Big Scrub Environment Centre

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Court Rules Tasmanian Logging Operations Breach RFA
Australian Greens leader Bob Brown says a Federal Court decision today should spell the end of logging in Tasmania's old-growth native forests. The court has ruled that Forestry Tasmania's logging operations in the Wielangta forest breach the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA), signed between the Commonwealth and Tasmanian governments. The Federal Court in Hobart also found that the company does not have an exemption under relevant environment protection laws.

Senator Brown argued in court that forestry operations in the Wielangta State Forest, in south-east Tasmania, endangered a rare beetle, the swift parrot and the wedge-tailed eagle. He says his decision to take legal action to protect the three threatened species has been vindicated. "They cannot continue to clearfell log in our old-growth forests as they've been doing, because it is threatening rare and endangered species," he said. "Let me say this, I don't know of a logging operation in Tasmania which is not threatening listed rare and endangered species. I don't know of one."

Senator Brown says the ruling should be the catalyst for an immediate review of all logging operations in Australia. He says the decision is a milestone in environmental legal history.
ABC News Online 19.12.06

Wilderness Society to resume Gunns campaign
The Wilderness Society plans to resume its lobbying campaign against timber company Gunns Limited after Tasmanian timber company Gunns Limited this week dropped legal action against two high profile Greens politicians.

Australian Greens leader Senator Bob Brown and his Tasmanian counterpart, Peg Putt, were among the group known as the 'Gunns 20'. Senator Brown says the withdrawal proves Gunns had no case against the politicians. "It's a real victory in particular for free speech and for the right of parliamentarians to advocate the protection of Australia's great forest heritage in Tasmania and elsewhere," he said.

Read more about the current state of the SLAPP's case here

Weld Valley:
For over five years the Weld Valley in Southern Tasmania has been a site of resistance, protest and community action. The high conservation values of the southern old growth forests continues to spurr local community members and activists to fight to protect them from the constant threat of clearfelling, logging and woodchipping.

Unprecedented destruction of our precious forests continues despite widespread acknowledgement of the impacts of global warming and impending dire consequences if we do not act now to preserve what is left of our global natural resources.

The Tasmanian Government and Gunns Limited (World's largest hardwood woodchipping company) are not listening, putting profits before thefuture health and survival of our planet. Now more than ever before we must make our voices heard. The destruction must stop. Please support the Tasmanian forest summer campaign. You can help in a number of ways.

Please write a letter or send an email asking to ensure comprehensive and adequate protection for Tasmania's threatened forests, to:

Prime Minister John Howard, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600
Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600
senator.ian.campbell@aph.gov.au
Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon, GPO Box 123B Hobart 7001 Ph. 03 62333464
Bryan Green, Tasmanian Minister for Economic Development and Resources, GPO Box 646 Hobart 7000 TAS
info@development.tas.gov.au

Please check out these websites:
www.forestdefenceunit.org
www.talloonne.com
www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/tasmania/tas_facts/

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Media Release
‘4730 HECTARES SAVED’ INSTEAD OF PROMISED 18,700 HECTARES
31 March 2006

The Howard Government has admitted it broke its promise to protect 18,700 hectares of oldgrowth forest in the Styx and Florentine Valleys. “Fresh destruction of oldgrowth forests in the Styx and Florentine valleys is occurring because Prime Minister John Howard broke his promise to protect these areas,” said Wilderness Society Campaign Coordinator, Geoff Law.

In October 2004, the Prime Minister promised: immediate protection of 18,700 hectares of oldgrowth forest in the Styx and Florentine valleys along the Eastern Boundary World Heritage Area. Yesterday, in response to a question by Greens Senator Christine Milne, Senator Nick Minchin denied that the promise had been broken.

However, the Government’s literature about the Howard-Lennon agreement of last May admits that the protected areas in the Styx and Florentine contain ‘4730 hectares of old-growth eucalypt against a target of 18,700 hectares’. (The Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement, Fact Sheet No. 3) “The Government admits that it failed to meet its promise by nearly 14,000 hectares of oldgrowth,” said Mr Law. “The giant trees in these forests are now being destroyed.”

Mr Law said that logging is having serious impacts on World Heritage values in both the Styx and Florentine valleys. The logging has created two new flashpoints – one in the Styx, where lone community campaigner Peter Firth has been sitting in a 75-metre-tall swamp gum in the path of logging operations for 10 days; and one in the upper Florentine, where conservationists yesterday protested against the bulldozing of a new logging road into a previously untouched part of the Florentine valley. The fresh destruction in the upper Florentine occurred in the presence of two Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagles – listed as endangered.

