National Parks playing with matches again

May 11th, 2013
 Aerial Arson of Mt Cronje
(A recent example of aerial arson to the Blue Mountains World Heritage)

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Once again across the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, smoke blocks out the horizon.

Once again the custodian of the natural values of the World Heritage Area has set fire to it in the middle of wilderness, over 15km from the nearest human habitation.

The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Regional Manager, a Mr Geoff Luscombe, is proud of his widespread lighting of natural vegetation in as part of the cult of ‘Hazard Reduction‘.

On this occasion some 5,640 heactares of wilderness vegetation in the remote Wild Dog Mountains of the southern Blue Mountains National Park was targeted as a hazard.

This wild wilderness region is wholly within the internationally protected Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.   And so we have wolves managing the chickens.

It was a hazard because it hadn’t been burnt for many years, perhaps 20 years, so according to hazard cult orthodoxy, unburnt bushland asked for it and so had to be burnt.  No concern for native fauna was made and no concern for fire sensitive flora was made.   Such values are condemned as fuel hazards.

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The Tigerquoll  (Dasyurus maculatus)
A rare and threatened top order predator of the Blue Mountains

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Like in the Vietnam War, the choppers were called in with aerial incendary to set fire indiscriminately to all wilderness below and to its world heritage values.

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Aerial incendiary dropped from helicopter in National Park wilderness

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So the NPWS set fire to the vast wilderness area way south of Jamison Valley, way south of Mount Solitary and south of Cedar Valley beyond – between Green Gully, Cox’s River, Narrow Neck and the remote Wild Dog Mountains.

Hazard reduction for whose perverted gratification, and to benefit whom?

And Luscombe boasted that the Wild Dog West burn will be the largest burn undertaken in Blue Mountains National Park for many years.

Once underway, the Wild Dog Mountains burn will affect the following locations:

  • Green Gully picnic and camping areas (Dunphy’s Camp) will be closed during and after the operation
  • Wild Dog Mountains, the Kanangra to Katoomba track, Splendor Rock, Yellow Dog track, Blue Dog track, Breakfast Creek track, Carlons Head off Narrow Neck Bell Bird Ridge track and the Cox’s River south of Breakfast Creek

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Since 1st July 2012 the NPWS has completed more than 210 burns totalling more than 110,000 hectares – our largest ever Hazard Reduction Programme. This is more than 65% of all hazard reduction carried out in NSW during the period, despite NPWS managing just 25% of the state’s fire prone land.

This hazard reduction burn is part of the NSW Government’s $62.5 million package to boost bushfire preparedness and double hazard reduction in the state’s national parks over where conditions allow.

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[Source:  ‘Hazard Reduction Burn proposed for Wild Dog Mountains’, 20130501, New South Wales National Parks Service, ^http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/media/OEHMedia13050102.htm]

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$62.5 million is going to setting fire to Blue Mountains World Heritage
How much or little goes to protecting endangered wildlife and their Recovery Plans?  
Zilch across the Blue Mountains?

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Perhaps this National Parks Report from 2007 in the Blue Mountains, which is probably sitting on some dusty NPWS shelf, may ring a bell for our Mr Luscombe.

Do the recognised practices of “mosaic burning” and “retaining fauna habitats in a long unburnt state” have any meaning in National Parks management?

 

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>GSSR_Volume5 – The Fauna of the Blue Mountains Special Areas.pdf  (2Mb)

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From Blue Mountains folk, they took all the trees

May 10th, 2013
 
 Sad Sight:    Blue Mountains resident Aanya Mary
devastated by the senseless slaughter of Bullaburra’s Angophora
Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia
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But to road engineers with Sydney’s RTA-come-RMS:
“..it was just the easy and efficient option”
..in order that more B-Doubles get line-of-sight through Bullaburra as they nudge 90kph to keep their job
[Source:  ‘Centuries-old tree makes way for highway upgrade’, 20130410, by Shane Desiatnik, Blue Mountains Gazette, p.13,
^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/1419083/bullaburra-tree-makes-way-for-highway-widening/]
‘You don’t know what you’ve got
till it’s gone’

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Two generations after the 1960s grassroots protests against corporate environmental destruction and corrupted government bullying justification of ‘progress’, nothing has changed.

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Public display of Government slaughter of local heritage
“Let this be a lesson that Sydney rules over you.”
(But Bullaburra is not 1940’s Poland; we are not Sydney)
[Photo by Editor, 20130406, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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They Took All the Trees

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They took all the trees, put ‘em in a tree museum” (Joni Mitchell, 1970), yet forty years hence we’re still killing 300 year old native trees for a ‘paved paradise.’

Back in September 2008, a communiqué released by the RTA-come-RMS confirmed that this heritage listed red gum (photo) alongside the highway at Bullaburra was to be killed to widen the highway.  It didn’t give a reason to the community, but in its Review of Environmental Effectsjustified the tree’s demise by requiring line of sight for more trucks so they can hurtle through Bullaburra at a new increased speed of 80kph, but nudging 90.

Great Western Highway paved paradise
[Photo by Editor, 20110115, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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The implication was to not just widen the existing highway and make it safer, but to carve a trucking expressway through as though no Bullaburra community existed; just like they did to neighbouring Lawson and Wentworth Falls, and the other now divided highway towns and villages along the Great Western Highway.  And the lessons from the even wider and faster M4 motorway down the hill is that the outcomes have not made the journey safer.  Statistically, faster and bugger trucks have made the M4 motorway and the already widened sections of the Great Western Highway, even more dangerous.

Killing Bullaburra’s Tree was wrong like an invading army shooting surrendering locals because it is inconvenient to imprison them.  To the RTA-come-RMS, decimating local amenity is but collateral damage.   Any wonder propaganda pamphlets were not dropped over the village in the weeks leading up to the carnage like the US did in the Vietnam War.

Widening the highway is the wrong encouragement for an efficient NSW freight system and won’t address road safety.  The widening is destroying local heritage and community values. It is politically short-sighted on all counts.

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Protest 6 years ago in October 2007 to save this healthy heritage tree
A tree that predated colonial Australia of 1788
An expendable victim of an ambivalent Blue Mountains Council’s
‘Significant Tree Register’ of community deceit.
[Photo by Editor, 20071028, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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Blue Mountains Significant Tree Register – deceitful faux conservation

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Bullaburra’s Angophora was a rare symbolic remnant of the dominant Angophora Forest habitat that once flourished in the Bullaburra area and which has earned listing on council’s Register of Significant Trees.

Consultation with a local (Level 5) arborist with expertise in Angophoras, had confirmed the tree an Angophora costata and “between 200 and 300 years old and that if given the chance will survive between 400 and 600 years.”  So it predated Bullaburra (1924) and predated the colonisation of Australia (1788).

Why did  local Blue Mountains Council turn its back on its own heritage register and on Mountains heritage.  Had traditional owners been consulted?

Blue Mountains Council’s  Significant Trees were in 1988 registered under Development Control Plan 9 (DCP9): the purpose of which was to identify and protect those trees listed on the Register; promote greater public awareness of the existence of the Register, and the individual items listed; ensure existing and, importantly, prospective land owners, are made aware of the Significant Trees which may be located on their property; and ensure correct on-going care and maintenance of those trees listed, through the recommendations included with the significant tree register.

DCP 9 was formally adopted in 21 June 1988 and since then had effected no legal weight or meaning.   The tens of thousands spent on the plan then and since has been a financial misappropriation.

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Bullaburra’s Angophora
circa 1700 – 1st April 2013
A familar Blue Mountains icon that withstood ^Robber Baron Progress  for 300+ years
Council ratified to the people in writing that it was a protected ‘Significant Tree
Until Bob Debus and the RTA-come-RMS expressway arrogance imposed its Sydney industrialist will.
[Photo by Editor, 20130406, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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The then Federal Member for Macquarie (Blue Mountains), Bob Debus MP, openly supported and encouraged the RTA-come-RMS in its highway widening through Blue Mountains communities.

Debus had publicly praised the RTA for “doing exemplary work in consultation with…local communities.”  (Blue Mountains Gazette 20081126).

Yet this Editor, who for the past seven years has observed and participated in numerous RTA-come-RMS community consultation workshops dealing with the Trucking Expressway mission along the Great Western Highway, has found all ‘community consultation’ to be but a recurring deceitful farce designed purely for public relations and so that on paper, community consultation was legally ‘seen to be done’.

The Juggernaut Cake was baked, and the community herded and selected to choose the colour of the icing.  So thanks for coming dumb peasants!

Photo by Editor, 20130406, Photo © ^Creative Commons

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The sad thing is that we see each community hoodwinked one by one, losing rights and amenity to an expanding Sydney conurbation of our Mountains.  How many minutes will widening cut through the Mountains only to be added back in Sydney congestion and the chronic truck queues at Port Botany?   If widening claims to address highway safety why does the six-lane M4 have the highest accident rate in the State?

Debus has publicly been the key driver of the highway widening and increased traffic policy prepared to splurge half a billion dollars to encourage more trucks on our roads and committing a teetering NSW Government already heading into deficit.  Debus’ myopic fixation with trucks has cast him as a reckless pariah against the Federal government’s promise of meeting Kyoto emission targets.  He and his babyboomer age group seem locked in a truck-centric mindset, one that is anti-rail like Premier Nick Greiner’s condemning of freight rail  (1988-92) and like US President Eisenhower’s industrial superhighway ruination of Northern America back in the 1950s.

[Source:  ‘They took all the trees’, 20081203, letter in the Blue Mountains Gazette local newspaper, in print]

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They took all the trees, put ‘em in a tree museum..

by Canadian singer, composer and lyricist Joni Mitchell from her classic hit ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ from her album ‘Ladies of the Canyon’ released in April 1970.

Joni Mitchell’s single cover
Her original recording was this single, but then released later on her album ‘Ladies of the Canyon’  (1970)
Yet forty three years hence dear lady and what have we learnt from your sad message about the bulldozing of Nature?

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“Big Yellow Taxi” became a hit in Joni’s native Canada (#14) as well as Australia (#6) and the UK (#11).

Joni:   “I wrote ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ on my first trip to Hawaii. I took a taxi to the hotel and when I woke up the next morning, I threw back the curtains and saw these beautiful green mountains in the distance. Then, I looked down and there was a parking lot as far as the eye could see, and it broke my heart… this blight on paradise. That’s when I sat down and wrote the song.”

The song is known for its environmental concern – “They paved paradise to put up a parking lot” and “Hey farmer, farmer, put away that DDT now”.

Joni Mitchell in 1970

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The song line “They took all the trees, and put ’em in a tree museum…and charged the people a dollar and a half just to see ’em”  refers to Foster Botanical Garden in downtown Honolulu, which is a living museum of tropical plants, some rare and endangered.

A wedding in Foster Botanical Garden, Hawaii
[Source:  ^http://www.alohaislandweddings.com/foster_botanical_gardens.htm]

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These days, Honolulu’s Foster Botanical Garden has become home to hundreds of species of endangered Hawaiian and other exotic plants.  The garden’s mission is to plan, develop, curate, maintain and study documented collections of tropical plants in an aesthetic setting for the purposes of conservation, botany, horticulture, education, and recreation. While it is very important to teach people about the natural flora of Hawaii, it is a shame that they have to be kept in such a tree museum and are not able to be appreciated in their natural settings.

