Wilderness World Heritage listed quarry and forestry road network
The Tasmanian community has been deceived into believing the extension to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA) is pristine, untouched wilderness that has never been subject to forestry activity.
In a recent flight over the TWWHA extension I was able to take photographs of the so called ‘wilderness’ area. These photographs expose the extension is riddled with recently harvested forestry coupes, forestry access roads, quarries and high voltage power lines. Closer inspection shows regrowth forests with clear age delineations exposing areas that have been harvested and regenerated over many years.
By accepting this extension the World Heritage Committee has clearly diminished the wilderness values of the existing TWWHA.
These are the same forests the Greens and ENGOs once claimed had been forever destroyed by forestry activity, yet now they want them locked up and labelled ‘pristine wilderness’. They can’t have it both ways.
These photographs do not lie. They clearly show the extension does not meet any definition of Wilderness World Heritage, which is how the rest of the TWWHA is classified. The Tasmanian and Australian people have been grossly deceived, as has the World Heritage Commission.
How can ENGOs on one hand claim harvested forests are world heritage quality, yet on the other hand claim native forest harvesting destroys the environment forever?
It is nothing more than a politically motivated ploy to destroy the native forestry industry and with it cut jobs, destroy Tasmanian communities and hurt Tasmanian families.
We already know, through international verification, that our forest management practices are among the best in the world. To now have green groups labelling recently harvested and re-growth forest as world heritage quality is a fantastic endorsement of the sustainability of the Tasmanian forestry industry.
The Tasmanian forestry industry is a sustainable, renewable industry and can provide dividends for the environment, the community and the industry. However trying to deceive the Tasmanian people by labelling areas with a long history of forestry activity as ‘pristine wilderness’ and locking them up is deceitful and politically motivated.
The iconic Tasmanian special species timber sector is just one casualty of the TWWHA forest lock-up and sham Tasmanian Forest Agreement (TFA).
Under the sham TFA ‘peace deal’ process the special species sector was promised a log supply of 12,500 cubic metres per year. However commitment to that promise has gone very quiet since even more of the resource was locked up inside the TWWHA extension.
The responsibility was given to ENGOs to allocate coupes under the sham peace deal and the dishonesty of that process has become more than apparent. If the same thing had happened in the commercial world the fraud squad would be investigating.
Ground inspection of these coupes reveals a very low presence of special species in regrowth forests that won’t be mature for decades, even centuries.
My photographs of these special species contingency coupes expose many have been recently harvested and have no prospect of providing special species timber.
Other coupes set aside for special species will never be harvested because they are so steep that they fall outside the forest practices code.
My particular favourite is a photograph of a special species coupe that was harvested about six years ago and has been resown with eucalyptus. It is coming along nicely. The real blow however is that this new young forest, which is designated to supply special species, is inside the extended World Heritage boundary!
Image of recently harvested special species contingency coupe inside TWWHA extension area
It will never provide any timber but is completely symbolic of the complete sham that this dishonest process is.
By the end of the flight over the TWWHA extension I felt sick with anger.
I have hundreds and hundreds of photographs of thousands and thousands of hectares of supposed “wilderness” world heritage which clearly doesn’t’t meet the definition of wilderness.
The WILD foundation define wilderness as “The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet – those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with roads, pipelines or other industrial infrastructure.”
Image of recent forestry activity inside TWWHA extension area, with more harvested coupes visible in background
I guess those responsible for the TWWHA extension thought no one would ever check. They were wrong.
The deceit is simply breathtaking.
It is clear is that what was promised for the special species sector will not be delivered. This is another scam element of the sham ‘peace deal’.
This sham ‘peace deal’ will have a devastating impact on Tasmania’s furniture, wood crafts and wooden boat businesses. Imagine tourist hot-spot Salamanca without any iconic wood crafts – this clearly could be the future if there is limited access to special species timber.
The special species sector has been shown to provide employment and income for more than 2,000 people in Tasmania. The very same iconic small businesses, based on incredible design and craftsmanship, that ENGOs claim to support, yet are destroying through their political agenda to end the native forestry industry in Tasmania.
The special species industry is not out to destroy the forest, they’re just looking to have sensible access to the resource that provides the high quality high value product they are renowned for.
Locking up more of Tasmania’s forests is not the answer. It will actually see remaining forests harvested too intensively and unsustainably and the end result will not be not enough timber to sustain what is left of the industry by 2030.
It will mean a worse environmental outcome, a worse industry outcome, and a worse community outcome.
The best way to ensure our forests are sustainable into the future is to manage them with a world leading science based approach, taking into account the needs of local communities and the wider Tasmanian economy and the environment.
No one thinks that Tasmania should simply plunder its natural resources in the pursuit of short-term gains.
The Coalition’s policy will create a truly sustainable forest industry for Tasmania, providing a dividend for the environment, industry and community.
As the chair of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations said in the recent State of the World’s Forests report:
“A challenge for the forestry profession is to communicate the simple idea that the best way of saving a forest is to manage it sustainably and to benefit from its products and ecosystem services. If the principles of sustainable forest management are applied and forest products and ecosystem services play an increasing role, the global economy will become greener.”
SENATOR THE HON RICHARD COLBECK Senator for Tasmania Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation, Industry and Science
