LOGGING THE WORLD HERITAGE AREA FOR ‘SPECIALTY SPECIES’ WON’T APPEAL TO MARKET

The reversal of Labor’s support for maintaining the environmental integrity of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area in favour of logging for specialty species is alarming and product sourced from such logging will be unacceptable to many who work producing high quality wood products, and to much of the market, according to Markets For Change .

“Logging the forests of the World Heritage Area for specialty species is really the equivalent of killing elephants for ivory – unacceptable, unwarranted, and unnecessary,” said Markets For Change CEO Peg Putt.

“We believe that many woodworkers do not want to work with wood logged from the outstanding World Heritage forests of Tasmania, and neither will consumers be prepared to buy anything made from this source.”

“The dishonest campaign to gain access to World Heritage forests is not really about a lack of resource, it’s an ideological push for logging which Labor have now embraced.”

“The fact is that the new legislation that repealed the Tasmanian Forest Agreement made an extra 1.5 million hectares available for specialty species logging in addition to the 800,000 hectares of permanent timber production zone land from which such logs can also be taken. The advocates of this logging misleadingly imply that they have no resource left to them, and Labor is now collaborating in this deception.”

“Neither is there any mention that standards for such ‘partial’ logging will not even need to be as high required for Forest Stewardship Council certification, yet Labor is well aware that this provision for FSC equivalence was struck out by the Legislative Council at the request of a narrow group of specialty timbers advocates.”
Markets For Change CEO Peg Putt