Pic: Daniel Haley
Picton River resolution April 2013
An activist workshop facilitated by Alice Hungerford, with members of the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened, gathered in the Picton Valley discussed the Tasmanian forest campaign. This resolution calling for the forest agreement to be rejected was prepared by the workshop participants.
While many conservation-minded people once held hope that the forest negotiation process may lead to forest protection outcomes, these hopes have been diminished by the ongoing conservation compromises made and more recently due to the current amendments made by Tasmania’s Legislative Council.
The amendments that have been made to this agreement by the Legislative Council render the deal void of any real conservation gain, yet prop up the dying native forest industry. These amendments are totally unacceptable.
One amendment is that forest proposed for protection in the first stage are only those areas that are in the World Heritage nomination currently before the IUCN. Leaving out large areas of high conservation value forest, in the North West, the Tarkine, the North East and East, Weilangta, Tasman Peninsula and Bruny Island, and West Wellington. These forests will not be reserved unless the native forest industry in Tasmania receives Forest Stewardship Certification (FSC). Protection will be delayed until at least October 2014, however it will be dependent on this certification.
This is an amendment laced with problems; the forestry industry is not committed to changing the current regime of clear-felling, creating huge quantities of wood that is referred to as‘residues’ by the industry, continued logging on steep slopes, old growth destruction and continuing regeneration burns. If these are the logging practices that are to be granted FSC status, then this would be a severe sabotage of the FSC process and bring into question the credibility of certification. Worse still it entrenches Tasmania into ongoing destruction of native ecosystems at a critical time of climate change.
This amendment shows the clear direction of this deal – to support the ongoing native forests industry. This is a far cry from the original purpose of the negotiations, which promised a transition out of native forests in Tasmania.
We cannot accept a deal which seeks to prop up native forest destruction, clear felling and a return to wood-chipping. We cannot accept a deal that does not deliver the protection of verified high conservation value forests upfront. We cannot accept a deal which will further weaken Tasmania’s forest practice standards and which has the potential to jeopardise the integrity of FSC.
First and foremost Tasmania needs secure protection of high conservation value forests, an end to logging in these forests. Secondly the forestry industry has to prioritise restructure; bring an immediate end to out-dated practises that are ecologically damaging.
The large-scale volume-driven nature of the forestry industry must be restructured to support high-value labour-intensive use of every possible part of every tree harvested. And a rapid transition into plantations is required.
A further amendment has provided for World Heritage value forests in the Great Western Tiers to be excluded from upfront protection, despite being a part of the nominated area currently before the IUCN. Protection of these forests appears to be delayed until October 2014 and also dependent on FSC.
It is unacceptable to exclude any areas from protection that have been verified as World Heritage value. And it is unacceptable to continue to log areas within the World Heritage nominated forests or to allow access for logging for speciality timbers in perpetuity.
Another amendment made by the Legislative Council is that any reserve (including in the World Heritage Area) could be logged for special species timber as defined by the Minister of the day, if this is deemed necessary in the future. It is unacceptable for logging to occur inside reserves for speciality timbers, yet meanwhile such timbers have been left in clearfells and burnt in the annual Autumn high-intensity burns for far too long. Ending high intensity burn practises and providing funding for salvaging special species timbers off the coupe floor and storing these timbers in regional wood banks would provide ongoing employment.
Most importantly, the health repercussions for all Tasmanians from burning and poisoning our land, water and air through the current out dated practices must be acknowledged and monitored reparation is required.
The people of Tasmania bear the full social, financial and community costs of the forests destruction, and government prop up of the unsustainable industry.
Who we are: we are mothers, grandmothers, daughters, children, sisters and brothers, teachers, community workers, volunteers. We are people who care. We are strong, and loving and joyous. We are activists. We work for change.
We are committed to caring for our country. We take full responsibility for our words and our actions. We participate in all parts of this community, we call Tasmania home.
We stand for justice, empowerment, safety and ecological sustainability. We recognise the urgent need for people to wake up, to rise up and support broad-scale restorative change.
We are passionate about democracy and expect every member of Parliament to stand up and do the right thing, to put Tasmania and Tasmanians as their very first consideration in making decisions about land and resources.
The process of reaching an Inter-governmental Agreement on Tasmania’s forests has taken almost 3 years and has been fraught with bias. The process has been heavily skewed toward industry gain and conservation loss. We do not support the future of forest protection to be dictated by the special council that is set up by this Tasmanian Forest Agreement, which again is dominated by industry interests, as membership of the council will have three conservationist representatives and eight industry representatives. We call on our elected representatives to shape a future for Tasmania that insists on ecologically sustainability.
Jenny Weber
Huon Valley Environment Centre
www.huon.org
www.nativeforest.net
• Peter McGlone: Tasmanian Forests Agreement Bill 2013 must be amended
• David Obendorf: Uncertainly continues in Forest Deal
ABC News report 29 April 2013
Signatories to Tasmania’s forest peace deal are yet to reveal whether they’ll support radical changes to crucial enabling legislation. Forestry Tasmania has made a last ditched attempt to convince Green groups to support the legislation. State Parliament is being recalled on 30 April but it’s unclear whether the Government will even bring on the new-look Bill for debate.
Brad Markam: It’s the last ditch attempt to sway Signatories as they ponder the fate of Tasmania’s forest peace deal.
Jenny Weber [HVEC spokesperson]: Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened is calling on all Parties to reject this mutant legislation.
Bob Annells [FT Chairman]: Without the TFA we [Forestry Tasmania] can’t go into our international market places with the support of the Conservation Foundation, or … ahh, any of the other large groups, and without that we’re dead!
Brad Markam: The Government imposed deadline is just hours away, but Signatories are yet to reveal whether they will back radical amendments to crucial enabling legislation. The Upper House has delayed protection of large swathes of native forest from logging until at least October 2014, or until the industry achieves Forest Stewardship Council certification.
Bob Annells: Nothing in this process surprises me.
Peter McGlone [TCT Director]: The numbers do not look good for conservation. This is a shocking state of affairs where we will be going backwards weakening our forest practices code.
Brad Markam: The Greens have labelled the Legislative Council ‘wreckers’ and have urged the Lower House to reject the changes; a call echoed by environmental groups outside the talks.
Jenny Weber: There was not peace promised, and there certainly can’t be peace when we’re going to be seeing the ongoing damage to ecosystems across Tasmania.
Will Hodgman [Liberal Opposition leader]: When you get Jenny Weber saying her environmental movement will not stop campaigning against this deal in its current form. It shows that things haven’t got better, they’ve in fact got worse.
Brad Markam: But Forestry Tasmania is pleading with Lower House MPs to pass the revamped legislation saying it has zero chance of achieving FSC certification without it.
And in a bid to appease deeply concerned environmental Signatories, the State-owned has vowed not to log areas earmarked for protection.
Bob Annells: Apart from a couple of coupes that we’ll be finished in a matter of weeks, we will be out of those areas and we will stay out.
The Lower House has been recalled on Tuesday 30 April, but with the State government still waiting to hear from Signatories it’s unclear if the Bill will even be brought on for debate.
