Economy
Royal Assent of Tasmanian Forest Agreement Bill is a right royal mess
Huon Valley Environment Centre is calling on the community to recognise the multitude of pitfalls for conservation in the Tasmanian Forests Agreement Bill 2013 and heed our call for an ongoing need for forest advocacy in Tasmania, as today’s royal assent of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement Bill delivers a right royal mess for the forests and environmentalists will need to remain vigilant.
Huon Valley Environment Centre’s Jenny Weber said, “Today with the Tasmanian Forest Agreement signed in to law, not a single reserve is created. And logging continues inside the proposed reserves, as the logging industry’s schedule was exempt from the legislation.”
“A legislation that fails to secure upfront reserves, cessation of logging inside proposed reserves, national park status for forests such as the Picton and Weld valleys, a swift timeline for transition out of native forest logging and much-needed industrial practices reform, is unacceptable,” Ms Weber said.
“With the royal assent of this law, 1.2 million hectares of Tasmania’s forests will be placed into ‘permanent timber production zones’, including all proposed reserves, and many high conservation value areas (approx. 100,000 ha) that were part of the 572,000-ha reserve ask by environment signatories to the agreement.”
“Any protection of these forests is also dependent on “greenmail” clauses that require the community to remain silent about concerns around management of public forests in media, market and political spheres. This rewarding of extreme mismanagement of public resources does away with any immediate impetus for change in the industry,” said Ms. Weber.
“Furthermore, Ta Ann, a multi-million dollar Malaysian timber company with extensive links to the corrupt regime in Sarawak, that fails miserably in gaining social licenses for its operations in Tasmania, is looking to gain compensation from Australian taxpayers as mistakes made by Forestry Tasmania and the state government resulted in an overcomitment of timber resources in their wood supply contract,” said Ms. Weber
“We have been delivered a right royal mess for Tasmania, as environmental gains continue to be compromised and the logging industry gets all their money upfront, money flows freely to prop up a loss-generating industry that employs less than 2% of the workforce,” said Ms. Weber.
Jenny Weber
Huon Valley Environment Centre
www.huon.org
www.nativeforest.net