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Colonising destruction of Natural Hawaii

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Bullaburra’s Angophora was that roadside tree, always there, estimated to be between up to 200 and 300 years old, but took only a few hours to chop down to a stump on April Fools Day to clear the way for highway widening work in Bullaburra.

The decision to remove the tree listed on council’s Significant Tree Register was made back in 2009.  This is the coniving strategy of the RTA-come RMS employeing those with degrees in ‘Media Communications’ – this 21C black art of corporate propaganda.  Move over 20th C Used Car Salesmen,  Y-Gens in Media Communications are the new low-life to be avoided.

But the shock of seeing the 30-metre tall smooth-barked apple red gum being removed was too much for some local residents, who gathered beside it to take photos and quietly reflect.

Katoomba resident Aanya Mary said she was devastated by the loss of the tree and the public not being told when it was going to be removed.  She called the decision to chop it “the easy and efficient option” and questioned if other solutions were thoroughly considered.

“This tree would have seen generations of Gundungurra and Darug people rest under its boughs and no doubt [the explorers] Lawson, Blaxland and Wentworth passed its gracious trunk.”

In a callous afterthought, the RTA-come-RMS has offered to use wood of the tree to create ukuleles and furniture.  Can Chopin’s funeral march be played on a Ukele?

Some callous bureaucrat in the RTA-come-RMS suggested using the Angophora wood to make stupid Ukeles
Not even into traditional Aboriginal instruments, weapons or tools. 
The minds at RMS Paramatta head office are urbane and bewildered.

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Yet others, more attached to the tree and aware of the behind the scenes political deceit, have suggested making council coffins for those who signed off on the Angophora’s demise.

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[Source:  ‘Bullaburra tree makes way for highway widening’, 20130410, by Shane Desiatnik, journalist, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, p.13,  ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/1419083/bullaburra-tree-makes-way-for-highway-widening/]

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[Photo by Editor, 20130406, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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Blue Mountains failure to preserve Natural History

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<<The sudden and surreptitious removal of the mature heritage-listed Eucalypt at Bullaburra last week was avoidable and a total failure of our ability to preserve our natural history.

That tree was the property of the Blue Mountains community just as much as the community hall at Bullaburra.

When it can be arranged for the highway widening to bypass the community hall, there is no reason it couldn’t be diverted around another significant  and far older landmark.

Not only did Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth pass close by this tree in 1813 but the following year the first road was built almost under its branches.  The year after, 1815, Lachlan Macquarie and his entourage passed by this tree as the first public users of the road through the Blue Mountains.  In the 1830s Charles Darwin also made the journey passed it.

Blue Mountains (..) Council has failed miserably to protect our natural history. It’s also obvious how totally toothless is the rhetoric around the Significant Tree Register.

The RTA-come-RMS suggestion to make use of the wood is an attempt to sidetrack and trivialises its destruction.  Who needs a symbol of the endurance of natural beauty when you can have ukeleles and matches?

Trees like this are the Blue Mountains community’s natural history – not the RTA-come-RMS’s.

The bottom line is there is no legislation to protect our natural history, and any clowns with clout can get their way.

Why doesn’t the Blue Mountains (..) Council stand up for us and for  the naturakl environment in matters like these?>>

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[Source:  ‘Heritage tree’ (discretionary label by BMG editor), 20130417, by P.D. Bonney, of Faulconbridge, letter to the editor, in Blue Mountains Gazette (local newspaper), page 4, print only]

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To passers-by this is just another log, like heritage ignored
and so unknowingly foresaken and lost forever.
[Photo by Editor, 20130406, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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Ed:  But when Government comes intimidating the homes and amenity of these passers-by?  So loud the NYMBY’s plead for community support.

To reliable taxpayer-funded bureaucrats inside RTA-come-RMS, community NYMBYISM has become a strategic community vunerabilty so exploited to known consultant formalae.  But so unprepared are communities like the Blue Mountains for exploitation that they are prone to and succumb to industrial rape, village by village, and cleverly silenced by the consultants.

But once the Government’s omnipotent Juggenaut invasion arrives and the overwhelming household helplessness, locals try selling up in vain and a few commit quiet, unreported suicide.   It is ultimately then, that Government has come, seen and conquered its own taxpayers so that such issues shrink from mainstream media, are excluded from government statistics and so are relegated into invisiblity, the history cleansed and revised by the government consultants.


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Selfish thinning of Tasmania’s Forest Deal

May 7th, 2013
One of the last honourable environmental organisations fighting to save Tasmania’s Native Forests
Still Wild Still Threatened
^http://www.stillwildstillthreatened.org/

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‘Mutant Legislation:  a thinned out Tasmanian Forests Agreement

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On the evening of 30th April 2013, Tasmania’s Parliament passed the Tasmanian Forests Agreement Bill 2012 into law.

The legislation formalises a revised agreement between selective Tasmanian environmental organisations, selective Tasmanian logging business associations, the Tasmanian Parliament and the Australian Government.

The original Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) signed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Tasmania’s Premier Lara Giddings on 7 August 2011 in Launceston.   But instead of honouring the letter and spirit of the 2011 agreement to protect 572,000 hectares of Tasmania’s remaining high conservation forests protected, the resultant law has thinned out that protection down to a forest area of just 20% of the 572,000, to just 123,000 hectares.

Supposedly, the legislation proposes 500,000ha of reserves in 18 months’ time, providing the durability of the deal has been established.   Weasel words and 76,000 of the 576,000 hectares of old growth sacrificed by those whom we entrusted to protect habitat.

The passing of the Bill was a culmination of a period of closed door negotiations between the selected environmentalists and the selected loggers.  Despite compromising 80% of the high conservation forest, the legal outcome sees absolutely no compromise from the loggers.  The loggers still stand to be compensated the same $276 million in federal restructure assistance, purported blowing out to $350 million, and that is on top of millions already forked out to exiting loggers.

The environmental signatories of forest betrayal in the deal include The Wilderness Society, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Environment Tasmania.   The selected loggers were dominated by a certain Terry Edwards, chief executive of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT) and Glenn Britton, its chairman, both who stand to profit.

[Source:  Act now on forest truce: PM’, 20130501, by AAP, in The Mercury (News Ltd),  ^http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/05/01/378268_tasmania-news.html]

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Three years ago in 2010, the Signatories to the Tasmanian Forest Statement
agreed on protecting the full 572,000 hectares
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Ed:  Suited up company men, but was any a Real Man?

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“Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat.

Strong men don’t compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.”

~ Andrew Carnegie

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The destruction continues and so the protests will continue.   Dumb outcome! 

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Two months prior on 4th March 2013, two conservationists were arrested at Tasmania’s Butlers Gorge as they tried to block logger access to three separate logging operations in an area nominated for World Heritage.

<<“Today’s peaceful protest has once again highlighted the ongoing destruction of Butlers Gorge. This area is significant habitat for endangered species and native wildlife. Still Wild Still Threatened have collected video evidence of Tasmanian devils and spot tailed quolls within Butlers Gorge and we are calling on Tony Burke to take action to protect these forests” said Ms Gibson.

“Two dedicated conservationists have today been arrested in order to bring attention to the hypocrisy of the Australian Government, who are allowing this logging to continue despite nominating these forests for World Heritage.  (Federal) Minister Burke as a responsibility to protect the habitat of these endangered species and to protect these forests that he has nominated as World Heritage. We are calling on the Minister to enact Section 14 of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and bring an end to the destruction of these forests” said Ms Gibson.>>

[Source: ‘Two conservationists arrested at Butlers Gorge today’, Mar 5, 2013, Miranda Gibson, The Observer Tree, ^http://observertree.org/2013/03/05/media-update-two-conservationists-arrested-at-butlers-gorge-today/]

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2nd March 2013:  Local environmentalists protesting against the logging of World Heritage value old growth forests of Butlers Gorge
[Source:  ^http://observertree.org/2013/03/05/media-update-two-conservationists-arrested-at-butlers-gorge-today/]
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Ed:  Real Tasmanians out there defending disappearing ancient forests – just a committed five on a remote bridge forming the last and only line of defence to prevent logging trucks, corporate loggers, and corrupt Tasmanian police who know the arsonists that set fire to peaceful Camp Flozza and to the forest west.

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<<The evil when loggers control forests is that logging vandalism rapes the timber from the forest ecology.  It leaves behind scorched earth and trusting contractors who took out mortgages.  When ecological management ascends to its rightful governance of native forests, the forest ecology thrives and permits at its fringes a viable high end cabinet industry.

But the low life corporate thieves and their immoral mercenaries are forced to inflict their hate and greed elsewhere.  And then out of spite, Bob’s mercenaries set fire to the forest like a spouse scorned.>>

~ Tigerquoll, 20130327, Tasmanian Times, comment ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/dear-bob-this-is-the-21st-century-/show_comments/

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A Loggers Deal

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3rd May:  Conservation beliefs sacrificed down the drain

(analysis of the 2013 Forest Deal by Tasmanian author, Richard Flanagan)

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<<So Julia Gillard has declared that she wants the parties who started the so-called Tasmanian forest peace process “to do everything they can to use their abilities to silence those who haven’t gone with the mainstream consensus”.

To silence.

I lived with the silence of Tasmania for too many years. And now the leaders of The Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania, the ACF and the Tasmanian Greens have signed up to a deal that seeks to achieve what even Gunns failed in doing: silencing the rage Tasmanians felt with the destruction of their land and the corruption of public life that for a time became its necessary corollary. It is perhaps the greatest own goal in Australian political history.

For these environmentalists have managed to negotiate a deal that extraordinarily manages to resuscitate at vast public subsidy (reportedly $350 million) the worst aspects of a dead forest industry employing less than a thousand people; lock in social conflict for another decade; empower in Forestry Tasmania a rogue government agency that sees itself as the real power on the island and which works to undermine governments; and delivered the island to political stagnation by ensuring forestry remains the island’s defining political issue.

If this wasn’t grotesque enough the Federal Government’s National Audit Office’s report into the mishandling and misspending of some of the early rounds of this money by Tasmanian government instrumentalities can give the Australian taxpayer every confidence that much of the rest of the $350 million will be misspent, misdirected and misused. Taxpayers can also be assured that if past government bail-outs of the Tasmanian forest industry are any guide, a not insignificant sum of their money will end up funding political groups and campaigns seeking to promote the self-serving interests of a Soviet style industry by entrenching division and stymying political debate and economic change in Tasmania. Some millions of dollars allocated for ‘communications’ will no doubt communicate very well just one message about Tasmania’s logging industry.

And all this in return for what?

The only environmental outcome that is locked in was one already in place: the 123,000 hectares of World Heritage Area secured by Bob Brown and Christine Milne in negotiations with Tony Burke in February. And this in the face of initial opposition from NGO negotiators who worried it might damage their forest deal process. Nick McKim’s claim that there was “legislated protection from logging for over 500,000 hectares”, is misleading.  There is a moratorium on logging in those high conservation value forests that could fall over at any time, and almost certainly will.

Richard Flanagan
(Author of this extracted article)
[Source:  Photo by Colin Macdougall, Tasmanian Times,
^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/i-dont-agree/]

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Astonishingly, in a day that will become historic in their own annals, the environmentalists’ leaders have managed to split their own movement in a way that will take many years for it to recover from. The greatest sadness is that it locks Tasmania into a conflict it should have ended.

Beyond that there is only what State Greens leader Nick McKim and Environment Tasmania head Phill Pullinger have called ‘pathways’ to future environmental outcomes.

