of toxic intrusions into their lives…” *

The focus of the very useful Palamar paper is largely on environmental health and justice. The point is made that while the main negative impacts are on the less well-off humans the impact of chemically poisoned food and water is now becoming an issue that is increasingly affecting people from all parts of our deeply divided society.

This last mentioned development brings us directly to matters which affect Tasmania, including forestry practices, and particularly the toxic substances used in, and essential to, monoculture plantations grown for paper pulp.

Poorly informed, short-sighted obsession with a single issue, whether it be wilderness or anything else, and refusing to give prominence to the health and social justice issues raised by the poison in our environment from monoculture plantations, would deprive the environmental movement of the very arguments that have real potential to mobilise a majority of Tasmanians to support radical change in current forestry practices.

The work of Dr Alison Bleaney on exposing the problem of poison in our water has received more publicity than most other such efforts But Dr Bleaney,and her immediate supporters, whilst in the forefront, are no lone voice of reason seeking to be heard on this critical issue. Dr David Leaman has long been speaking out on the water issues involved with plantations. Dr Andrew Lohrey has, in a fairly widely distributed brochure, exposed the widespread effects of the use of chemicals in farming and particularly of monoculture plantations in key water catchments. To repeat the followings sentences from an earlier article by one of the authors of this paper,

“A photo of a large cable logged area published in a brochure, authorised by Dr. Andrew Lohrey, who was a minister in past State Labor Governments, ‘vividly illustrates part of what is happening in Tasmania’s water catchments as result of deeply faulted forestry practices. The caption under the photo reads … Above: South Esk catchment: this steep terrain was cable logged of all vegetation and is now used for plantation forestry – run off from chemicals will enter the water supply.

This same brochure reveals, “In the last four years alone, these rivers have been contaminated with poisonous pesticides: the Duck, Inglis, Bird, Jordan, Montagu, Prosser, Rubicon, South Esk, George, Little Swanport, Macquarie, Great Forester, Brumby Creek, Derwent and Liffey”

This brochure makes the point that pesticide poisons come from farming and forestry land uses. And that forestry plantations are now “growing in 44 of the State’s 48 water catchments.” Further… “Water testing by our state government is done sporadically and pesticide detections rarely result in investigations to find their source.”

This assessment is underlined by the work of Dr Peter Hay, who, in a paper delivered to a SEARCH Foundation Round Table in Hobart on April 12 2008, quotes people living in the catchment areas being clear felled for plantations as follows “…we’re here all the time , and we see things — dead wombats in the creeks and that, creeks foaming like anything — stuff the bloody scientists never see because they aren’t here when it’s there in front of you.(3)”

These sorts of concerns are only part of the sad story of clear felling and monoculture plantations.

Another part of the story comes to light when the emphasis placed on stopping the logging of ‘High Conservation Value’ forests is considered. Important as it is to save the magnificent forests of places such as the Tarkine and the Upper Florentine Valley, it must not be forgotten that forests of less obvious scenic value grow in catchments from which domestic water supplies are taken. A case in point was highlighted at the meeting in Launceston on 26 October 2010 to hear a report on the so-called ‘Principles of Agreement’ between some environmental groups and representatives of the timber industry. Residents of Lilydale pointed out that the quality of their town’s water supply was threatened by recently approved logging activity very close to the water supply inlet, and that this kind of forest was likely to be overlooked in the discussions about the forestry industry’s future because it would not rank with the High Conservation Value forests of the wilderness.

Any discussion of water in Tasmania raises the issue of the recent corporatisation of water management in the state, with three regional bodies taking over from Local Government the control of water supply, treatment and retailing as well as sewage disposal. While stopping short of the privatisation that has been both environmentally and economically disastrous in some mainland states and overseas, especially in South America, this could be seen as preparing the way for such a development. The transfer of control from elected authorities to appointed ones has distanced the decision making process from consumers, to whom the water belongs. Losing this basic democratic control over something as absolutely essential as water must be seen as a retrograde step, and one which adversely affects the most vulnerable members of society.

Local Government has also been sidelined when it comes to environmental controls over forestry. The case of the logging permitted next to Lilydale’s town water intake is just one example where Local Government’s hands are tied. Launceston City Council called for a full hydrological assessment of the proposed coupe after a serious error had been discovered in the Forest Practices Plan map on which the decision to allow logging was based. The Council was ignored. There are similar stories from all over the state, as a result of the forestry industry being exempted from normal planning and land use laws. Small rural communities are often the victims, as, according to Palamar in the paper cited, they are in the USA. State Government legislation needs to be amended in order to allow Local Government a greater say in matters concerning public health.

The Palamar paper is also relevant to the ongoing issue of the proposed Gunns pulp mill at Long Reach. Whereas there may be some opponents of the mill whose opposition is based primarily on its location and the effect that it will have on property values in the Tamar Valley, or on its effect on the returns from large investments in other industries, there is a growing movement which is opposed to the idea of any pulp mill anywhere that utilises Tasmania’s natural resources to produce paper pulp. These people, including the authors of this paper, realise that the real problem is not the location, the size or the type of the mill, nor even the source of its woodchips, but the industry itself. Turning trees (whether from plantations or from native forests) into paper products which have a short life contributes to climate change, which in turn affects millions of people, most immediately and severely in less prosperous developing countries.

