Acceding to Legislative Council amendments to the Tasmanian Forest Agreement legislation is a recipe for failure for all those who hoped the original deal would be an end to destructive logging and community division, Markets For Change said in Hobart today.
Japanese customers of Tasmanian product were alerted last week to the gutting of environmental outcomes and the impossibility of achieving Forest Stewardship Council certification requirements whilst contradictory provisions are enshrined in law.
Also of serious concern to Markets For Change is the attack on civil liberties countenanced under ‘durability’ provisions that seek to restrain freedom of expression and peaceful protest, so that retribution is wrought on the environment simply because organisations like ours communicate the facts to markets and uphold the right to inform consumers about the true environmental attributes of the products they buy.
“This is a recipe for failure because the Legislative Council have loaded up the legislation with booby traps for conservation that mean we will never see the creation of most of the reserves,” said Markets For Change CEO Peg Putt. “Back room deals cannot fix it.”
“FSC certification for Forestry Tasmania is made impossible by provisions to open up reserves for logging in future and by the explicit precedence given to maintaining wood supply over rigorous application of the Forest Practices Code, yet such FSC certification was made a hurdle to permanent forest protection by the Legislative Council who clearly intend for the reserves never to eventuate.”
“Assurances from Forestry Tasmania are not something any clear thinking environmentalist would put faith in at the best of times, especially when looming elections are predicted to change governments who will then change Forestry Tasmania and when Forestry Tasmania already appears to be using tricky wording to support their assurances.”
“Last week we wrote to customers of Tasmanian forest products outlining the serious problems with the amended legislation; including excision of logging coupes located physically within reserve areas from protection, consigning them for continued logging instead; the likelihood that most reserves will never eventuate if governments change; that reserves remain available for future logging; the Forest Practices Code can be railroaded to maintain wood supply volumes; and that achieving FSC is a lengthy process whose success is unlikely and can’t be guaranteed,” Ms Putt said.
“The Gunns 20 law suit spectacularly failed to silence conservation groups communicating to overseas markets, but now we have most of the Tasmanian Parliament and some environment groups prepared to embrace provisions designed to silence exactly this sort of communication and to heap blame on the messengers of forest destruction,” Ms Putt concluded.
CEO of Markets For Change, Peg Putt