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Pathways?  What is a pathway?  Is it a forest?  Is it a job?

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Well, no, it’s nothing really, just a confusion of two words, management babble disguising the truth that everything else is but a promise that may or may not happen later.

The formal protection of areas as reserves and national parks will not begin until October 2014, and then only if conservationists meet conditions that realistically will never be met.
Of the many disturbing aspects of the deal, perhaps the most grotesque is the already infamous ‘durability’ clause, under which conservation leaders sitting on a special council with loggers are expected to police and silence conservationists who protest. If they fail to silence their own, the deal is seen to have failed its durability criteria and new reserves promised in the deal do not go ahead and return to the loggers. But of course people will protest and they will be right to protest. The only thing the deal guarantees is the conservation movement at war with itself. Some deal. Some durability. The conservationists’ leaders may as well have self-immolated at the foot of Parliament House.

The second condition is that the forestry industry achieve Forestry Stewardship Council accreditation for its logging — something the industry spat on when conservationists urged it several years ago. Given its abysmal record and third world practices along with inevitable community opposition, this seems as likely as Julia Gillard winning The Voice. But the condition locks in those conservation groups that are signatories to the deal to campaigning for the industry’s logging practices, no matter how dreadful they are, in order to keep alive the promise of saving the forests.

Compounding these perversities there is the simple matter of power. By October 2014, all observers expect Liberal governments to be in power in both Tasmania and federally. In Tasmania the Liberal Party has been explicit that it will tear up the agreement. What then of the moratorium? Well it ends with those areas being once more logged using taxpayer subsidies.

Many fear that both governments will endorse and subsidise a grotesque new forest industry that logs native forest to fuel forest furnaces—so called bio-mass electricity generators — that could by government fiat be defined as a renewable energy source.

Such then is the pathway chosen.

It is possible for good people for the best of reasons to sometimes do the worst of things. If the integrity of the leaders of the environmental NGOs and the Tasmanian Greens Party should not be questioned, their judgement certainly can. Full credit though must go to Terry Edwards of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, Evan Rolley running the dubious state-subsidised Malay-owned Ta Ann, and Bob Gordon and Bob Annells at Forestry Tasmania. From a position of almost complete defeat they have returned the forestry industry to its pre–eminent position in Tasmanian public life and persuaded the environment movement to destroy itself. With bluster, flattery, bullying, and dogged persistence they have achieved the near impossible.

But if you care about the environment in Australia you will henceforth have to ask whether The Wilderness Society and the Australian Conservation Foundation any longer serve your interests. Will they in the future question and campaign against corporate power or will they side with it as they have in Tasmania, recently trooping off to Japan to promote the Malay forest veneer company Ta Ann’s products? Will they stand up to governments or will they be seduced by their attentions, believing the flattering lie that their way is the way of environmental politics in the future?

While nationally the Greens Party under Christine Milne has been resolute in defending the environment and Tasmania’s forests, Tasmanian environmentalists would be right to ask if the Tasmanian parliamentary Greens (other than Kim Booth who showed courage in voting against the bill and his party) any longer particularly represent their interest or aspirations. At the forthcoming state election there would be many reasons for environmentalists to not vote Green and very few to support them. In their determination to achieve respectability, they seem to have become simply the third aspect of a conservative Tasmanian polity with no ideas or vision for the future. Could it be, that for Nick McKim, the decision to support the package proves his Meg Lees moment?    [Ed:  In 1999, Democrats leader Meg Lees sided with then PM John Howard to enable his GST law to be passed, broadly viewed as a decision of betrayal that instigated the eventual downfall of the Democrats].

Julia Gillard’s celebration of the peace deal and her call for silencing came on May Day, the day that celebrates all those who went against the ‘mainstream consensus’ that workers shouldn’t be paid a living wage, that workers shouldn’t be treated with respect and dignity. Democracy is about many things, but silence and silencing are the death of democracy.
The forest peace deal was born in ignominy, with Gunns seeking to set up a native-forest-for-pulp-mill swap, a fact denied by environmental leaders at the time but acknowledged by Premier Lara Giddings in parliament. It continued in secrecy and was oiled with evasions, and concludes as a tragedy for Tasmania. Somehow, the conservationist leaders—instead of using the commercial death of the logging industry, changing social values, and new ideas of a renascent Tasmania to help build a different, better and united society — have condemned us all to endlessly repeat the sadness of recent decades.

I am writing this for all the people who for the last thirty years have stood up again and again against the Tasmanian ‘mainstream concensus’— who stood up for the land they loved and for an idea of a better Tasmania. They have watched, ever more distraught, as their battle has culminated in the last three years of secret deal making that has sold their sacrifices and beliefs down the drain.

At the end the only certainty and hope I have is this: I never signed up to the forest deal, not then and certainly not now. I don’t give a damn for durability clauses and special councils of loggers and conservation police. And I didn’t agree to be silenced, not by Paul Lennon, not by Gunns, and I won’t be now by The Wilderness Society and the ACF.

And in all this, I know I am very far from alone.>>

[Source:  ‘I don’t agree’, by Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan, 20130503, Tasmanian Times, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/i-dont-agree/]

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[Ed:  Hear, hear!]

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1st May:  Forest advocates have become the greenwash industry brigade

(analysis of the 2013 Forest Deal by honourable Tasmanian Environmentalists)

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Honourable environmental organisations in Tasmania have vowed to up the ante on forest protests after the passing of the 2013 Tasmanian Forests Law.

Groups on the outside of the tent for the peace talks, including Still Wild Still Threatened and The Huon Valley Environment Centre, said this morning they would continue to campaign against the state’s forestry industry.

“We are absolutely committed to continue to protest and take action for these forests,” Still Wild Still Threatened spokeswoman Miranda Gibson said.  “These forests, while they are continuing to fall, the community will stand up and … communicate to the markets about what is happening in Tasmania.”

Ms Gibson, who recently ended a marathon tree-sit in southern Tasmania, and Huon Valley Environment Centre’s spokeswoman Jenny Weber said the TFA provided no guarantees for future reserves.

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“A bill that lacks conservation assurances

and props up a collapsing and unviable destructive native forestry industry.”

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The legislation underpinning the deal, which passed the Tasmanian Parliament yesterday, proposes 500,000ha of reserves in 18 months’ time, providing the durability of the deal has been established.

Ms Weber said environmental organisations not associated with the ‘Agreement’ could deliver better outcomes than the environmental signatories.

“The legislation yesterday saw a very large void come in the environment movement,” she said.  “We have seen environment groups vacate the space as forest advocates and move into becoming the greenwash industry brigade.”

The bill passed in Tasmania’s House of Assembly yesterday is primarily yet another industry lifeline and has betrayed the environment.

Grass-roots environment organisations have been left stunned that a bill that lacks conservation assurances and props up a collapsing and unviable destructive native forestry industry has passed with support of some Greens parliamentarians.

Still Wild Still Threatened and Huon Valley Environment Centre have renewed their commitment to forest protection advocacy in all forms.

Huon Valley Environment Centre’s spokesperson Jenny Weber stated, “Today we are far from assurances of protection for Tasmania’s wild forests. The passing of this legislation, that is very pro-industry with merely a conservation veneer, does not deliver any upfront forest reserves.

 

Environmental Activists Jenny Weber, left, and Miranda Gibson
outside Tasmania’s Parliament House, Hobart, 20130501
[Source:  Photo by Sam Rosewarne, The Mercury,
^http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2013/05/01/378238_tasmania-news.html]

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Logging will continue inside the proposed reserves, as there are areas of forest that were excised from the proposed reserves to meet the logging schedule.

“This legislation fails the wild forests, and we will be there to provide scrutiny of a forestry industry that has not made any commitment to changing environmentally destructive practices,” Jenny Weber said.

Still Wild Still Threatened spokesperson Miranda Gibson stated:

“In response to the Forest Bill passed by the House of Assembly yesterday, the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened have vowed to continue to campaign for Tasmania’s forests. The legislation entrenches and props up the unviable native forest industry and ongoing logging of high conservation value forests, while making the attainment of new reserves virtually impossible. Conservation outcomes have been undeniably sidelined. Those groups and members of the Tasmanian State Greens who have supported this bill have aligned themselves with the collapsing forestry industry at the expense of our forests.”

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Jenny Weber of The Huon Valley Environment Centre
talking to the media at a protest outside foreign corporate logger, Ta Ann’s Hobart headquarters  (October 2012.)
[Source: ^http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2012/11/07/365524_tasmania-news.html]

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Huon Valley Environment Centre’s Jenny Weber:

“We are alarmed by the threat to curtail freedom of speech and the rights of protest out of yesterday’s legislation, which attempts to blackmail the community into silence by holding forests at ransom. These are undemocratic tactics to silence the voice of the community and benefit the forestry industry. The new clause provides the opportunity for either House of Government to determine what constitutes a failure of durability, including substantial active protests or substantial market disruption, and once that determination is made, reserves do not proceed.”

“When one wades through all the spin being propagated by parliamentarians and signatories to the TFA, forestry in Tasmania is at the point where it continues to drain public resources and destroy irreplaceable ecosystems. It has tarnished Tasmania’s brand by not recognising the value of unique native forests and by maintaining unsustainable resource management practices coupled with a wasteful and irresponsible on-the-ground approach. If that wasn’t enough, they have created a green-wash industry for Hamid Sepawi’s Ta Ann and those connected with Sarawak timber mafias and human rights violators. What is clear out of this process is that Ta Ann has received ongoing parliamentary support in Tasmania and now a green-wash tick from some environment groups.  We will continue to oppose the ongoing operations of this company in Tasmania and Sarawak.”

“As The Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania and the Australian Conservation Foundation are now committed to forsaking the role of forest advocacy and have become the green-mouthpiece for a forestry industry, who yesterday claimed they got everything they wanted out of the of the TFA process and consistently refuses to make necessary changes to their out-dated, destructive and reprehensible practices, our organisations will redouble our efforts to campaign for the protection of intact natural ecosystems.”

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Miranda Gibson in ObserverTree
^http://observertree.org/

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Still Wild Still Threatened’s Miranda Gibson:

“The native forest industry is not economically viable when left to stand on it’s own two feet. Yet, the House of Assembly has just passed a bill that will continue to prop up this out-dated and unviable industry with tax payer funds whilst disregarding community concerns and scientific recommendations for forest protection.” 

“It is delusional to believe that this bill will deliver adequate forest protection. Hundreds of thousands of hectares of verified high conservation value forests are being held to ransom, with protection subject not only to durability measures at the whim of both houses of Tasmania’s parliament, but also dependent on FSC certification. Under this bill high conservation value forests will continue to fall and human rights violations tacitly accepted. As long as they do, we will continue stand up for those ecosystems, forests, communities and cultures that are threatened.”

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[Source:  Miranda Gibson spokesperson for Still Wild Still Threatened, and Jenny Weber spokesperson for Huon Valley Environment Centre, ^http://www.stillwildstillthreatened.org/current-news/media-release-1.05.13-long-haul-tasmanian-forest-protection-delivered-if-ever…]

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“We are absolutely committed to continue to protest and take action for these forests.”

~ Still Wild Still Threatened spokeswoman Miranda Gibson.

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1st May:    Let’s not pretend agreements come from a small number of people who hold up a sign.

(Australia’s Federal Environment Minister, Tony Burke)

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<<‘Let’s not pretend that you’re ever going to get an agreement that will stop there from being a group of… you know… a small number of people who hold up a sign.

