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Peace in Tasmania’s forests?

By Mark Poynter - posted Thursday, 17 June 2010


Tasmanian anti-forestry protestor, Barnaby Drake, recently announced that he was leaving the state. As he explained on the Tasmanian Times website “... enough is enough, and I am retiring to a less stressful life in France ... where toxic chemicals are banned and they have learnt to appreciate and conserve their forests.”

Most of those responding to Mr Drake’s announcement wished him well in France and praised his past efforts to “save” Tasmania’s forests. This, by his own admission, included initiating a campaign of harassment against the ANZ Bank which may have helped deter it from investing in the state’s approved, but still unbuilt, pulp mill.

However, amongst the bonhomie, several respondents pointed with bemusement to the considerable irony of a “dark green” environmentalist, such as Mr Drake, eschewing Tasmania for a European country that is powered mostly by nuclear energy; where there are few “natural” forests; where pulp mills are embraced; where millions of hectares of farmland have been converted to plantations; and where the leading source of renewable energy is the burning of woody biomass.

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Significantly, one other respondent recalled growing up in the industrial heartland of the UK in the 1940s and 50s and confessed that “I have to smile at the complaints about the environment here (in Tasmania)”.

Recalling this minor blip in the blogosphere serves to illustrate the lack of knowledge and perspective which is rife among Australia’s “save-the-forest” activists particularly those campaigning in Tasmania. This is further emphasised by facts such as that:

  • Tasmania’s 6.6ha of forest cover per capita is one of the world’s highest - compared to France (just 0.3ha per capita), and the world average of just 0.6ha per capita;
  • Tasmania retains 64 per cent of its original area of forest cover - compared with about 25 per cent in France;
  • about 70 per cent of Tasmania’s forests are publicly-owned of which about two-thirds is contained in some form of conservation reserve - compared to France where just 12 per cent of forests are publicly-owned with the rest privately-owned and largely managed for wood production;
  • Tasmania’s proportion of forest reservation is higher than anywhere in the world and almost five-times greater than the world standard of just 10 per cent reservation; and
  • Tasmania’s often maligned forest practices are actually among the best in the world, having recently won praise from UNESCO’s World Heritage Commission and the FAO’s Asia Pacific Forestry Commission.

Yet, despite Tasmania having one of the world’s healthiest balances between conservation and renewable resource use, enviro-activists continue to oppose its forest management with an almost religious fervour that is disdainful of challenging facts and intolerant of rational discussion. Where once “saving” old growth forests was de rigueur, now all aspects of Tasmanian forestry are under attack, including plantations which were once unanimously regarded as the way of the future.

The Tasmanian Times website serves as a useful barometer of the island state’s “green” sensibilities. It was established in 2004 as an interactive forum for discussing the state’s most pressing social and environmental issues. Sadly, an initiative which could have given rational voice to real concerns has to a large extent been hijacked by a tribal collective overtly focused on forestry issues. On this topic, their discussion is generally angry and littered with untruths, half-truths, irrational pseudo-science and conspiracy theories. This is interspersed with barely tolerant and sometimes abusive put-downs of those daring to proffer an alternative view.

During the first four months of 2010, the Tasmanian Times posted more than 450 articles about forestry. These were mostly purpose-written for the site by disaffected individuals or activists, but they include articles recycled from other media. That they represented close to half of all the articles posted to the website during this period illustrates the degree to which forestry dominates the mindset of the state’s “green” demographic.

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While it may be easy to dismiss one website espousing often irrational views, it is these views, and the people that hold them, which sustain the state’s anti-forestry fervour. Also, as per the old maxim - if falsehoods and half-truths are repeated often enough, they eventually assume a factual status and become embedded in the community psyche. This seems to have happened in Tasmania where, with the help of a $140,000 pre-election advertising campaign, this manufactured conventional wisdom about forestry was a significant factor in the creation of a new Labor-Greens Tasmanian Government in March.