It is not only the forestry and agriculture industries that are endangering the health of Tasmanians. Despite the whitewashing job done by official reports, residents of the mining town of Rosebery are still suffering abnormally high rates of illness consistent with an excessive quantity of heavy metals in their water supply. Although a hard-working group of locals has been effective in raising this issue, including such matters as the lack of monitoring of arsenic and thallium levels, their work and their concerns have received relatively little publicity.
There is still a widely held perception that the Greens are only about wilderness and limited pollution issues that threaten the wellbeing of the better-off in society. However that perception has to some important degree recently been overtaken by the perception that the Greens are not corrupt and are concerned about ordinary people, unlike the major parties.

In August 2010 the Australian people elected a parliament which functions something like a parliament rather than a rubber stamp. This result was brought about by the developments mentioned immediately above plus several other factors that resulted in the election of Greens and some independents with intelligence and a social conscience. It is potentially tragic that at this important time the actions of a few unelected people in the wider environmental movement have created a crisis that is spilling over into the Greens Party as a result of their actions in the recent Forestry Agreement, as discussed below.

It is, to the authors of this paper, a serious disappointment that some parties to the agreement from the environmental side have been prepared to trade preservation of wilderness for a plantation-based economy that would include a pulp mill and timber driven electricity generation, both of which would inevitably lead to an increase in the area of land devoted to plantations, and as monoculture plantations require chemical spraying it would lead to more health risks, more danger to wildlife, more damage to waterways and depletion of water supplies and the water table. This would be a serious mistake, exactly the sort of thing that has created huge problems for health and rural communities in the US, as Palamar has pointed out. Thus, it is all the more disappointing that some Greens leaders and others, who have earned wide respect, have given the impression through some public utterances of concentrating more on justifying the mistakes which led to the ‘Principles of Agreement’ than on focusing on real solutions. This comment is not intended to belittle people who have put a lot of effort into a project which has resulted in the terms of the Forest Agreement as made public. It is, however, intended to direct attention towards the tremendous opportunities now opened up for a green alternative that recognises the limitations of single issue focus and the need to look for strategies that involve more than a relatively small segment of our population in the struggle to save our forests and our planet.

Some people have suggested that a ‘small’ pulp mill might be acceptable. We point out that this has not been put forward by anyone with the capital or the credibility to make it happen. This is because a pulp mill in Tasmania, to be economically viable, needs to be among the world’s biggest so that its economies of scale can help it compete with mills elsewhere which have cheaper labour and freight costs. Moreover, any pulp mill would soon run out of plantation timber, requiring either a greater area under plantations, a reversion to the use of native forests, or a premature and uneconomic closure. There is only one pulp mill that has been proposed, and that is the one Gunns plan to build at Long Reach, the mill that deftly and dishonestly avoided examination by the RPDC and for which the anti-democratic Pulp Mill Assessment Act was passed.

Likewise, it is clear that great opportunities exist for unions, instead of focussing narrowly on preserving jobs at all costs, to look more seriously at environmental issues that affect the health of their members, their members’ families and other workers in communities that are at risk from environmentally damaging industrial practices.

To us those are the invaluable messages to be gleaned from the well presented Palamar paper. Tasmania already has one Independent in the Federal Parliament with serious environmental and social concerns and credentials whose approach suggests Palamar’s message has been anticipated and is being acted on. The possibilities for wider cooperation of concerned people extends beyond just growth and development of the Greens to independents and people with more specific policy interests. Our view is that continued Greens growth and the continued widening of concerns, rather than a reversion to the narrower focus of earlier years, is important in developing a way forward in the struggle for human survival.

We would welcome further public discussion involving all the relevant players and authorities so that these important public health and social justice issues are included as an integral part of the on-going process of re-structuring the forestry industry, and we believe also that they should be taken into account in the planning of all future development in the state.

Max Bound
Tim Thorne
John Biggs
Austra Maddox

*Note The description ‘Corporate advertising and for profit driven encouragement of consumerism’ is used by others to explain the same alarming phenomena rather than ‘industrialisation’. Industrialisation per se of course raises issues and problems that require more critical assessment than currently given. But not all forms of scientific endeavour and technological innovation constitute anti-human bastardry of the kind Palamar is referring to in this quote.

References:

(1) “The Justice of Ecological Restoration: Environmental History, Health, Ecology, and Justice in the United States By C.R. Palamar Director of Environmental Studies Antioch College, Yellow Springs, OH, pub. in Human Ecology Review, Vo.15, No1, 2008 Society for Human Ecology (Courtesy of Dr Alison Bleaney )

(2) The Love Canal struggle in the USA was one of the early struggles about the dumping of toxic waste in a residential area and its effects on people’s health and well being

(3) Original sources Hay, Peter Collected papers 2007-8 “Shared Values Shared Future Reimagining the Good Society” SEARCH Foundation Page 57 ISBN 9781876300159 The brochure, authorised by Dr Andrew Lohrey, from which he quotes was titled “WARNING! POISONED WATER?” Both quotes are as in article “Elections, corporations and forest practices” by Max Bound pub Tasmanian Times