But let’s also not forget that in this group you’ve got the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Wilderness Society and Environment Tasmania as the ‘umbrella group’ and you’ve got all of those groups on side with the Agreement, it means you cannot get an effective market campaign that wll damage the Australian market any more.  And that… is a massive shift. And when you take out all the peak groups and have all of them on-side with the Agreement, that makes a massive difference to markets for Tasmania.

You’ll get the odd skirmish from small minor… minor groups and things like that. Yeah and I don’t want to set a silly threshold. What we have seen from the last thirty years – ends tonight. And that is something to celebrate.”

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[Source:  ‘Christine Milne: ‘Picking over a dead carcass’, via David Obendorf, Tasmanian Times, 20130501, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/christine-milne-picking-over-a-dead-carcass]
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Tony Burke – a smiling eco-assassin

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[Ed: Populist utilitarian politicking that foresakes deontological ethics is cowardly.  It serves the preservation of one’s vested interests, leaving behind a sullied reputation in the minds of ordinary people.   Burke has shown himself to be but a smiling eco-assassin, perhaps eyeing his polly pension before September.

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Burke is clearly ignorant of the magic of Margaret Mead who famously said: 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

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..and who also famously said..

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“Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.”]

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1st May:   It is the carcass of that Agreement..people picking over the scraps, deciding what can be salvaged or not

(Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne)

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<<What started out as a process to exit native forest logging has turned into a process to entrench native forest logging, to have ET, TWS and ACF promote FSC certification for native forest logging and also to subsidise that native forest logging with tax-payer dollars… and there are no secure conservation outcomes except the World Heritage extensions and I do congratulate everyone involved in that, including the federal Minister [Tony Burke] and I look forward to the world Heritage nomination going through in June [2013].  But that is the only secure outcome everything else has been pushed onto the never-never… beyond the federal and the next State election.

So this so called ‘conservation gain’ is a moratorium that can’t be translated into permanent reserves until after October 2014 and then only if FSC certification for Tasmanian native forest logging goes through, if in the eyes of the Legislative Council the community has been silenced and there have been no markets campaign… and then also, only if the Minister decides to make a reserve order. And if he or she doesn’t, then the whole thing falls over. The Moratorium lapses and the legislation lapses and the sawlog quota is restored to 300,000 cubic meters.

And these conservation groups adjudicate through this ‘Special Council’ which is dominated by the forest industry; to adjudicate on the behaviour of whether or not the community has been silenced adequately for the Legislative Council.

The problem is the Legislative Council destroyed the Tasmanian Forest Agreement; they completely destroyed the legislation and the integrity of the deal and all that the Tasmanian House of Assembly is now doing is picking over a dead carcass, actually.

The integrity of the whole agreement is gone.  It went horribly wrong when Lara Giddings decides to allow her leader of the Government in the Legislative Council to support these appalling amendments and essential means the whole thing lost any momentum in terms of protection.

And I fear that the same thing is going to happen… always… millions of federal dollars pour into the logging industry, as Tony Mulder has said that he wants; get the federal dollars, get the industry to rebuild and take a knife to the conservation outcomes and this what is exactly going to happen.

The Giddings Government ought to have upheld the Agreement; that was what everybody said that they would do. And the Government should have taken on the Legislative Council, sent the Bill back unamended – the sense of taking out the Legislative Council amendments – sent it back and said this is the Agreement that has the support of the State and federal governments, now pass it. And it basically would have been a serious taking on of the Legislative Council. Instead of that, the Giddings Government backed away and the ENGOs have allowed them to do so… as have the logging NGOs, and left the House of Assembly picking over the scraps of what has been an Agreement that was hard fought. So that’s what I mean when

I say the Agreement is over.  The Tasmanian Forest Agreement is now null and void … the environment groups throughout the State never signed on to the kinds of compromises that have now been agreed by the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly.

They didn’t ever agree to that; I certainly didn’t ever agree to the idea that you should hold the reservation of a forest area ransom to a decision by a Special Council as to whether or not they think that the community has behaved well enough and been quiet and hasn’t gone and protested. And if that is the case then they hold to ransom granting a reserve.

You cannot silence a community in that way… you just simply cannot take away people’s freedom of speech and right to protest and to stand up for what they believe in … and that is a shocking precedent which would undermine forest campaign communities right around the country… if that was to be upheld.  … This trumped up little police force (the Special Council) that will write its report to the Legislative Council to make a judgement as to whether they will ever reserve an area will be found to be illegal.

The Tasmanian Greens were put in an appalling position because the TFA was destroyed in the Legislative Council and Lara Giddings allowed it to be so. She should have stood up and agreed to the integrity of that Agreement being maintained. She didn’t… and the ENGOS didn’t. The Environmental NGOs hand-balled a particularly disgraceful situation to the Tasmanian House of Assembly and the Tasmanian Greens had to do what was the best in the circumstances.

What you got is basically the carcass of that Agreement and people picking over the scraps and deciding what can be salvaged or not.  And I have a different view about that than the Tasmanian Greens…. But I also have a national responsibility. And so when I look at this, I can’t possibly allow a national precedent whereby you have these silencing provisions. I can’t have a situation where you say to a third-party body like the Forest Stewardship Council globally that unless they give Forestry Tasmania FSC certification then areas won’t be reserved.

And I certainly can’t have a situation where in the future reservation depends on whether a Minister decides to bother putting up a reserve order… and if they don’t it all falls over.
If there is a Liberal Government it’s inevitable that these areas will never be reserved. And it has always been my view is that the only reservation we are going to see is the World Heritage nomination which will go through in June ahead of the federal election.

I really welcome the World Heritage extension; it’s something that I was fighting for back in 1989 with Bob Brown and Peg Putt and others and it’s fantastic that at last what was held up by Michael Field and David Llewellyn and others then will now go into World Heritage. And all this talk about ‘great forest conservation outcomes’ is, I think, just talk.

Certainly everyone is going to say what they agreed to was the Tasmanian Forest Agreement and that is not what has been legislated. So, I think people will feel free to be out there campaigning for their forest areas because they are not going to stay silent waiting for after October 2014 to see what the Legislative Council or a future Tasmanian Government might do then.>>

[Source:  ‘Christine Milne: ‘Picking over a dead carcass’, via David Obendorf, Tasmanian Times, 20130501, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/christine-milne-picking-over-a-dead-carcass]

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30th April:   It is not in letter or in spirit anything like what was agreed

(Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne)

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<<In Tasmania after many years and deliberations it is now clear that the Tasmanian Forest Agreement 2012 is dead. It died in the Upper House when the Legislative Council in Tasmania took a chainsaw to this agreement and destroyed its integrity.

There is no other way of looking at what has happened.

Even the signatories acknowledge that what is now before the Parliament is not in letter or in spirit anything like what was agreed. Tony Mulder who moved one of the devastating amendments in the Upper House has subsequently said that his intention was to take the Federal money, watch the deal fall over and take a sword to the environment outcomes. And that’s precisely what the Legislative Council has done. So make no mistake, the Legislative Council destroyed this Tasmanian Forest Agreement in which so many people had put their hopes, their faith, hours of work, years of deliberation and it’s over. What is now going to happen in the Tasmanian House of Assembly is a raking over of the ashes, trying to find in the devastation something to salvage.

Well the one good thing that has been salvaged already regardless of what they do over there the World Heritage nomination. The Federal Government has nominated those fantastic high conservation value forests on the eastern boundary of the World Heritage area to be World Heritage and that will go before the World Heritage meeting in June this year and that is going to be something for us all to celebrate, after some more than 20 years of deliberation.

But frankly as the leader of the Australian Greens there is no way that I am prepared to see pulled out of the rubble that’s come before the House of Assembly the absolute desperation salvage. There’s no way that there are some fundamental principles that can be countenanced. So the first one is the Legislative Council has put off into the never-never the reserves which were supposed to be immediately protected. The second tranche has been put off until October 2014 beyond the next federal and state election. It is on the never-never and it is particularly on the never-never because it doesn’t even require that the legislation be repealed for the whole deal to fall over and for the 300,000 cubic metre sawlog quota to be restored, all it takes is for a minister to do nothing. Not to act in the specified timeframe revokes the entire piece of legislation.

But equally as the leader of the Australian Greens there is no way I can countenance the idea that the community’s freedom of speech will be curtailed – the freedom to protest, the freedom of speech to be curtailed. There is absolutely no way that you can say to the Tasmanian community if you have a protest, if you speak out about the rubble and the mess that’s been created then the Legislative Council through the special council that’s been set up can determine that reserves will not be gazetted. That just simply is unacceptable in a democracy.

You cannot see the community’s freedom of speech curtailed in that way. Equally it is a nonsense to say that a minister must take the advice of an unelected special council, especially one that has, it’s just an appointed special council, it’s going to be stacked with the logging industry, but a minister has responsibilities and a minister must be subject to judicial review through the courts and they simply don’t have the power to say to a minister that you must take the advice of an unelected appointed council. And it is this unelected appointed council which will be the jury as to whether the Tasmanian community has behaved appropriately or not.

What sort of nonsense is that?

It is also ridiculous to put in a provision that says that according to the ‘Special Council‘ or anyone else areas that have been protected if any indeed beyond the first tranche ever get protected can be logged for special timbers and that all the residues, that is woodchips associated with that, can then be generated. So you are putting in jeopardy anything that has been protected will be vulnerable.

The other big problem with it is the idea that you can say that an area that has been assessed as worthy of protection as a reserve will not be reserved unless a third party, the Forest Stewardship Council, is blackmailed into saying that Forestry Tasmania can get certification. This is an international organisation, the Forest Stewardship Council, the Legislative Council is bringing Tasmania into disrepute globally.

If Forestry Tasmania want Forest Stewardship Council certification then they have to change their practices to earn it. The Legislative Council cannot blackmail the FSC into giving certification or else the conservation movement and people who care can’t have reserves that are scientifically determined and valid as reserves. These are things which we simply cannot accept and in fact it’s an absurdity.  Anyone looking at this would say this is absurd.

And there is no way as leader of the Australian Greens that I could see allowing a precedent of this kind to be set to suggest that other states around the country might think it was a good idea to set up such anti-democratic processes and attempts at blackmail as the Legislative Council have done. So as of now if this legislation passes in the House of Assembly then clearly this in my view the Tasmanian Forest agreement is over, finished, done, dusted and we are now going to see a convoluted scrambling around in the ashes trying to salvage something and the only durable thing that will be salvaged is the World Heritage nomination.

But even then I wouldn’t put it past the Legislative Council to try and scuttle that in the month or so before the World Heritage committee actually meets to discuss it.

JOURNALIST:    The signatories and the State Greens are supporting it though, doesn’t that put you of at odds with your state counterparts?

CHRISTINE MILNE:   No it doesn’t.

My Tasmanian counterparts will determine whatever they do in terms of the salvage operation but I can tell you that you that across the Australian Greens and the Tasmanian Greens we are all agreed that the Tasmanian Forest Agreement is dead. It was killed in the Upper House and the signatories also acknowledged it is dead in terms of the spirit and the letter of what was agreed.

Let’s go back through the process – there was a process, the signatories agreed, the Parliament translated that into legislation which went before the Parliament.

