Forestry Tasmania will retain control of production forests under the Government’s restructure of the state-owned company. Sources: Timberbiz, ABC News
The company will be split in two, transferring control of national parks and reserves to a new statutory authority to be created within the Parks and Wildlife Department.
The Resources Minister, Bryan Green, was considering stripping Forestry Tasmania of the management of commercial forests. He now said that would make the organisation unviable.
Minister Green said Forestry Tasmania’s commercial and non-commercial functions would be separated to allow Forestry Tasmania to focus on its commercial functions and its core business of managing production forests.
“The advice form the signatories was that there needed to be an independently managed organisation and that has been backed up by FTOC (Forestry Tasmania Transition Oversight Committee), the committee responsible for advising the Government in this area,” he said.
“They’ve conducted extensive work in Victoria, Western Australia with respect as to how they manage their native forests. This decision today backs the forestry agreement.”
Green said that employees have been told about the move but it is too early to announce any more detail.
The Tasmanian Greens say they will support legislation to enact the proposed restructure despite vehemently opposing Forestry Tasmania retaining control of production forests.
Greens leader Nick McKim said it was in line with the forest peace deal which cannot be cherry picked. He said it will increase the possibility the Legislative Council will support the forest peace deal because the proposed restructure is written into the agreement.
“We wanted to maximise the chance of what will be a stunning conservation outcome with 500,000 hectares up for protection from the forest industry,” he said.
But McKim said the Greens would only vote with Labor if the new statutory body were created.
“We have unanimously in our party room agreed that this is the best possible outcome and it delivers for Greens in terms of finally the creation of an independent legislated statutory authority to manage Tasmania’s world-class reserve system.”
The Opposition’s Peter Gutwein said the Government has watered down the Forestry Tasmania restructure while creating a costly, new bureaucracy.
“What this is about is an 11th-hour deal to try and curry favour with the Upper House so that the Greens can get 500,000 hectares locked up,” he said.
“That’s all that this is about, it’s about a dirty back room deal that wreaks of self interest.”