“Conservationists are having to do the Prime Minister’s job for him. Even with $250 million allocated to the logging industry, the Government still could not fulfil its promises to the Australian people to save 18,700 ha of irreplaceable oldgrowth forests in the Styx and Florentine valleys.”

For more information, please contact:
Geoff Law
Tasmanian Campaign Coordinator

Tasmanian Forests:
When woodchipping began in Tasmania in 1970, it was going to use only 'waste' from sawmilling, but today 90% of timber drawn from public forests goes to woodchip! Saw-logs and veneer have become the by-products of the low-earning woodchip industry, which since 1970 has seen the closure of more than 100 local sawmills and the loss of over 5000 jobs.

Tasmania's forests are being razed at the greatest rate in history, for the lowest return in history, with the fewest jobs in history!

At the signing of the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement in November 1997, John Howard predicted the RFA would create 1000 new jobs and he gave $80 million of taxpayers' money to help achieve this. Since 1997woodchipping of Tasmania's forests has increased by more than 2 million tonnes to 5 million tonnes per annum, but instead of 1000 new jobs being created, hundreds of jobs have been shed. Today in Tasmania, there are no annual limits on the amount of timber available from public forests for woodchipping.

Forestry Tasmania has been exempted from Tasmania's Freedom of Information Act and though it claims to observe 'World's Best Practice' forestry and logging techniques, the reality is a far cry from the rhetoric. In association with the world's largest hardwood woodchipping company, Gunns Pty Ltd, Forestry Tasmania is plundering Tasmania's forests for the once-only conversion of ancient forest to woodchips, and their replacement by plantations.

Clause 8 of the Regional Forests Agreement Act gives the guarantee that should action be taken to protect forests by future federal governments, compensation will be paid to logging interests, effectively transferring public forests into private hands.

A key measure of sustainability is that no species are lost from an ecosystem. The claim that "no species are known to have been driven to extinction by forestry practices in Tasmania" heavily relies on the lack of knowledge about the species that live in Tasmania's forests, and the fact that we know so little about the long-tern effects of forest fragmentation and conversion to plantations.

'Alternative use' proposals are available from environment centres within Tasmania which present ecologically and economically sustainable strategies for managing forest and wilderness areas that will bring ongoing long term benefits to all of Tasmania. If unsustainable forestry practices continue, there will be long-term implications not just for forest ecology and bio-diversity, but also for a suite of social and economic values such as future timber quality, aesthetics, ecotourism, beekeeping and pollination services and water supply.

What You Can Do
This year local government elections will be held and this is an opportunity for Tasmanians to say NO! to the establishment by Gunns of a new pulp mill. State government elections are to be held in 2006 and it is important that the campaign to save the Tasmanian forests from woodchipping is supported both nationally and internationally. Once the forests are gone, they are gone! A plantation with it's monoculture eucalypts or even pines is not a forest. A forest is a dynamic, living, multifaceted ecosystem that is a part of us as much as we are a part of it!

Write to your local and federal member expressing your concerns, as well as to the relevant environment and forestry departments, telling them that you will not vote for them unless they consider the will of the people and protect the forests for the benefit of everyone, not just the few who reap the rewards of unsustainable forestry practices.

Raise community awareness, get lots of media and put pressure on politicians.
Copies of sample letters and more information is available from Northern Rivers Tassie Forests Action Group.
Contact Valerie on 02 6689 5344

Visit The Wilderness Society at www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/tasmania/

For specific information,
please contact the Huon Valley Environment Centre
or check out the Tarkine National Coalition for the latest.

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Free Speech and SLAPP's
Wilderness Society to resume Gunns campaign
The Wilderness Society plans to resume its lobbying campaign against timber company Gunns Limited.

Gunns has dropped its legal action against two Greens' MPs, Senator Bob Brown and Tasmanian MHA Peg Putt, members of the group called the 'Gunns 20'. Gunns was arguing before the Victorian Supreme Court that their anti-logging campaigns were harming its business. The action against the group, Doctors for Forests, and two other individuals, Helen Gee and Peter Pullinger, was dropped last month. However, claims against 15 others, including the Wilderness Society, remain.

The Wilderness Society's legal coordinator Greg Ogle says it is a victory for free speech and the society is now free to again lobby against Gunns in the corporate world. "What the decision means is that there's more scope and the ability to talk to customers and to other corporate players is actually vindicated in our view," he said.

History of the Tassie Forest SLAPP's
Pulling Out the Big Gunns, by Louise Morris

While the pivotal 2004 federal election result did not deliver the desired outcome of protecting the remaining High Conservation Value (HCV) forests or restructuring the Tasmanian forest industry away from woodchipping, the issue has not disappeared from the public eye. The actions of Gunns Ltd., Tasmania’s dominant logging corporation, has assured the Tasmanian forest campaign will continue as one of the most prominent environmental issues in Australia, if not the world.