Regular anti-forestry contributors to the Tasmanian Times include retired “tree changers”, medical doctors, lawyers, accountants, Greens politicians, career activists, and bush-block alternative life-stylers. Where once the latter three groups comprised the bulk of those railing against forestry, the rise of the internet has made it possible for anyone to be an e-activist without getting their boots dirty. While this has greatly amplified the anti-forestry message it has ensured that it is largely devoid of personal experience, and overtly reliant on the simplistic, skewed views of mainstream environmental groups which are freely available to anyone with a computer.

With the assistance of compliant and unquestioning elements of the media, gross distortions and misconceptions about Tasmanian forestry are now regarded almost as a “given” and underpin public discussion on this topic usually without being challenged.

While no one is suggesting that Tasmanian forestry is perfect, its reality is far removed from the outrageous claims made against it. But, while it is quick and easy to make such claims, it is far harder to correct them, particularly in the very short time and space afforded by today’s media which, in any case, is less inclined to give equal emphasis to what are seen as “industry views”.

Most disturbingly, the fervour with which these beliefs are held by those who are effectively spreading them, is feeding an irrational mantra that forestry is the root cause of almost all that ails Tasmanian society and so, must be “fixed” in the name of progress.

This fits with an apparent strategy by Tasmania’s environmentalists to build the conflict to an extent that creates opportunities for its resolution on their terms. An important element of this is the “Our Common Ground” campaign created by a compendium of environmental groups led by Environment Tasmania. Its aim is to end most native timber production by shifting the industry to plantations. This is problematic given that native forests are comprised of older trees which yield a range of hardwood products, while Tasmania’s hardwood plantations are young, with the majority being grown for just 10 to 15 years to produce only woodchips.

While some of those involved in “Our Common Ground” may be well-intentioned, the initiative has been orchestrated by people who have campaigned relentlessly against Tasmanian timber production under a less conciliatory guise. Their view of what constitutes “common ground” clearly differs to that of most in the forestry sector, given the experience of Britton Timbers.

Britton Timbers was established in 1907 at Smithton in Tasmania’s northwest. It provides high quality sawn eucalypt and blackwood into the furniture, joinery and flooring markets. These timbers are sourced from local native forests that have been harvested and regenerated for over a century.

While “Our Common Ground” has claimed that it is not opposed to some sustainable production of high value native timbers, its leader, Phillip Pullinger of Environment Tasmania, nevertheless recently suggested that Britton Timbers should be bought out by the Federal Government for $20 million.

Glenn Britton was horrified as, although he and his family would be well recompensed and his 100 full-time employees would get redundancy payments, they would ultimately be out of a job. This would decimate the town of Smithton which is already reeling from the closure of the McCains vegetable plant. When this was pointed out to Pullinger he had no reasonable response.

Any presumption that anti-forestry sentiment will largely subside if the timber industry substantially shifts to plantations, is also problematic. An ABC television program in February which purported to show that tens of thousands of hectares of Tasmanian eucalypt plantations are toxic to human health, has created outrage which is yet to subside despite the allegations remaining unproven. This has included calls for these plantations to be immediately bulldozed - indeed, one Tasmanian Times correspondent has already calculated that it will cost $30 million to “fix” the plantations! It has also meant that the limited use of pesticides in plantation forestry is routinely vilified while their far greater use on agricultural lands is largely ignored.

Furthermore, the financial struggles of Tasmania’s plantation industry have largely been welcomed by the state’s “green” demographic. In particular, the move of Forest Enterprises Australia into receivership with the loss of many local jobs was loudly cheered on the Tasmanian Times. Yet FEA was the only plantation company to have developed the technology to produce sawn timber products from very young eucalypt plantations initially established for the export woodchip market. This is an alternative that has long been advocated by those opposing native forest harvesting, so, for its demise to be applauded emphasises the hatred that many now harbour for plantations and gives little confidence that moving to a reliance on them would end the conflict.

The campaign against the state’s approved pulp mill also highlights this contradictory fervour. The mill was originally opposed due to its alleged impact on old growth forests - which are still used as imagery on anti-mill campaign material - despite the proponent only ever proposing that it be fed by a mix of regrowth and plantation wood. More recently, in December 2009, the pulp mill proponent announced that the mill would be 100 per cent fed by plantation wood. Despite this, plantations advocate, “Our Common Ground”, continues to oppose the pulp mill even though Australia’s Chief Scientist has assessed the project as having a neutral environmental impact.