It was unamended in the Lower House in terms of those principles but the Legislative Council destroyed it. So we’re all agreed, the deal is dead, there are differences of opinion that may emerge. I have heard what the signatories have had to say and frankly putting your faith in Forestry Tasmania is an extraordinary turn of events and I say that because Forestry Tasmania has already breached the spirit of the deal just as the Federal Government was buying out forest contractors, Forestry Tasmania was extending the contracts that they have to take up the difference. So taxpayers’ money was going out the backdoor to pay out contractors and Forestry Tasmania was extending the contracts.

So what Forestry Tasmania has to say they stand on their record and they have not been restructured. But that’s up to the signatories, they can do as they like, the agreement is dead.

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But isn’t that something better than nothing?

No. The fact is these reserves will never be delivered, they are on the never-never.

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JOURNALIST:   Will this deal achieve peace?

CHRISTINE MILNE:    No, the forest peace deal is over.

The original deal was what was designed to try and bring about a lasting end to the debate on forests in Tasmania. But the Legislative Council destroyed it. They are the ones who have ripped up the peace agreement, the Tasmanian Forest Agreement and they are the ones who have laid it to waste, and left now a legacy of what will just be a scrambling around in the ashes to try and salvage something.

JOURNALIST:    But isn’t that something better than nothing?

CHRISTINE MILNE:    The issue here is when you are scrambling around in the ashes trying to salvage something it comes to the issue of principle.

The fact is these reserves will never be delivered, they are on the never-never until after 2014, October 2014, beyond a state and federal election. But equally as I said it can be overturned at any time by a minister just deciding not to proceed with those reserve orders.

JOURNALIST:    So saying that you think it’s completely dead, how strongly do you like to see it rejected in the Lower House?

CHRISTINE MILNE:     Well it doesn’t matter what they do in the Lower House because it’s just going to set up a convoluted process that people are going to fight over indefinitely.

It has already died so whatever they do in the House of Assembly now unless it went back to the Upper House unamended and they took on the Upper House and maintained the original agreement, if that happened well then let’s talk about that. But it’s clear from the signatories’ statement this morning that they are prepared to abandon their original deal and just work in the ashes.

JOURNALIST:    Do you regret criticising the legislation before the signatories had even arrived at their decision?

CHRISTINE MILNE:  Not at all, in fact it was obvious to anyone who assessed what was going on in the Legislative Council that the Forest Agreement was dead the minute that the leader of the Government in the Upper House backed the Mulder amendment.

The minute that the leader of the Government gave away Lara Giddings’ position that she was prepared to sell out the integrity of the agreement, it was clear what the Government would do. So from that point it was over and I think there should have been a stand taken against the Legislative Council and for the forests and the integrity of the agreement at that time. It didn’t happen and now we are in where we inevitably were going to end up.

JOURNALIST:   Do you think environmentalists are naïve for believing the reserves will happen even if they’re not legislated?

CHRISTINE MILNE:   It is clear to me that the reserves are on the never-never.

Saying that the reserves in the second tranche won’t be considered until after October 2014, after a federal and state election is absolutely out there in my view, that says they will never be achieved. But equally saying that either House of Parliament can reject it on the basis of a criticism that the community might be speaking out too much or somebody might have had a protest somewhere, jeopardising that freedom of speech and right to protest inevitably this is over.

It is a fantasy to think that those reserves will ever be delivered beyond the first tranche and that is why the only salvageable thing here is the World Heritage nomination and I congratulate the Federal Government for putting that nomination into the meeting in June and I look forward to those forests going onto the World Heritage list.

JOURNALIST:   Doesn’t this kind of put you at odds though with the State Greens? They will back the legislation this afternoon so essentially they are backing the environmental signatories yet you are not.

CHRISTINE MILNE:    I’m saying that the agreement is dead and I have no doubt that they also believe it is dead.

Everyone who reads this sees quite clearly that the minute the Legislative Council tore up the fundamentals of the agreement and the environmental NGOs have said that this morning.

What is now before the Parliament isn’t the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, it is a remnant, it is the burnt ashes of what went up to the Legislative Council and they’re into a salvage operation. Whatever people get out of a salvage operation they get out of it, but the agreement is dead and that is something which everybody, the ENGOs, the Tasmanian and the Australian Greens all agree on.

JOURNALIST:    Given then that Prime Minister Julia Gillard is now horribly short of cash will you be petitioning her, lobbying her to pull some of the money that’s on the table for the TFA as it isn’t going to achieve what it said it was supposed to surely that money could be better spent elsewhere than propping up the logging industry I think you would say.

CHRISTINE MILNE:   Well certainly the Australian Greens have argued throughout this process, Bob Brown did before I took over the leadership and then I did subsequently, that the money ought not to be flowing into Tasmania until the conservation outcomes are delivered, that there should be tranches where you get conservation outcomes and money flowing in.

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“The forest contractors’ grants were paid, Forestry Tasmania extended the contracts.”

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What now happens in terms of federal funding with that legislation will happen, that will be part of the ongoing agreement but the fact of the matter is the agreement as such is dead. All of the assumptions that were made about where the forest industry goes the future just aren’t on the table as even Terry Edwards I believe has said this is going to be a long, drawn-out, convoluted process and goodness only knows what happens but clearly we’re in a federal election year and I think the Commonwealth will take whatever action it chooses, they will make those decisions, but it is Lara Giddings who directed no doubt her leader of Government in the Upper House to be part of blowing up the integrity of the deal.

JOURNALIST:    You’ve just said that the conflict won’t end, surely it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money if the Federal Government continues to pay out this $300 million and we don’t see peace?

CHRISTINE MILNE:    Well that’s a decision for the Commonwealth and the Tasmanian Government to make, how the money is spent.

Clearly it was my preference to see Forestry Tasmania restructured. The industry restructured, that money needs to be spent if it is going to flow into regional development, not as Tony Mulder would say take the Commonwealth dollars, rebuild the industry on the back of subsidies, and take a knife to the conservation outcomes, that would be a very bad outcome for Tasmania.

JOURNALIST:    But you won’t be asking the Prime Minister to pull the funding at all?

CHRISTINE MILNE:   I’ll be talking to the Federal Government about the budget this year, but I’m not entering into the negotiations between what the State and Federal Governments do over funding, I will consider whatever is on the table after the debate in the House of Assembly and whatever else is determined but clearly I have taken the forest exit grants through a Senate Committee process and I will be watching very clearly how every cent is spent.

JOURNALIST:    Are you disappointed with people like Phil Pullinger and Vica Bailey for saying that they will continue to back the deal when clearly it doesn’t deliver what environmentalists hoped it would?

CHRISTINE MILNE:    The signatories to the agreement will do whatever they think is best and they are entitled to do that, I just don’t agree with outcome that they have reached.

The forest deal was destroyed in the Legislative Council and at that point there should have been a standing up to the Legislative Council. Now there is a salvage strategy at best, a picking over the bones of the dead body and they will do that in good faith, but it doesn’t alter the fact that the investment of time and energy, the aspirations and what was agreed are all gone.

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[Source:  ‘Mining tax, budget, Tasmanian Forest Agreement, asylum seekers’  (extract),  by Christine Milne, Australian Greens Leader, 20130430, Tasmanian Times, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/pr-article/christine-milne-transcript-mining-tax-budget-tasmanian-forest-/]

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[Ed:  Strong words, but delivered in the shadow of Parliamentary enactment.  The Greens have abandoned their forest conservation roots in Tasmania for the distraction of a humanist agenda on the thinned out rationale of becoming a multi-issue party to secure a broader membership base.  Broad appeasing agendas have tragically thinned focus away from core commitment to conservation].

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30th April:  Anyone in any doubt about the importance of this deal to the forest industry need only look to the strong endorsement of companies like Ta Ann, Artec, Neville Smith Forest Products, Bunnings and our own GBE Forestry Tasmania

(statements by Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings and Deputy Premier Bryan Green)

 

<<..When we set out on this journey nearly three years ago few imagined we could achieve what we have today, Ms Giddings said.  This is indeed a historic turning point for Tasmania.  It marks the point where we can put aside old hostilities and take control of the future of the forest industry by responding to the needs and wants of global customers.

I want to thank the signatories for recognising this historic opportunity and for having the guts, determination and resilience to see it through.  There is no other alternative to the worst downturn Tasmania s forest industry has ever seen.   The stark choice was either to adapt to changing global demands or see more jobs lost and the rapid decline of the industry.

Ms Giddings said the legislation passed in the Parliament today delivered protection for 137,000 hectares of forest with high conservation value, including iconic areas like Tyenna, Hastings, Picton and the Upper Florentine.  It also paves the way for Forest Stewardship Council certification and funding for sawmill buybacks and more than $100 million in new regional development projects.  Anyone in any doubt about the importance of this deal to the forest industry need only look to the strong endorsement of companies like:

  • Ta Ann
  • Artec
  • Neville Smith Forest Products
  • Bunnings
  • GBE Forestry Tasmania

That is not to mention the hundreds of workers and small sawmillers represented by the signatories, including the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania, the Forest Contractors Association and Timber Communities Australia.

On the other side we have the mainstream environmental groups, the heavyweights that campaigned strongly against the forestry industry for decades, committing to actively supporting the industry, including endorsing FSC Certification.

The Liberal Party has been relegated to the sidelines as the chief cheerleader for the carpers, naysayers and change deniers.  They have embarrassingly found themselves on the wrong side of history yet again.

Mr Green said the State Government was totally committed to implementing the Tasmanian Forest Agreement.  We will continue to work with the signatories to implement the milestones of the agreement, Mr Green said.  The Government is in no doubt Tasmanians want this issue fixed.

Agreement has been reached because of the willingness of people to accept the need to adapt to changing market demands and a global downturn.  It has been an extremely difficult time for businesses, forest workers and regional communities.  Now, Tasmania s forest sector and communities around the State can look forward to a much more certain future and the opportunity for this important industry to prosper.

Mr Green said the Government had not wavered in its support of signatories to the agreement.  The Liberal Party has been intent on wrecking the agreement from the start, ignoring the efforts of the industry, unions and ENGOs to reach a lasting resolution.  When strong leadership was needed Mr Hodgman went missing, Mr Green said.

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[Source:  ‘Forest industry future secure’, 20130430, by Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings, and Deputy Premier Bryan Green, Deputy Premier, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/pr-article/forest-industry-future-secure/]

1st May:  Tasmania’s Upper House has amended this Bill so savagely that it no longer reflects the agreement struck by the forest signatories

(justification for crossing the Floor, Leader of The Tasmanian Greens, Nick McKim MP )

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Tasmanian House of Assembly Hansard:

 

<<Mr Speaker, this amended Bill put before us is a dramatically different Bill to that which left this House last year.  It is by no means a perfect Bill, in fact, it is manifestly imperfect in a number of its provisions.

And it must be said that many of the amendments made by the Upper House defer, or reduce certainty around, conservation outcomes. And that, Mr Speaker, is no coincidence.
There is no doubt that the Upper House has amended this Bill so savagely that it no longer reflects the agreement struck by the forest signatories, and that this House now needs to consider how best to salvage an outcome from the Legislative Council’s wreckage.

The Signatories’ agreement would have given peace in our forests a chance.  But we will now never know how things would have played out if the Signatories’ agreement had been faithfully legislated, because the Upper House has tragically removed that possibility from Tasmania’s future.

