The forestry peace deal designed to end 30 years of conflict has finally become law but already Green groups are planning new campaigns. Sources: Timberbiz, The Advocate, Yahoo7! Finance, The Examiner, The Mercury
The Bill passed after Tasmanian Greens MHAs defied their party’s national leaders to support it.
The Tasmanian Forests Agreement Bill paves the way for 504,000 hectares to be protected and slashes wood supply to 137,000 cubic metres.
Less than 100,000 hectares within the area nominated for World Heritage status are assured permanent protection after changes imposed by the Legislative Council delayed proper protection of the remainder until at least October next year.
Forest Stewardship Council certification of the forestry industry must also be secured before the reserves are formally made.
Environmental groups, who signed the original TFA in November last year, advised the government they could live with the changes. However, not all environmental groups were involved.
That followed commitments from Forestry Tasmania not to log in any of the potential new reserves and to immediately start the process to gain FSC certification.
Those commitments were not enough to satisfy Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne or Bass Greens MHA Kim Booth, who split from his state colleagues to vote against the amended legislation.
Milne declared the agreement dead and blamed the Legislative Council. Booth said he had reluctantly supported the original legislation but could not support the Upper House’s “odious” restrictions on the rights to protest, provisions for logging to occur within the reserves for specialty timber and making future reserves dependent on gaining FSC certification.
Wilderness Society spokesman Vica Bayley said some parts of the legislation were “deeply problematic” but the alternative was grim.
“As a package this is clearly the best way forward to deliver forest protection, to deliver an outcome and a new future for the industry and give us a shot at putting the conflict and the vitriol behind us” Bayley said.
Former Greens leader Bob Brown and protest groups Huon Valley Environment Centre, Still Wild Still Threatened and Markets for Change had called for the legislation to be rejected.
Liberal forestry spokesman Peter Gutwein said those comments proved the conflict would not be resolved.
“The TFA Bill far from delivering peace, the TFA Bill has now become a rallying call around the country for war,” Mr Gutwein said.
The much hyped and sham promise of peace for the Tasmanian forest industry did not even survive until the final vote in the Tasmanian Parliament.
“Hours before the legislation passed, the most active of the destructive market campaign groups, Markets For Change, pronounced that campaigns had already commenced,” Opposition Forestry spokesman Senator Richard Colbeck said.
“By the time it was voted through this deal was dead on arrival – never taking its first breath.”
Senator Colbeck said the result was entirely predictable because the Greens had walked away from every previous attempt to create harmony in Tasmanian forests.
“Even Labor should understand by now that you just can’t deal with the Greens,” Senator Colbeck said.
“We’ve got the environment movement split, and the Greens split on this and this is something that we haven’t had to deal with before,” said Markets for Change spokesperson Peg Putt. “We all have the same interests at heart and that is the sad thing.
“It’s going to be difficult for everybody. It’s hard to know how we’re going to repair the damage…this is going to be an interesting and difficult time.”
Tony Burke Federal Member for Watson said that there may be the “odd skirmish” from small groups but the decades-old wars have ended.
“In terms of wars, there’ll be the odd skirmish from small, minor groups, but what we have seen from the last 30 years, ends tonight,” he said.
The Opposition is vowing to repeal the legislation if it wins the March state election.
Burke believes it is a hollow threat because such a move would jeopardise the surviving timber industry, which wants the Forest Stewardship Council to certify its logging practices.
“It would be a very brave and reckless Government that decided to try to jeopardise FSC certification, brave in a silly way,” he said.
“You can imagine having gone down the path of certification what industry’s reaction would be to any future Government that tried to play games with international markets.”
The Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association Executive Jan Davis said the forest peace deal would be bad for Tasmania, particularly the private forest sector.
“There four key elements to the statement of principals; an end to protests in the forests, a pulp mill, the reopening of Triabunna and a commitment that there would be no impact from this discussion on the private sector,” she said. “Those four things have totally disappeared. It’s not a good outcome.”
Ta Ann spokesman Alan Ashbarry said the vote had secured the veneer company’s future in Tasmania and meant it could reconsider shelved plans to build a $10 million plywood mill in the state’s North.
Large environmental organisations that were signatories to the agreement have begun spruiking Tasmanian timber to buyers.
“We believe that the fringe green groups, that have split off from the ENGOs, don’t have the traction that the main ENGOs have,” Ashbarry said.
Ashbarry said Ta Ann was still in negotiations with federal and state governments over compensation for the agreement, which cut the guaranteed supply of peeler billet logs by 40%.
