*Pics: Today’s protest in Hobart … and, below, the Florentine Valley, one of the forests the Federal Government wants to open to logging. Both pics: Rob Blakers,
http://www.robblakers.com/
_lores.jpg "Thousands protest governments' efforts to log Tasmania’s World Heritage forests 7")
• 5000 rally in Hobart to send message to World Heritage Committee meeting in Doha. • Australian Government asked World Heritage Committee to delist Tasmanian forests. • World Heritage advisory body IUCN has recommended committee reject bid.
More than 5000 people have rallied outside Tasmania’s Parliament to protest the Abbott Government’s discredited attempt to revoke World Heritage listing for iconic forest areas so they can be logged. The rally sends a strong message to the World Heritage Committee to follow the recommendations of its expert advisors and reject the Government’s application when it meets in Doha, Qatar, next week.
“The Abbott Government is attacking the notion of World Heritage by proposing to log iconic Tasmanian forests already accepted as World Heritage,” said Wilderness Society Tasmanian Campaign Manager Vica Bayley, who will travel to Doha for the World Heritage Committee meeting.
“With ancient trees up to 100 metres tall, these forests are the Southern Hemisphere’s equivalent of the Californian Redwoods.
“Logging World Heritage forests is as reckless as destroying any other World Heritage site, like using the Grand Canyon as a garbage dump, knocking down the Sydney Opera House for harbourside apartments or selling the Eiffel Tower for scrap.
“The Government’s action threatens Australia’s billion-dollar tourism industry that relies on our international reputation for amazing unspoilt landscapes, clear skies, fresh air and clean waters. If Tasmania’s World Heritage forests aren’t safe, neither are our other iconic World Heritage sites, such as the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree rainforest, Kakadu and the Blue Mountains.
“The Abbott Government should drop its discredited request to axe the new Tasmanian World Heritage forests before further embarrasses Australia and wastes more of the world Heritage Committee’s time.”
In a scandal that has outraged Australians, Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt asked the World Heritage Committee to revoke the listing of 74,000 hectares (183,000 acres) of the 120,000ha of new reserves added to the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage property in 2013, saying it was degraded even though its own internal advice said only 8.6 per cent of the area had been disturbed. More than 90 per cent is pristine old-growth forest, rainforest and other intact natural vegetation.
The Government’s move is not only opposed by conservations but by the state’s timber industry, which can only sell wood to international markets if it is free from controversy, especially in its existing markets in Japan.
The World Heritage Committee has received expert advice to reject the Australian Government’s request to axe Tasmania’s new World Heritage forests at its meeting next week. Its advisory body, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), comprehensively confirmed the World Heritage values of the forests and recommended the application be rejected.
Rally speaker Greg Irons, a wildlife expert and Tasmanian tourism operator, said: “Not only does the Government’s action send an atrocious message about Australia’s commitment to protecting the environment and respecting World Heritage, it sets an appalling precedent to other countries and undermines World Heritage protection across the globe.
“This is the first time a developed country has asked to delist a World Heritage property when its heritage values are well and truly still intact.”
The World Heritage Committee unanimously approved the extension of the Tasmanian forest listing at its June 2013 meeting as it met all four natural heritage criteria when only one value is needed for a World Heritage listing.
“The actions of the Australian Government undermine the World Heritage Convention and threatens the United Nations’ efforts to protect natural and cultural heritage in other parts of the world. It sets an atrocious precedent to other countries in less developed parts of the world, struggling to recognise and protect their own outstanding heritage.
• Richard Colbeck: Green groups continue to mislead
• George Harris, in Comments: The FIAT position is working against the interests of the Special Timbers sector. Most of FIAT’s members will not take timber from the contested areas, and they should be immune from any ENGO backlash. When the industry was in difficult negotiations with a gun at its head, FIAT seemed to say OK, if there has to be a smaller pie, we want all of it for our members, and the rest (the smaller mills) can take taxpayer money to exit the industry, and they did not strenuously defend our Special Timbers forests nor sufficiently object to us being given rubbish in its place. Their stance now is adding insult and further injury to what was unjustified in the first place.