Gunns Ltd. has issued a lawsuit amounting to over $6.36 million against 20 defendants active in calling for an ending clearfell logging, woodchipping, plantation establishment and poisoning of native animals in Tasmania. This particular lawsuit known as a SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) is an industrial style litigation made famous by the McLibel case in the U.K.

The 20 defendants range from a grandmother, university students, doctors, film makers, parliamentary representatives, a community environment centre as well as The Greens party. Central to Gunns Ltds. claims is that defendants have been involved in a campaign of corporate vilification, alleging conspiracy, interference with trade and business as well as defamation.

Solicitors for Gunns Ltd., EMA Legal, filed a 216 page writ in the Victorian Supreme Court on December 13, 2004 seeking damages totaling $6 360 483.00.

While this lawsuit will take up considerable time, energy and money from the activists involved, it will not detract or distract them from campaigning for the protection of Tasmania’s HCV forests in the lead up to the state election and beyond.

Tasmania faces a state election in mid 2006, an election that will re-ignite issues raised during the federal election. Including the divisions apparent between state and federal Labor on forest protection. While there is little difference between state Liberal and Labor party’s on forests and many other issues, the potential for gaining further increases in Greens and independent representation is great.

The reality of the situation in Tasmania remains that we cannot expect any substantial moves forward coming from the powers that be within the state. It is still on the national and international stage that Tasmania’s forests must be championed. As the profile of Tasmania as a premier tourist destination and location for many ‘sea changers’ continues to grow, the outdated and insular modes of self regulating forestry practices will continue to come under the spotlight.

As is so often the case in changing practices of large corporations and government economic factors speak the loudest. This means corporate campaigns targeting Japanese buyers of Tasmanian woodchips will continue, as will national and international awareness raising efforts to show the natural assets of Tasmania, and the community campaigns to protect local forest areas.

By showing what we risk losing at the hands of irresponsible forestry practices we have the best chance of turning the tide of the Tasmanian woodchip driven timber industry. Creating some long term positive change and installing a sustainable timber industry that is not reliant on woodchip production. One that can co-exist with tourism, honey production, specialty timber users and most importantly the people who live in Tasmania, and dearly love its landscapes and forests.

Timber Workers For Forests (TWFF) June 2005
(Timber Workers for Forests are sawmillers, boat builders, bushmen, craftsmen, builders, cabinet makers, furniture makers and sculptors)

TWFF comment on the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement. (TCFA)
Supplementary Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement , June, 2005
Old Growth Silviculture on Public Land.

1. The TCFA has delayed the target time of 2010 for the complete cessation of clear felling in old growth forests.
While reduction in clear felling is commendable, Tasmanians are worse off in this regard under the TCFA than they were before it. There is a conflict between the previous commitment of the Tasmanian Government and Forestry Tasmania to totally phase out clearfelling by 2010 and the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement which agrees to only achieve "non-clearfelling silviculture in a minimum of 80% of the annual harvest area of the couped old growth forests on State forests by 2010". The TCFA will presumably over-ride any previous agreements.

2. The TCFA has not adequately addressed the problem of waste, particularly of special species trees, in old growth mixed wet eucalypt forests.
The main alternatives to clear felling in old growth forests proposed by Forestry Tasmania are the variable retention methods of aggregated retention and dispersed retention. Both methods perpetuate the waste of useful timber and of potential timber of all species through the continued cutting in one pass, of trees of all species of all ages. The essential difference between the FT preferred aggregated retention method and clearfelling is that the area of the cut will be less in a coupe at the first pass. After a rotation period of 90 years, the aggregates may be either cut in a second pass, or remain for a further 90 years, giving a tree age in any one aggregate of initial age + maximum of 180 years. This is something of a "pot luck" system for immature special species trees like CTP that take 300-500 years to mature.

3. TCFA's public reporting requirements of old growth forest harvested are not sufficiently precise to allow public scrutiny of logging methods in each district.
The TCFA requires that the State will "publicly report the area of public Old Growth forest harvested by silvicultural technique each year". In order for the public to make sense of such reports, the current (2005) area of old growth forests in the timber production areas, expressed in hectares, by district, must be made public now, as well as the estimated area (in hectares by district) that will therefore be left in 2010.

4. Tasmanian wildlife is not protected from 1080 poisoning under the TCFA because the Agreement has not achieved a total ban on 1080 poison use.

This is an abridged version of the full TWFF Report.
A full appraisal of the Community Forest Agreement is provided in the report TWFF released.
It is posted to their web site www.twff.com.au
For further comments contact:
Ian Johnston (03) 62671434
0418202957