But despite the Bill’s imperfections, it still delivers some major conservation gains for Tasmania.  It immediately provides legislated protection from logging for over 500,000 hectares of High Conservation Value forests.  These iconic forests, these carbon banks, these global treasures, in places like the Styx, the Weld, the Huon, the Florentine, the Tasman Peninsula, Bruny Island, the Blue Tiers, the Western Tiers and the Tarkine will for the first time in their history have legislated protection from logging. Simply by the passing of this Bill.

The Bill also provides pathways to the creation of 504,000 ha of new formal reserves, including new national parks, and to the achievement of full Forest Stewardship Council certification by the Tasmanian timber industry.

It is true that there remains uncertainty around new reserves, and that the uncertainty is greater due to the Legislative Council amendments.  But the Bill nevertheless provides an opportunity for these reserves, the chance of an absolutely stunning conservation gain, and the Greens believe Tasmania deserves no less.

And it is true there remains uncertainty around the achievement of full FSC, and that the uncertainty is also greater due to the Legislative Council amendments.  But the Bill nevertheless provides the opportunity and a pathway for the achievement of full FSC, and therefore a potentially remarkable transformation in the way the forest industry conducts itself on the ground in Tasmania. And the Greens believe that Tasmania deserves no less.

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“Those amendments (to the Bill) do not in any way constitute a ban on protests or market campaigns.

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And importantly, the Bill also reduces the legislated sawlog quota from a minimum of 300,000 m3 to a minimum of 137,000 m3.  These are significant steps towards the implementation of long held Greens policy.

When deciding how to proceed today, the Tasmanian Greens considered many things.

We considered the bitter conflict that has existed over forestry for many decades in Tasmania. A conflict that has placed lives at risk, put jobs in jeopardy, and held Tasmania back from reaching its full potential.

We considered the massive efforts of the Forest Signatories, bitter enemies who came together and who for nearly three years sought in a constructive way to reach agreement on a way forward.

We considered the commitment of current state and commonwealth governments to being part of a solution instead of part of an ongoing problem

We considered the conservation gains I have referred to.

We also considered the letter written to the Signatories yesterday by the Minister for Resources Mr Bryan Green.

We considered that in his letter, Mr Green agreed, amongst many other commitments to:

  • Finalise the gazettals of new reserves under the Nature Conservation Act for the World Heritage Area first ‘tranche’ of reserves with the clear intention that this is achieved by the end of this year (2013)
  • That there is a new Conservation Agreement under the Commonwealth EPBC Act put in force over the entire 504,000 hectares that doesn’t expire until the gazettal of all new reserves under Schedule A subject to transitional scheduling, which is to be signed by both governments, explicitly including Parks and Wildlife Service, and Forestry Tasmania.
  • Transfer the day to day management of the identified future reserve land, the 504, 000hectares, from Forestry Tasmania to Parks and Wildlife Service under a formal service agreement as soon as the Act commences.
  • Supporting the Australian government’s undertaking that it will not approve harvesting of wood, including specialty timbers, within World Heritage nominated or listed areas.

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We also considered the Upper House, and our firm belief that to refuse the amendments made by the Upper House, and therefore send the Bill back to the Legislative Council for further consideration, would result in one of only two possible outcomes: either the Bill would be sent back to us in a form that further erodes the conservation gains, or the Bill would die in the Upper House.

We considered that all of the signatories have asked that this Bill be passed through the lower House unamended today.

We considered the statement made yesterday by Mr Bob Annels, Chair of Forestry Tasmania.

A statement in which Mr Annels committed his organization to full Forest Stewardship Council certification, and in which he ruled out logging under any circumstances in the forests nominated for World Heritage status, allowing for a small number of transitional coupes that will be completed within weeks.

We considered the money available from the Commonwealth, the remaining $100 million to assist in the ongoing transformation of Tasmania’s economy that will be one of this Labor-Green government’s greatest legacies to our state.

We considered the $9m per year extra assistance to manage Tasmania’s world class reserve system that will flow should this Bill pass.

We considered the carbon embedded in the forest ecosystems protected from logging, and our responsibility to play a role in reducing global emissions.

We considered that we now have confirmation that the Commonwealth has given a commitment that carbon from forest ecosystems protected by this legislation will be granted additionality, and therefore will be eligible under the Carbon Farming Initiative to be traded nationally and globally on mandatory carbon markets.

Of course, we also considered those parts of the Bill which do not reflect Greens’ policy, including delays in the creation of formal reserves, the maintenance of a legislated minimum sawlog quota of any amount, the sovereign risk provisions, and the amendments which allow either House of the Parliament to use protest or market interference as an excuse to block new Reserves.

I want to be clear that those amendments, which allow either House of the Parliament to use protest or market disruption as an excuse to try and block new reserves do not in any way constitute a ban on protests or market campaigns as some have claimed.

A final consideration included our responsibility to play a constructive role in Tasmanian politics, and to help guide Tasmania to a more prosperous and united future.  We considered the need for a co-operative approach, for people working together to solve Tasmania’s problems rather than lobbing grenades from the trenches.  We believe that’s what the vast majority of Tasmanians want. And that’s what the Greens want to be a part of.

The Greens have had to weigh in the balance the provisions of this Bill that we support, and those that in isolation we would not.  But due to the wreckers in the Upper House, the Tasmanian Greens believe that the Bill as amended is a ‘take it or leave it’ package.  And that is why after long and difficult consideration, the Tasmanian Greens Party Room has decided in accordance with our Party Room rules to vote to accept the amendments from the Upper House and therefore allow this Bill to pass through the Tasmanian Parliament today and become law.>>

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[Source:  ‘Why we voted for the Bill. Silence, says Gillard. Never, says Milne’, 20130502, by Nick McKim MP, Leader of The Tasmanian Greens, Tasmanian Times, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/why-we-voted-for-the-bill/]

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30th April:   The day Kim Booth crossed the floor

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<<Tasmania’s Lower House has passed historic legislation designed to end 30 years of conflict over logging in the state’s native forests.

The final deal will bring almost $400 million worth of state and federal funds to Tasmania to restructure the industry and create new reserves.  But the compromises made along the way have left the Australian Greens to deem the final result almost worthless.

Tasmania’s Parliament passed the crucial legislation on Tuesday evening, 13 votes to 11.

The Premier, Lara Giddings, told Parliament the deal would be an historic turning point and would secure the industry’s future.   “History has shown us that no conflict can go on forever. Every war must come to an end,” she said.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke flew into Hobart to celebrate.  “The rest of Australia has not come close to being able to achieve what Tasmania achieves today, and that is a solid conservation outcome with a solid economic future,” he said.  History has shown us that no conflict can go on forever. Every war must come to an end.

But the mood in the gallery was far from celebratory, with many disappointed over amendments made by the Upper House two weeks ago that effectively delay the creation of formal reserves.

Greens MP Kim Booth was the only member of the Labor-Greens minority Government to cross the floor and vote against the legislation. 

“It does not give protection beyond the World Heritage Area, which I’m very, very pleased has been sent to Paris,” he said.  “It does not give permanent protection to any of the other 504,000 hectares that are mentioned as areas that should be reserved.”

The leader of the Australian Greens, Christine Milne, does not support the deal either.

The vote ends more than three years of negotiation between industry and environmental groups to reduce the amount of logging in native forests.  The deal aims to halve the state’s timber industry and protect a further half a million hectares of forest.  The first 80,000 hectares will be protected immediately.  The rest will not be up for formal protection until at least October next year.

Key environmental groups were upset at the changes made by the Tasmanian Upper House and only decided to support the deal at the last minute.

The Wilderness Society’s Vica Bayley says the Upper House amendments shook the confidence of environmental signatories.  “The amendments don’t reflect the agreement, but what we have done is to try to restore confidence by alternative measures,” he said.  “[They are] things such as transferring the management of future reserves from Forestry Tasmania over to Parks and Wildlife.  “Things like a very strong commitment from Forestry Tasmania not to log the future reserves.  “It is utterly clear that this is the only pathway forward.”

Some environmentalists have vowed to continue protests against the deal.

Resources Minister Bryan Green now has 30 days to table an order to start the process of reserving the forests.  The legislation does not need to go back to the Upper House.
The State Government offered a range of sweeteners to keep the deal alive.

They include:

  • Forestry Tasmania to immediately pursue Forest Stewardship Council certification and not log existing reserves or agreed future reserve areas
  • The Tasmanian Government to properly resource departments to deal with agreed new reserves
  • Federal and State Governments to ban logging in the 500,000 ha of forest earmarked for protection from logging, known as a conservation order
  • Forestry Tasmania and both governments to try to cut the number of transitional coupes that will need to be harvested
  • Immediately transfer control of the 500-thousand hectares of land from Forestry Tasmania to the Parks and Wildlife Service
  • Establish dispute resolution mechanism to deal quickly with any issues that might arise during implementation
  • Both governments to work together to ensure the boundary for the World Heritage Area extension meets agreed wood supply while maintaining WHA size and values.

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[Source:   ‘Tasmanian Parliament backs forest peace deal’, 20130501, ABC Hobart, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-30/forest-peace-deal-passes/4661224?section=tas]

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<<Trust has been broken and heads must roll just like all the trees that will be logged as a result of this so called deal. Destruction will be the legacy of such a disgraceful act of treason. Arrogance, naivety, stupidity, ego, whatever the driving force was behind this dreadful act, it will haunt us all and reverberate through the environment for years. Forestry must be laughing all the way to the bank and the pub!   You are not forgiven!>>

~ Leroy (20130507)
Source:  ^http://observertree.org/2013/05/07/mainland-australian-forest-conservation-groups-appalled-by-tasmanian-forest-law/#comments)

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Tasmanian Greens MP Kim Booth
– blind faith in FSC

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30th April (before the Vote):   Dr Phill Pullinger gutted by Upper House changes to the bill but ‘rolled up sleeves’ to make agreement work

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<<…Early this morning, the signatories of the Tasmanian Forests Agreement said despite the changes made to the bill by the Upper House, they could still support the bill and urged the Tasmanian Lower House to pass the amended legislation.

Greens MHA Kim Booth will cross the floor to vote against the bill, splitting from his following Tasmanian Greens members who will be voting for the bill.

Despite Mr Booth’s stance, and the state Liberals not supporting the bill, it’s most likely the bill will pass the Lower House and become law.

Dr Phill Pullinger from Environment Tasmania said they were gutted by the changes made to the bill by the Upper House at first, but said they ‘rolled up their sleeves’ and worked with the other signatories and the Tasmanian Government to work out a way to make the changed agreement still work.   “They’ll be a lot of work yet to be done to make the promise and hope that has sat behind this agreement in this process actually follow through into reality,” said Dr Pullinger.

Dr Pullinger said although the bill is now different from the one the signatories first agreed to, they can still support it and make it work in a positive way for Tasmania’s native forests.  “The legislation will protect all of the half a million hectares that are agreed to be reserved under this agreement from logging, not withstanding a small list of transitional coups, and it does lay out a pathway for those forests to be formally reserved under Tasmania law.”

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Will Hodgman:    “Liberals will undo the deal and the legislation”

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Australian Greens leader Christine Milne announced the deal dead before it was even voted on.

“My Tasmanian counterparts will determine whatever they do in terms of the salvage operation, but I can tell you that the Tasmanian Forest Agreement is dead,” she said.  “It was killed in the Upper House and the signatories also acknowledge it is dead in terms of the spirit and the letter of what was agreed.”

Ms Milne says environmental groups will be ‘picking over the scraps’ of the agreement to try to salvage something positive from it, but she says this bill is not the agreement and this is not the end to Tasmania’s forest wars.