The five-year campaign against the pulp mill has seen its Tasmanian proponent announce a new joint venture subsidiary to finalise the mill. This new company’s assets will include plantation estate, its northern Tasmanian woodchip mills, and the pulp mill. Analysts now believe it will be half-owned by overseas companies. This is a perverse outcome for the Greens who oppose foreign ownership and for Australian financial institutions seeking to support domestic value adding and downstream processing.

While recent election results suggest that most Tasmanians still support current forest management, the rising political power of a very vocal minority has pushed elements of Tasmania’s timber industry to seek a “social licence” which, in layman’s parlance, equates to community acceptance of its existence. This has also been precipitated by a range of factors including financial struggles associated with the global financial crisis and sabotage of the Japanese woodchip market by transnational activists; as well as the influence of mainland-based industry investors more concerned with negative perceptions than the truth of what underpins them.
In view of this, Tasmania’s new Labor-Greens government is planning to facilitate a “forestry roundtable” conference to secure the future of an industry that annually generates up to $1.6 billion and is the state’s second largest contributor to GDP. This proposal ironically mirrors the forestry discussions which arose from the “Salamanca Agreement” which was brokered by the state’s first Labor-Green Government in September 1989. Those discussions were funded by a $10 million Commonwealth grant, but ultimately broke-down after a year of talks when the combined environmental groups walked-out. While they publicly cited betrayal, their actions also stemmed from a determination to avoid compromising their ideals while maintaining the freedom to continue campaigning against the timber industry.

To work, this new “forestry roundtable” will require commitment and a willingness to compromise from both the industry and its opponents. However, while the Salamanca Agreement, the National Forest Policy Statement and the Regional Forest Agreement show that the forestry sector has a history of compromise. On the other hand, their “green” opponents are typified by an unwillingness to compromise, and are already showing signs of disquiet at suggestions that they may have to accept outcomes that fall well short of their “wish lists”.

For example, speculation that aspects of native forest timber production could be traded away in return for “green” support for finally building the pulp mill, has been met with outrage at the Tasmanian Times by those engaged in what they regard as an almost biblical struggle to stop the mill going ahead.

The proposed “roundtable” has already been blighted by problems with a map put together by the Greens, the Wilderness Society, and other environmental groups as the starting point for negotiations. While it purported to show 580,000 hectares of “high conservation value” state forest requiring reservation, this was found to include 45,000 hectares of regrowth from logging conducted within the past 30 years, as well as 12,000 hectares of plantation, and a highly disturbed 23,000 hectare military training area.

Aside from this, there is uncertainty about who will be represented on the “roundtable” and how it will proceed. If it does proceed, it may well be problematic for Tasmania’s elected Greens politicians. They have shown a determination to broaden their interests beyond forestry. Unfortunately for them, a majority of their supporter base is hooked on this issue and regards elements of it as non-negotiable. They expect their elected representatives to deliver fully on these elements. If they don’t or can’t, due to the realities of compromise, these politicians need only look to the savage disrespect now ritually afforded to Peter Garrett as a pointer to what lies in store for them at the hands of what could soon be their former supporters.

Tasmania’s forestry sector is understandably cautious about whether the “roundtable” will do much to moderate the sentiment arraigned against it. History, including events in other states, has repeatedly shown that - short of virtually total capitulation - no amount of compromise by the forestry sector will stop environmental activists from shifting the goalposts to resume the conflict. A continuation of conflict is even more likely in this instance given the already intractable opposition to the pulp mill, the new hatred being directed at plantations, and the emerging issue of prescribed burning.

Nevertheless, Forestry Tasmania has welcomed the “roundtable” talks as “an opportunity for real dialogue” and have expressed hope that it “will help us find ways to create the best possible balance for the future of Tasmania”. However, for it to effectively do this, the “roundtable” must be conducted under a backdrop of pragmatic acceptance that what is right does not necessarily equate to a public hysteria that has largely been manufactured in the absence of perspective and the full suite of the facts.

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About the Author

Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 40 years experience. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Foresters of Australia and his book Going Green: Forests, fire, and a flawed conservation culture, was published by Connor Court in July 2018.

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