Economy
Flawed forestry repeal bill huge risk to forests, industry
Rob Blakers’ ( http://www.robblakers.com/ ) pic of Oldgrowth forest, Upper Florentine Valley
The Tasmanian Government’s bill to repeal the Tasmanian Forest Agreement Act, to be debated in Parliament today, will open up forest reserves for logging and dramatically increase uncertainty in the forestry industry.
Analysis by environment groups (attached) has identified fatal flaws in the legislation. The bill undermines the progress Tasmania has made in moving on from logging conflict since the Tasmanian Forest Agreement Act was passed in May 2013.
The environment group signatories to the forest agreement have urged Premier Will Hodgman to drop the bill and back the forest agreement that is already delivering certainty for the industry and conservation outcomes.
“The repeal bill plays Russian roulette with market confidence, FSC certification and environmental protection,” said Vica Bayley, spokesperson for The Wilderness Society. “It undermines the stability provided by the forest agreement – security for wood supply, conservation, markets, and workers.
“By preventing the protection of forests agreed under the TFA, this legislation sends a clear signal that customers of Tasmanian wood can no longer have confidence that Tasmania’s forests have the protection they need to guarantee environmental sustainability.”
“While the bill suggests putting a moratorium on logging for six years in order to navigate Forest Stewardship Council certification, in reality it allows intensive clearfell-type logging, such as aggregated retention, in agreed reserve areas,” said Phill Pullinger, spokesperson for Environment Tasmania.
“The bill also allows the government to swap areas out of the potential production zone, raising the prospect of old growth forests being opened for logging and taking us back to the bad old days. Proposals such as opening up existing conservation reserves for logging will clearly cause concern to customers and hurdles to FSC certification.
“A strength of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement Act is the world-first specification of FSC certification in the legislation. The Tasmanian Government’s proposed legislation replaces this with a generic reference to certification. The bill further threatens FSC certification through potential logging of agreed reserves, removing the permanent protection needed to meets FSC requirements.”
“We urge the Tasmanian government to give the forests peace agreement a chance to work, not take Tasmania back to the old, failed forestry policies of the past,” said Jess Abrahams, spokesperson for the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Download briefing paper:
Negative_impacts_of_the_Government_-_eNGO_Brief.pdf
• Anon, in Comments: Why is the Liberal Party so obviously desperate for Labor to support their legislation to rip up the TFA? Their focus all week has been on the Labor Party position, with constant calls on Labor to support the legislation, but Labor’s support is not actually necessary for the government’s legislation to pass Parliament. So why the desperation for Labor to join the government in supporting this legislation? Maybe the Libs are aware they’re on the wrong side of history regarding the peace deal, and will look increasingly like the wreckers that they are as the years pass by and the forest industry doesn’t miraculously spring back to life. Whatever the case, the Liberal Government has made a rod for its own back through its own thoughtless opposition for opposition’s sake, and its telling that their solution is not to admit they were wrong, but to instead attempt to bully the other side of politics into rubber-stamping their non-policy on forestry.
• Kim Booth: Libs Fail End to Forestry Subsidies Test The Hodgman government’s failure to vote to require Forestry Tasmania to move to a competitive full-cost recovery business model by the 1st of July this year, confirms fears that the taxpayer will still prop up the entity once the contingency fund is removed. Despite stating in the House a fortnight ago that ‘Forestry Tasmania will not receive any taxpayer subsidy from 1 July’, the Resources Minister Paul Harriss weasled out off a binding vote by instead moving an amendment to gut the Greens’ motion. The question that Minister Harriss has repeatedly refused to answer isn’t whether Forestry’s contingency fund will cease at the end of the financial year, but how will the government prevent other forms of public-funded support being needed to prop it up.
• Paul Harriss: Labor hasn’t listened and they haven’t learned
• Brown Calls for World Heritage Protection
• International stars join Tasmania’s World Heritage campaign
• Peter Patmore, Mercury: A Green light on the hill for Labor … While voters may be ignorant (in the non-insulting sense that they sometimes don’t have all the information), they aren’t stupid. The challenge is to sell the message, to educate and inform the electorate as to what they have to offer. That is where the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement had so much potential. And, heaven forbid, raise the possibility of a future coalition. If the shrinking violets in Labor find that word too offensive to their sensibilities, then call it something else, but discuss it anyway! Coalitions aren’t new. South Australia, Western Australia, New Zealand are all examples. We need to remind people who criticise such arrangements that we have a federal Coalition government. Ultimately, the two parties have more in common than that which puts them apart …