Main pic: The federal government plans to log World Heritage listed forests, such as these in the Styx Valley. Rob Blakers www.robblakers.com
Opening Tasmania’s World Heritage forests to logging is unlawful and uneconomic. Rob Blakers www.robblakers.com
This plan would see World Heritage listed rainforest logged in the Weld Valley. Rob Blakers www.robblakers.com
Australia’s new government plans to axe not only the carbon price, but also iconic, World Heritage-listed, Tasmanian forests. Opening these forests for logging would break international law, and that would damage Australia’s reputation, demand for forestry products, and Tasmania’s clean, green brand upon which other industries rely.
In June this year, the World Heritage Committee approved Australia’s request to expand the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area by more than 170,000 hectares. The expansion was along the area’s northern (Great Western Tiers) and eastern (valleys of the Huon, Weld, Styx and upper Florentine) boundaries.
As Australia’s Environment Department states, in addition to listing glacial alpine areas such as Mt Field National Park:
The extension [protects] additional areas of exceptional beauty, particularly majestic stands of tall eucalypt forests… increases the extent of wet eucalypt forests within the property and will enhance the connectivity between its tall eucalypt forest and rainforest.
Additional important habitat for rare and threatened species such as the endangered wedge-tailed eagle and the Tasmanian devil are also included in the boundary extension.
The extension is the most important conservation result from the Tasmanian Forest Agreement between the Australian and Tasmanian Governments.
Coalition seeks World Heritage removal for logging
The Coalition’s forestry spokesman said this week “I have already written to the World Heritage Council [sic] seeking to have these areas removed”.
That’s premature: Australian law makes meeting World Heritage obligations the Environment Minister’s responsibility.
Tasmanian Liberal Opposition leader Will Hodgman said this week that if elected in March 2014, he would send the state-owned corporation Forestry Tasmania into the delisted World Heritage areas to log specialty [old growth rainforest] timbers:
We’d allow that to happen and to provide that resource that’s needed to grow the industry … including in the recently listed world-heritage area.
Logging a World Heritage area would ruin Australia’s reputation
Logging this area would be unlawful. The World Heritage Committee’s decision was supported by voluminous documentation. It authoritatively confirms the forests’ World Heritage significance or “outstanding universal value”.
Read the full article, with full links, The Conversation here
• Lara Giddings: Environment Groups Join Overseas Promotion of Forestry Industry
• Liberals threaten desecration of UNESCO World Heritage Area
• Bryan Green: Securing the future of Tasmania’s plantation resource
• TFGA welcomes plantations move
• Jenny Weber, New Matilda: Tasmanian Libs Will Put Forests To The Torch
• Mark Poynter, Online Opinion: Is there room for science in the Tasmanian World Heritage dispute?