Some non-signatory environmental groups have said the amended deal will not bring peace to the forests and protests are likely to continue.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke arrived in Hobart earlier today to hold talks with the signatories and Tasmanian government.  He said there is no way to ever completely stop protests, but believes the passing of the legislation is an historic moment for Tasmania.

Tasmanian Opposition leader Will Hodgman says should the Liberals win a majority government in the next Tasmanian election, they will undo the deal and the legislation.>>

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[Source:  ‘Is this peace for Tasmania’s forests?’, 20130430, by Louise Saunders and Carol Raabus, ABC Hobart, ^http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/04/30/3748583.htm?site=hobart&ref=m21]

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30th April (before the Vote):  Terry Edwards says the amended legislation is closer to what loggers originally wanted

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<<Tasmania’s Lower House is set to pass legislation aimed at ending decades of conflict in the state’s forest.

Tasmanian Greens leader Nick McKim says his party will approve the bill, which was heavily amended by the Upper House.  Mr McKim told Parliament the changes mean that there is a chance that new forest reserves will not be created but peace deal signatories had asked the Lower House to pass the bill unamended.

“But the bill nevertheless provides…the chance of an absolutely stunning and historic conservation gain for Tasmania,” he said.

Greens forestry spokesman Kim Booth has indicated he will cross the floor but the Government will still have the numbers to make the peace deal law.

Earlier this month, the Upper House supported the legislation but made significant amendments.  The signatories announced this morning that they would back those amendments.

The Premier, Lara Giddings, told parliament the forest industry will be better off with the peace deal.  “Today is indeed a historic day. Today is indeed an important day for the forestry industry and today the Liberal Party show their true colours – they don’t care.  We will be able to build a new future for Tasmania, a new future for forestry industry.”

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Peter Gutwein:   “Liberals will do everything that we possibly can to unlock every single stick.”

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Bass Liberal MHA Peter Gutwein
[Source:  ^http://www.examiner.com.au/story/87353/gutwein-booted-from-parliament/]

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The Opposition’s Peter Gutwein says in Government, says the passing of the bill will not end the long conflict.  In government, the Liberals will undo any new reserves.  “We will do everything that we possibly can to unlock every single stick,” he said.

Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne says whether or not the deal’s enabling legislation passes State Parliament, it will not resolve conflicts over forest protection.  Senator Milne says in her opinion the peace deal is worthless.   “What is now before the parliament is not the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, it is a remnant, it is the burnt ashes of what went up to the Legislative Council and they’re now into a salvage operation,” she said.

The Lower House is expected to sit late this evening before finalising debate.

…The Forestry Industries Association’s Terry Edwards says the amended legislation is closer to what loggers originally wanted. But he says the environmental NGO signatories are still getting a very good deal.

“There’s no doubt that the amendments made in the Legislative Council probably went further towards what we had originally bargained for,” he said.  “But that said, if the bill couldn’t deliver on the ENGOs’ outcomes, then it wasn’t going to deliver on the outcomes of the agreement as a whole.”

Mr Edwards says it is an historic outcome, but there is still more negotiation ahead.  “Vica talks about the opportunities presented being too important to lose and I certainly agree with that.  But it’s those opportunities that we, as the signatories, and the two governments need now to seize to see whether or not we can actually do what we’ve promised to do.”

Mr Edwards says the Legislative Council has served voters well with its amendments to the deal.  “To me they did a thorough job, to the best of their ability, inside the knowledge base they had.  They applied a very strict public interest test over an agreement that was negotiated by people that do not have a public interest test.  It’s our job now to work out how we implement that.”

Yesterday, environmental fringe groups labelled the bill ‘mutant’ legislation and warned they will not stop protesting if it becomes law.>>

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[Source:  ‘Historic forest peace deal set to pass’, 20130430,  ABC Hobart, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-30/greens-to-back-forestry-peace-deal/4659544]

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April 29:   ‘Picton River Resolution April 2013’ – End logging in these forests!

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Picton River

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<<An activist workshop facilitated by Alice Hungerford, with members of the Huon Valley Environment Centre and Still Wild Still Threatened, gathered in the Picton Valley and discussed the Tasmanian forest campaign. This resolution calling for the forest agreement to be rejected was prepared by the workshop participants. 

While many conservation-minded people once held hope that the forest negotiation process may lead to forest protection outcomes, these hopes have been diminished by the ongoing conservation compromises made and more recently due to the current amendments made by Tasmania’s Legislative Council.

The amendments that have been made to this agreement by the Legislative Council render the deal void of any real conservation gain, yet prop up the dying native forest industry. These amendments are totally unacceptable.

One amendment is that forest proposed for protection in the first stage are only those areas that are in the World Heritage nomination currently before the IUCN. Leaving out large areas of high conservation value forest in:

  • The North West, the Tarkine
  • The North East and East
  • Weilangta
  • Tasman Peninsula
  • Bruny Island
  • West Wellington.

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Roses Tier, North East Tasmania
^http://observertree.org/category/photos/

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These forests will not be reserved unless the native forest industry in Tasmania receives Forest Stewardship Certification (FSC). Protection will be delayed until at least October 2014, however it will be dependent on this certification.

This is an amendment laced with problems; the forestry industry is not committed to changing the current regime of clear-felling, creating huge quantities of wood that is referred to as‘residues’ by the industry, continued logging on steep slopes, old growth destruction and continuing regeneration burns. If these are the logging practices that are to be granted FSC status, then this would be a severe sabotage of the FSC process and bring into question the credibility of certification. Worse still it entrenches Tasmania into ongoing destruction of native ecosystems at a critical time of climate change.

This amendment shows the clear direction of this deal – to support the ongoing native forests industry. This is a far cry from the original purpose of the negotiations, which promised a transition out of native forests in Tasmania.

We cannot accept a deal which seeks to prop up native forest destruction, clear felling and a return to wood-chipping. We cannot accept a deal that does not deliver the protection of verified high conservation value forests upfront. We cannot accept a deal which will further weaken Tasmania’s forest practice standards and which has the potential to jeopardise the integrity of FSC.

First and foremost Tasmania needs secure protection of high conservation value forests, an end to logging in these forests. Secondly the forestry industry has to prioritise restructure; bring an immediate end to out-dated practises that are ecologically damaging.

The large-scale volume-driven nature of the forestry industry must be restructured to support high-value labour-intensive use of every possible part of every tree harvested. And a rapid transition into plantations is required.

A further amendment has provided for World Heritage value forests in the Great Western Tiers to be excluded from upfront protection, despite being a part of the nominated area currently before the IUCN. Protection of these forests appears to be delayed until October 2014 and also dependent on FSC.

It is unacceptable to exclude any areas from protection that have been verified as World Heritage value. And it is unacceptable to continue to log areas within the World Heritage nominated forests or to allow access for logging for speciality timbers in perpetuity.

Another amendment made by the Legislative Council is that any reserve (including in the World Heritage Area) could be logged for special species timber as defined by the Minister of the day, if this is deemed necessary in the future. It is unacceptable for logging to occur inside reserves for speciality timbers, yet meanwhile such timbers have been left in clearfells and burnt in the annual Autumn high-intensity burns for far too long. Ending high intensity burn practises and providing funding for salvaging special species timbers off the coupe floor and storing these timbers in regional wood banks would provide ongoing employment.

Most importantly, the health repercussions for all Tasmanians from burning and poisoning our land, water and air through the current out dated practices must be acknowledged and monitored reparation is required.

The people of Tasmania bear the full social, financial and community costs of the forests destruction, and government prop up of the unsustainable industry.

Who we are: we are mothers, grandmothers, daughters, children, sisters and brothers, teachers, community workers, volunteers. We are people who care. We are strong, and loving and joyous. We are activists. We work for change.

We are committed to caring for our country. We take full responsibility for our words and our actions. We participate in all parts of this community, we call Tasmania home.

We stand for justice, empowerment, safety and ecological sustainability. We recognise the urgent need for people to wake up, to rise up and support broad-scale restorative change.

We are passionate about democracy and expect every member of Parliament to stand up and do the right thing, to put Tasmania and Tasmanians as their very first consideration in making decisions about land and resources.

The process of reaching an Inter-governmental Agreement on Tasmania’s forests has taken almost 3 years and has been fraught with bias. The process has been heavily skewed toward industry gain and conservation loss. We do not support the future of forest protection to be dictated by the special council that is set up by this Tasmanian Forest Agreement, which again is dominated by industry interests, as membership of the council will have three conservationist representatives and eight industry representatives. We call on our elected representatives to shape a future for Tasmania that insists on ecologically sustainability.>>

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[Source:  ‘Picton River Resolution April 2013’, 20130429, by Jenny Weber, Huon Valley Environment Centre ^http://www.huon.org/ and Miranda Gibson, Still Wild Still Threatened, ^http://observertree.org/2013/04/29/picton-river-resolution-april-2013/]

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27th April:   The Legislative Council has fired a torpedo into the Tasmanian Forest Agreement

(Former Greens Senator and Founder, Bob Brown)

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<<After the Agreement was struck last year the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, made it clear that she expected it to be implemented without alteration. In perhaps the biggest downpayment in Tasmanian history, the Commonwealth gave $120 million to the collapsed logging industry to make good the Agreement. It promised over $100 million more for regional development on condition that the Agreement was fully implemented, including its promised forest reserves.

However, here in Tasmania, under concerted fire from the Liberals and disgruntled individuals from the logging industry, the Legislative Council has voted to amend the enabling legislation which was passed by the House of Assembly and blown up the Agreement’s environmental outcome.

The Council’s amendments leave the loggers’ interests wholly intact while putting the bulk of the environmentalists’ outcomes on the never-never. The Agreement’s promise of immediate and permanent reserves in return for the hundreds of millions of dollars in industry restructure, retraining and regional development is largely broken.
Gazetting of the majority of the promised national parks would be delayed until, if the polls are right, Liberal governments are voted into both Canberra and Hobart. The Liberals have campaigned against the forest peace agreement all the way down the line. Ignoring the fact that it is industry and environment groups which have spent three years negotiating the Agreement, not Labor or the Greens, Liberal spokesman Peter Gutwein asserted after the Council vote that ” we will unlock every single stick that Labor and the Greens try to lock up”.

Legislative Councillor and Liberal Party member Tony Mulder, who sealed the Council’s amendments, emailed one logging campaigner to reveal his plan was to ‘get some fed dollars’ and then watch the deal fall over. He wrote that he intended to put the reserves ‘to the sword’.

Key to this hostile game plan played out by the Council amendments is sinking the core commitment in the Agreement that “the Signatories support the legally binding protection of an additional 504,012 hectares of native forests’, with 395,199 hectares given legislative protection ‘as soon as feasible’. That is, this year.
Three of the many Council amendments to the legislation highlight their killer effect. Firstly, after interim protection, some 300,000 of those 395,199 hectares of High Conservation Value forests to be reserved ‘as soon as feasible’ have had that reservation put off until at least October 2014. That means the Liberals, if they win the elections, will put the promised reserves ‘to the sword’.

Even if the Liberals stay in opposition, the reserves fail if there are any substantial protests in a state where forest destruction and protests have occurred every year since the 1970s. To make sure, the reserves also fail if Forestry Tasmania, which has been refused green accreditation for years, is not given Forest Stewardship Council certification by the mainland-based authority.

