Economy
Foolhardy to risk a fragile peace in forest wars
The passing of legislation to end Tasmania’s 30-year-old forest wars should have been a cause for celebration, finally finding resolution to one of Australia’s most toxic and intractable of issues.
Yet the reaction, particularly from those who have long called for reform of the Tasmanian timber industry, has been so over the top that Australian Greens leaders past and present find themselves allied to the Liberals in damning the legislation, and the fragile peace may be destroyed before it has been given a chance.
Since the legislation that enabled the Tasmanian Forest Agreement passed last week, a vanguard of warriors have been hitting the airwaves and dusting off some tried and true rhetorical flourishes in an attempt to stir up the ghosts of the conflict and division. Unlike any previously imposed forestry-peace solution, this one was created by the protagonists: the environmentalists, the industry and the workers.
The confected outrage whipped up by the Australia Institute’s Richard Denniss (”Imposed silence a threat to … whom”, Forum, May 11, p5 TT here ) and others opposing the agreement is disingenuous, intellectually lazy and would appear solely aimed at destroying the fragile resolution that is craved by most Tasmanians.
At contest is the inclusion within the agreement and legislation of the “durability clauses” which tie delivery of key parts of the conservation and industry agendas to significant milestones. One of those milestones is actual peace in the forests.
Well-known author and anti-pulp mill activist Richard Flanagan was the first to condemn. Writing in the blog, the Tasmanian Times ( here ), Flanagan rejects outright the decision by four of the five Tasmanian Green MPs and environment groups to support legislation which reconciles the protection of 500,000 hectares of old-growth and high-conservation-value forest with the provision of long-term security for a new Tasmanian timber industry based on the logging of regrowth forests and plantations and certified through Forest Stewardship Council accreditation through ongoing negotiation – not protest. For Flanagan, this is an attack on his right to dissent. His perspective is understandable given the past attempts to shut down dissent and litigate against opponents to forestry operations.
The Wilderness Society knows this better than anyone given we, too, were one of the targets of the so-called Gunns 20 litigation ( TT here ) which aimed to silence our organisation for speaking up for Tasmanian forests. But much like France, with its ill-fated Maginot Line in 1940, Flanagan is fighting the wrong war and not dealing with the present reality. The provisions that Flanagan claims silence his voice do not do anything of the sort.
What we now have is a mutual insurance policy to encourage both industry groups and environment groups to work together in both forest conservation and jobs over the next 18 months. If industry fails to support conservation outcomes, the agreement is dead. If environment groups fail to support job creation, the agreement is dead. It is not limiting freedom of speech or the right to dissent. It is not pretty but it is the reality after 30 years of trench warfare. It is the real world. Mutuality is the essence of any agreement.
But at least Flanagan has lived the experience of the forest wars the hard way and has been deep in the trenches. The same can’t be said of The Australia Institute’s Denniss. Airing his views in the Australian Financial Review and The Canberra Times, Denniss has piled up a soap box so high that perhaps the lack of oxygen has affected his mental faculties.
Denniss accuses the environment groups involved in the Tasmanian forest agreement process of selling out for no real outcomes. He claims we are complicit in an attack on dissent and free speech. Surely he knows he is talking rubbish.
The agreement and legislation does not take away the right to protest. But it does provide an alternative path to conflict resolution through negotiation and agreement through the staged delivery of outcomes to both the industry and the environment.
The Wilderness Society would never concede to a restriction on non-violent, peaceful protest or to free speech. We fought Gunns through the courts and won.
But peaceful protest should always be the last resort, not the first reflex action. Denniss does himself no favours trying to beat this up into something that it is not and he insults organisations such as The Wilderness Society by claiming we are so naive. Denniss then also tries to play the ‘eco’ economic rationalist card and complains about government funding support for economic diversification measures, worker assistance and retraining programs and the buyback of binding timber-supply contracts, which will reduce the size of the native forest logging industry by more than half.
So what Denniss is really saying is we should all just turn our backs on the economic dislocation and distress felt by workers and communities directly affected by the massive restructure foreseen by the agreement. This is presumably the compassionate Australia that The Australia Institute claims to want to create.
The naysayers may well be right. The agreement may fail. But there is no Plan B and misrepresenting and distorting what is on the table and what has been achieved is wrong and knowingly running misinformation campaigns to destroy the prospects for peace is culpable.
Lyndon Schneiders is national director of the Wilderness Society.
First published:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/comment/foolhardy-to-risk-a-fragile-peace-in-forest-wars-20130515-2jmoh.html#ixzz2TPjeggZ7
Richard Denniss on Facebook: Help, I’m under attack from some big environment groups:) Apparently I’m ‘foolhardy’ and my ‘mental faculties’ are in doubt, according to Lyndon Schnieders the head honcho at the Wilderness Society…it seems that he and Don Henry From the ACF don’t like it when people like me explain how their ‘historic forrest peace deal’ seeks to silence dissent. While they say they are proud of their deal they aren’t that proud of the bit that says that if ‘significant active protests’ are held against logging then trees that are in reserves will be stripped of their protections. They call it the ‘durability clause’, I call it blackmail…sad really. If you are members or donors of these groups please ask them to explain the need for, and operation of, these ‘durability’ clauses…you might also want to ask to see their legal advice • Richard Denniss on Tasmanian Times, here
• ABC: New future for wharf wood
• Peter Adams, in Comments: Beautifully written Barbara, #10. (Maybe you’re a ghost writer for Richard Flanagan?). I’ve been pondering on this debate for as long as everyone on TT and elsewhere. A year ago I even wrote in support of the draft TGA 2011 because I, too, wanted peace to occur in our forests and was willing to give the negotiations a fair go. However, what the Upper House did to the legislation was to destroy the legitimacy of the TGA 2011 and the negotiated agreements between the forest industry and the eNGO’s. For the eNGO’s and the four Greens in the Lower House to then accept this egregious act of political bullying and deliberate sabotage, is beyond comprehension. I just do not get it. Nothing I have read by the Wilderness Society or the Tasmanian Greens has given me any assurance that our forests will be protected. Quite the opposite.
• Paul Blake, CPSU: The importance of the Australian Public Service
• Tony Abbott: Julia Gillard should stop telling lies to the people of Tasmania
• Andrew Ricketts, in Comments: The regional conservation organisation I represent has “long called for reform” of forestry in Tasmania. We have been working on conservation and logging issues since our inception over two decades ago and have witnessed the inexorable decline of Tasmania’s wonderful natural forests since Tasmanian export woodchipping began four decades ago. Some of our members have been campaigning against export woodchipping for all this time. Schneiders has the temerity to describe the reaction against the Tasmanian Forest Agreement (TFA) as “over the top” when long-term conservationists were actively excluded from a private deal which guarantees more of the same – clearfelling, export woodchipping, habitat destruction, scarring of the landscape and cable logging in catchment headwaters. Alliance of The Australian Greens to the Liberal position? Where? What simplistic rubbish! From the outset of the ‘peace deal’ in 2010, Senator Milne supported and encouraged an inclusive process but the ENGO signatories ignored her sage advice. The Tasmanian Greens however, chose to listen to only a sector of the conservation movement and remained deaf to all other stakeholders. Why?
• Download: 1. Environmental Defenders Office Guide to the Tasmanian Forests Agreement Law. 2. EDO Guide to Creating Reserves under the Tasmanian Forests Agreement Law
The first document is a quick guide to quickly understand how the recently passed Tasmanian Forests Agreement Act 2012 will operate.
The second document is a more in-depth look at the complicated legislative process set up by the Tasmanian Forests Agreement Act 2012 to create reserves.