1. An email update from Kim Booth may be of interest to you all. (at the end)
2. A couple of interesting links from recent articles re mill:
From The Examiner: 11 September
http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/politics/sawmills-facing-chip-price-slash/1938832.aspx
From ABC Stateline program broadcast on 10 September – transcript & audio
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/09/10/3008909.htm
3. And this from Ecological Internet MR. However you may like to consider emailing Dr Glen Barry and explain why opposition to the pulp mill goes rather a lot further than simply the use of plantation timber.
September 10, 2010
From Earth’s Newsdesk and Forests.org, projects of Ecological Internet (EI)
http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/ | http://forests.org/
(Tasmania, Australia) – In a massive win for the environmental movement, the new head of Tasmanian timber company Gunns Limited has broke ranks with Tasmania’s forest industry and confirmed it will pull out of native forest logging altogether. At an industry conference in Melbourne Thursday, Gunns’ new chief executive Greg L’Estrange announced the company will move away from logging native forests and develop plantation-based products. Further, Gunns revealed it would quit the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, which was arguing for a continuation of native forest logging in the state.
The promises, if fully implemented, are a huge victory for Tasmania and Australia’s forest movement, such as the Wilderness Society, as well as a large body of international affinity campaigns. Tasmania has the tallest flowering plants on Earth, with trees reaching over 90 meters, and contains Australia’s greatest tracts of temperate rainforest. Australia’s intact Eucalypt forests are also extraordinarily carbon rich. Gunns and Tasmania’s environment movement have been long-time foes, culminating in a bitter five-year lawsuit brought by the company against 20 conservationists, including Greens leader Bob Brown, which Gunns lost in 2009, while failing to stifle opposition.
Ecological Internet played a critical role in the victory with over a decade of Internet action alerts and protests, which successfully internationalized the issue. Most recently in August of 2008 some 7634 global citizens participating in EI’s Earth Action Network [1} sent 450,906 protest emails, urging the actions taken yesterday. Over a dozen such alerts were done by EI urging and end to Gunns’ native old growth logging over the years. Some thought EI’s demands to end – rather than regulate or certify -Tasmania’s primary forest logging as too extreme, yet if this announcement is implemented, EI’s demands will have been met in full.
“The Tasmanian and global forest protection movements have flexed their muscle, and the Tasmanian, Australian and global campaign to end primary forest logging has scored a likely huge victory,” states Dr. Glen Barry, EI’s President. “Yet it is vital campaigns continue against Gunns, a there are a number of ways this could still end badly for Tasmania’s forests. To ensure Gunns’ announcement is not greenwash, EI demands: 1) Gunns must immediately announce firm date for transitioning to plantations, 2) lands formerly to be logged by Gunns must be fully protected, 3) Tasmania’s industrial old growth logging must end and not be replaced by selective “certified” logging, 4) Tasmanian pulp mill must be legally barred from using non-plantation fiber, and 5) best plantations practices – dependent upon mixed native species without toxics – must be used.”
Mr. L’Estrange of Gunns acknowledged that most Australians support the environmental groups in their decades-long campaign to end logging in the old growth native forests of Tasmania. “Native forest is not part of our future,” he said. “We see that the conflict largely has to end. Our employees and the communities we operate in have been collateral damage to this process. We want to move our business to a plantation-based business.” Others in similar business situations globally would be well advised to similarly, as the era of primary forest logging is over.
Contact: Dr. Glen Barry, President, Ecological Internet, [email protected]
### ENDS ###
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From: Kim Booth
Subject: FW: [Forest Reference Group] FW: Mercury correction/Press Council
Subject: [Forest Reference Group] FW: Mercury correction/Press Council
To: [email protected]
Hi everyone,
Please see the the outcome of Louise Crossley’s action in reporting the Mercury to the Press Council for Sue Neales’ arcticle on the forest talks leaks.
Thanks from all of us Louise!
From Louise…
On p3. of yesterday’s Mercury you will find the following, under ‘Getting it
Straight’ (the Mercury’s coy way of reporting these things!)
“THE Mercury on August 26 reported on the content of a final negotiating
draft arising from talks between conservation and industry groups on the
future of forestry in Tasmania.
The article incorrectly reported that a key detail of the draft was
“agreement from environmental groups for Gunns to build its $2.5 billion
pulp mill in the Tamar Valley without protest or obstruction in financial
markets.”
In fact, the draft contained no such agreement, there is no reference to the
Gunns pulp mill and no reference to protest or obstruction.
The relevant clause in the draft agreement in fact said: “ Industry: Create
a strong, sustainable timber industry including the development of a range
of plantation-based timber processing facilities, including a pulp mill.
There will need to be stakeholder consultation and engagement with the
proponent, ENGOs and the community.”
The Mercury apolgises for these errors and acknowledges they led to false
and misleading inferences.”
I have also complained to the ABC for its Online report of the leak which
also mentioned Gunns pulp mill – though did not add Neales’s egregious
comment about ‘without protest or obstruction in financial markets.’
Small win…but worth it I hope. Though probably everyone has forgotten
about it now. Though I do think the media incorrectly nailing ‘Gunns pulp
mill’ has provoked extra angst.
Cheers, Louise
Anne Layton-Bennett
