Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 11 March 2025

Ta Ann’s Greenwash Exposed at Smithton Mill Protest

This morning 15 protesters are at the Ta Ann native forest peeler facility with two community members locked on together to a « Greenwashing Machine >> amidst a very visual greenwashing of their facility.

Bob Brown Foundation has today publicly released an investigative report documenting fifteen forests that have been recently logged for Ta Ann or are currently threatened by logging for the contentious company.

“Thousands of trees worth of timber have been left rotting at the mill. Ta Ann must be held accountable. Behind their mill in Smithton is a shocking example of the company’s reprehensible disdain for Tasmania’s precious forests. Thousands of huge packs of rotting milled peeler is lain to waste in the order of 7000 cubic metres. Discarded and left to decompose while Forestry Tasmania logs more ancient native forests to provide Ta Ann,” said Erik Hayward, Bob Brown Foundation Campaigner.

“Ta Ann is one of the major culprits in the greenwashing of our native forest devastation while driving the demise of our native forests. With theatrical flair, satire, direct-action and sobering reality, we are here today to expose the greenwash painted by Ta Ann to their customers. Ta Ann receives contentious timber from native forest devastation it causes every day,” said Erik Hayward.

“Ta Ann has to go, it is not a company that Tasmania should be allowing to operate here. They are a company that is receiving timber from endangered species habitat and logging practices that are contributing to the climate crisis. They are driving the large-scale destruction of native forests in Tasmania. Our investigative report proves the timber is from conflict sources and is highly contentious. This report has a selection of the logging areas to document our findings, the problem out across the forests is much bigger. We’ve been witnessing the shocking rotting of the timber outside their Smithton mill since 2019, but the forests keep getting logged for them,” said Jenny Weber, Bob Brown Foundation’s Campaign Manager.

Laura Mckew 62, a gardener, and Deborah Lynch, a local artist are attached together in a stand against the continued logging and sale of native forests.

“We are a couple of long-term climate and environmental activists, who have been working for the protection of the ancient forests of Takayna for over a decade. In this time of catastrophic global heating, we believe that it is sheer madness to be logging the forests of Lutruwita. Not to mention the burning of the logging waste, which threatens the health of our local residents and our planet, by the addition of carbon to the atmosphere”.

“Untouched, Lutruwita’s forests remain as one of the largest natural, passive carbon storage mechanisms, that this country has to offer. Greenwashing by the duopoly of powerful, governing political parties, their logging agency Forestry Tasmania and Malaysian company, Ta Ann, may fool many Tasmania’s, but we wish to expose the truth. For the sake of the planet, we must End Native Forest Logging now!”

Read the full report here.