So did I

ABC pic of Jan Davis

I know many of you automatically tune out when someone mentions forestry in Tasmania. I understand that reaction – having been involved (even if only on the periphery) I have a better insight than most into the frustrations of this sector.

If you have been paying attention, you might have thought the Greens and the Federal Government wanted to nominate another 123,500 ha to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. So did I.

But you thought they would wait to see what the Tasmanian Parliament would do with the forests agreement, didn’t you? So did I.

You thought that was the logical sequence of events, didn’t you? So did I.

You thought the areas concerned would be explained to us before any binding decisions were made, didn’t you? So did I.

You couldn’t understand why it was imperative that an extension to the WHA should be made by July this year, could you? Nor could I – although the Prime Minister’s declaration of the September 14 election date probably brings that into sharper focus.

So Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke again catches a plane to Hobart and tells us that the nomination for the WHA extension will be 170,000 ha, not 123,000 ha, increasing its size by 12 per cent. We have already locked 1,400,000 ha out of the state’s total area of 6,811,900 ha (ie 20%) into world heritage reserves.

When he lands he says, “This is to grow jobs now and protect iconic old growth forever.”

Grow jobs? Please. Show me one job that’s been created out of this fiasco. We didn’t come down in the last shower.

And we’re supposed to take all this lying down.

This is Big Brother government of the worst order.

I know that a World Heritage nomination can only be made by the national government, but there must be some requirement for the national government to have consulted with the state government as the owner of the land in question. The state government should at the very least consult with landowners and other local stakeholders. Everything else here in Tasmania has to pass the NIMBY test – why would something as important as this slip through that net? Surely UNESCO cannot accept a nomination unless it has run the gauntlet of local opinion.

We are also told that only existing reserves can be nominated and that any area protected by World Heritage status cannot allow hydro development, mining or forestry. So any land declared under this approach is effectively quarantined from any future use and, each year, the taxpayers of Tasmania will have to foot the bill for maintenance of these reserves.

And how has the nomination blown out from 123,500 ha to 170,000 ha? Presumably through what former State Labor minister Julian Amos describes as “bracket creep and subterfuge”. I reckon miners should have a close look at what is afoot here. This is not only a forests lock-up. There is a vast subterranean element, too.

There is a large slab of the Great Western Tiers going into the World Heritage Area. Who did they consult? Former resident Bob Brown? Nobody else seems to know anything about its nomination.

Dr Amos points out that the World Heritage Committee came here in 2008 and concluded:

“The area managed under the TWWHA management plan provides a good representation of well-managed tall eucalyptus forest and there is similar forest outside the property which is also well-managed, but for both conservation and development objectives.

“The threats to these forests from production forestry activities are well managed and there is no need for the boundary of the property to be changed to deal with such threats.”

This listing, therefore, has ignored the science and expert advice in favour of a cynical political campaign by unelected and unaccountable interest groups. It has also ignored the legitimate interests of potentially affected neighbours, including farmers and of all Tasmanians who want to see our state have a sustainable future. The decision is unilateral, provocative, controversial, illogical and possibly even illegal, given the lack of consultation.

As they say, don’t get mad, get even. In the next 12 months, politicians at both state and federal levels will face their electorates – that’s us. We need to let them know what we really think about their actions.