Using a smear campaign against conservationists is a transparent attempt to pass the buck.
We are witnessing the usual industry and government players grasping at straws and trying to explain a decision taken by Japanese woodchip buyers over 10 years ago.
Attempting to use the conservation movement as a scapegoat for long-term industry mismanagement, ignorance and bloody mindedness is a way to shift attention away from the failures and liability of industry leaders.
An election is imminent and blame shifting is becoming more urgent.
Facts and figures show that from the late 1980s, Mitsubishi, Nippon, Oji and other paper producing companies began to secure their access to wood fibre by planting 190,000 hectares of eucalypt plantations in Australia and nearly half a million hectares worldwide.
Just in Australia, this resource is probably capable of producing over 3 million tonnes of woodchips per year, enough to replace more than half of what they currently buy from Tasmania.
This resource is coming to maturity right now.
From the mid 1990s, Australian investors got on board. With none of the restraint or long term planning of the Japanese, these tax-driven investors have funded around half a million hectares of eucalypts, peaking in 2000 with 100,000 hectares planted. As a result, come 2013, the market will be flooded with over 20 million tonnes of hardwood chips – two and a half times all current Australian exports.
These numbers are staggering.
If Evan Rolley cannot embrace the new future …
For decades the Tasmanian community has demanded an end to the logging of old-growth and other high conservation value forests. The recent Tasmanian Supplementary Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) has provided the means — 250 million dollars of taxpayer money. Established plantations and regrowth forest provide the resource. All we need now is the political and industry will.
A new approach is needed.
If Evan Rolley cannot embrace the new future and adopt this new approach, he should put up his hand, move aside and let somebody in who can.
The money is now on the table and the time is long overdue for the timber industry to enact a rapid transition into plantation and regrowth based sectors. This paves the way for the well documented opportunities for jobs growth and the protection of the high conservation value forests the community demands.
But instead of looking forward for salvation, the industry continues to rehash the past. A pulp mill proposal that mirrors the Wesley Vale development rejected by the community 20 years ago is back on the cards with all of the associated costs to the environment and society.
Tasmanians know that our future lies in a clean, green brand.
The greatest threats to this brand are antiquated proposals like the Tamar Valley pulp mill and the ongoing unwillingness of the Tasmanian government and forest industry to move with the times and support the dreams, aspirations and conservation wishes of the majority of Tasmanians.
Vica Bayley is Tasmanian Forest Campaigner, The Wilderness Society.