Secondly, of the 123,000 hectares of top order forests, like the Styx, Huon, Weld and Upper Florentine, which were nominated by the federal and state governments for World Heritage status last February, a Council amendment removes 35,000 hectares near Cradle Mountain and in the Great Western Tiers from gaining national park status unless both the nomination succeeds and that green accreditation is granted to Forestry Tasmania.

Another Council amendment to the Agreement is that any reserve, including in the World Heritage Area, could be logged for special species timber, as defined by the minister of the day, if this is deemed necessary in the future.

In a nutshell, the Tasmanian Forest Agreement’s fundamental deal that 395,199 hectares of High Conservation Value forest reserves, ostensibly national parks, should be created in return for the hundreds of millions of dollars of industry and regional restructuring is being torpedoed.

The logging industry employs fewer than 2,000 and that number is falling. Tourism employs more than 15,000 and that number is growing. The Council’s perverse action, if allowed to stand, will mean that the former has its money while the latter is left with neither vital new forest attractions nor the regional development funds it should share in creating Tasmania’s new future.

This puts governments in both Canberra and Hobart to the test. The House of Assembly should return the original legislation to the Council. If the Council insists on its amendments let history, as well as contemporary Tasmanian voters, see it for the wrecker it has become. — Bob Brown.

According to TWS spokesperson, Vica Bayley, “we are still looking at ways we can improve the workability of the Agreement given the Legislative Council’s amendments”.  We are not prepared to give up and are exploring all other options. There may be no way other than re-amending the [Tasmanian Forest Agreement] Bill”, Mr Bayley said.

According to Mr Bayley some of the Signatories were working through a number of options including asking the State (minority) Government to further make amendments before putting it back before the Legislative Council.

The Signatories have until this Tuesday morning (30 April) – when State Parliament sits – to devise any amendments.  ‘A group of the Signatories’ had met in Melbourne on Tuesday [23 April] and there were on-going telephone hook ups.>>

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[Source:  ‘The Council’s Torpedo’, by Bob Brown’, 20130427,  Tasmanian Times, citing article ‘Green groups burn night oil in forest pact by Nick Clark’, 20130427, in The Hobart Mercury, ^http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/the-councils-torpedo/]

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19th April:   Tasmanian Parliament recalled over forestry bill

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<<Tasmania’s Parliament will be recalled later this month to finalise legislation to enact the forest peace deal.  The Legislative Council has significantly amended the bill, jeopardising the deal.

It is unclear whether environment groups will accept the changes.

Opposition Leader Will Hodgman postponed question time in a bid to force the Lower House to debate the contentious bill.  “Let’s finish this once and for all,” he told parliament. After today, this House doesn’t sit for another five weeks, that’s five more weeks of uncertainty.”

Labor and the Greens denied the debate, the Premier saying she will recall Parliament on April 30th to deal with the matter.  Ms Giddings says the Government cannot accept legislative changes which undermine the historic peace agreement.  She says the Government and peace deal signatories need more time to work through the changes.

“My hope is that we will find that all of us can be supportive of the legislation, but we don’t know that at this point in time,” she said.  “There are discussions that need to be had.”

Greens leader Nick McKim says it is the right thing to do.  “The signatories have been clear they would like more time.”

Deputy Premier Bryan Green is also against rushing the debate.  “This is the biggest decision that this state has had to face up to in more than three or four decades,” he said.
Signatories meet

The signatories are consulting their supporters and are expected to meet to discuss the Upper House changes later today.  The Wilderness Society’s Vica Bayley says it is too early to say if his organisation will accept the changes.  “Our members will be concerned, as are we, about these changes,” he said.  “This does not reflect the implementation of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement.  “It certainly puts a question mark over the delivery of a range of opportunities that that agreement afforded.”

Environmental groups say they will continue a holding-pattern on international timber market protests while they consider the changes.  Environment Tasmania’s Phil Pullinger says the focus is on finding a solution.  “We absolutely remain committed to the agreement we made in November, we’re not going to walk away from that,” he said.  “We do need some time to analyse what this legislation means with respect to the agreement.  “We would not be changing anything in terms of us continuing to be in a holding pattern as far as the market place is concerned.”

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[Source:  ‘Parliament recalled over forestry bill’, 20130419, ABC Hobart, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-18/parliament-to-be-recalled-over-foresty-bill/4636720]

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Tasmania’s women of principle
Miranda Gibson (SWST), Jenny Weber and Jasmine Wills (HVEC) back in 2011 launching a TV campaign against Forestry Tasmania
[Source:  Photo by Richard Jupe, Hobert Mercury, New Ltd,
^http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2011/05/23/232161_tasmania-news.html]

 

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Footnote (2012):

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Ed:  ‘Tazmania’:  a perpetuating cultural history of exploitation and embattlement,

simply because of a recurring handful of selfish middle-aged men prepared to bully to get their way.

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Oct 2012:   Greens and FIAT push for resolution

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<<The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT) has announced it will rejoin the forest peace talks … for now.

The Tasmanian Greens and FIAT are pushing for the forest peace talks to be wound up soon.  FIAT has declared it will return to the talks to end the state’s long-running forest wars.

The chief executive Terry Edwards said the Commonwealth and State governments were losing patience with the process and an agreement to restructure the state’s struggling forest industry had to be reached by the end of the month.

The Greens leader Nick McKim said FIAT’s return to the talks should prompt the other suspended forest groups to return to the peace talks.  “I do believe that at some stage we will either need from the signatories an agreement or an agreement that an agreement can’t be reached,” he said.  “So look, I would like to see this process concluded, I think most Tasmanians would like to see this process concluded. The good news now is that with FIAT back in, the process can proceed.”

The $276 million dollar, Federally-funded forest peace talks have been running for two years.   The Forest Industries Association, which represents large saw millers and veneer processor Ta Ann, had suspended its involvement in the talks over the Government’s plan to overhaul Forestry Tasmania.   Members met on Friday to vote on whether to walk out permanently.

The chief executive, Terry Edwards, said it was a tight vote but a last minute letter from the Premier Lara Giddings prompted the group to return to the table.   “We feel we’ve got too much invested in that process to date to simply walk away,” he said.

Mr Edwards would not detail what the letter said other than saying it gave assurances the industry would be consulted about the changes to Forestry Tasmania.  “She has clearly indicated that the reform will be evidence-based and that’s something we’ve been asking for since the announcement of the reforms of FT.   “Our concern to date has been that it will be politically-based, not evidence-based, and that’s a very welcome change of direction by the government.”

Mr Edwards put a new final deadline on the peace talks – the end of the month.   He said FIAT would withdraw permanently if a decision was not made by then.
The Premier, Lara Giddings, welcomed the announcement, saying it recognised there was an “urgent need” to restructure the state’s struggling forest industry.>>

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[Source:   ‘Greens and FIAT push for resolution’, 20131006, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-05/fiat-to-stay-in-peace-talks/4298180]

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<<There was a man outside the Executive Building at the time when Terry Edwards and Phill Pullinger fronted a waiting media pack at 1 pm on the afternoon of Wednesday 15 August, 2012.    These two Signatory representatives were there to release the Interim Agreement on Tasmanian Forest Wood Supply and Conservation.

Mr Glenn Britton of Britton Timbers and chairman of the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania was also there.

Chief Executive of Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT), Terry Edwards

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On 23 August whilst Terry Edwards, the CEO of FIAT was holidaying in Fiji, Mr Britton was in the media spot-light over an article on correspondence he had with the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Will Hodgman.

Louise Saunders: ‘… you are a saw miller, you’re Chairman of the Association, do you have concerns or reservations (over the IGA process)?

Glenn Britton:   Oh, look, it would be fair to say everyone has reservations and ahh… the reason why. That to date the agreement hasn’t been achieved is because of the, ahh… the huge gap that’s still apparent between sufficient forest to supply the, ahh… the, ahh… the appropriate or required level of, ahh… level… or volume of sawlogs and peeler logs and special species timber by… by volume and by quality, and size and age class etc… to sustain a viable industry into the future on the one hand and on the other hand, ahh… having that; allow sufficient, ahh… ahh… forest to, ahh… add to the current one and half million hectares of forest reserves already in Tasmania.

Glenn Britton (FIAT Chairman)

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In April-May 2011 Britton Brothers along with Ta Ann Tasmania wrote a submission that was part of FIAT’s submission to the Legislative Council Inquiry into transitioning out of native forest logging.   Their Smithton sawmill processes 30,000 cubic metres of native forest logs employing 75 mill workers and 30 forestry contractors. Their timber products are ‘aimed at the high value appearance-grade markets – furniture, joinery, cabinet making and feature flooring, used in commercial and residential fit outs in Australia an overseas’.

Britton Timbers sawlog resource is supplied by Forestry Tasmania from native forests in north west Tasmania.  The company offered an assessment of ‘a transition to plantation processing for Britton Timbers. For them it came down to the recovery of a suitable quantity and grade of timber from plantation sawlogs.

According to Britton Timbers the recovery of sawn timber from a modern sawmill in Tasmania from native sawlog is 35%. They compared that against a 40% recovery with Eucalypus nitens plantation sawlogs.

From their annual wood supply of 30,000 cubic metres, they estimate 10,500 cubic metres of sawn timber from native sawlog and 12,000 cubic meters from plantations.  They sell graded sawn timber according to Select, Standard and Utility categories.

When it came down to the sale price, Britton Timbers maintains that their annual turnover would be disadvantaged (Figure 2); $10,290,000 from native forests versus $8,040,000 from plantations.

For Britton Timbers, a transition to a plantation resource is hampered by: (1) a lack of plantation wood supply until 2035, and (2) predominant species currently in the state forest estate – Eucalyptus nitens – is not suitable for producing appearance-grade timber for high-value wood products.

Their suggested transition strategy to plantations needed to include:

(1)    A move to plantings of E. globulus

(2)   Plantations managed for sawlog production by high-pruning and thinning trees from an early age

(3)   Growth to ‘a suitable diameter’ [600 mm in diameter]

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According to Britton Timbers’ May 2011 submission:

“Native forests can be managed for biodiversity, carbon capture and sawlog production either in perpetuity or until we have a plantation resource suitable for processing, but this will take around 25 years.  Until such time as the forestry industry has a plantation estate capable of producing the quality of timber required by saw mills and rotary peeled veneer mills, any discussion of a transition is hypothetical.”>>

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[Source:  ‘More grist for the mill …’, 20120829, by David Obendorf, Tasmanian Times, citing Britton Timbers 2011 submission to the Legislative Council Inquiry into public native forest transition April-May 2011, accessed August 2011, ^http://www.tasmaniantimes.com/index.php/article/more-grist-for-the-mill-]

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Comments:

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Comment by lmxly  (20120829):

<<Britton Brothers received a total of $1,567,308 under the TCFA. in 2004-06, from the Tasmanian Forest Industry Development Program.
The TCFA document “A way Forward for Tasmania’s Forests” states ‘This program will help hardwood mills to adjust to the different types of logs they will need to process as a result of the move away from old-growth clear-felling towards regrowth and plantation timber.

Assistance will be provided for projects that:

  • Improve sawlog recovery rates and add value to forest resources (particularly regrowth wood and native forest thinnings)
  • Develop new forest products
  • Result in more efficient timber use
  • Assist with adjustment to the changing nature of supply.

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What did Britton Bros actually spend over $1.5million of taxpayer funds on, if not the purposes of the TFIDP?

Has Britton Bros not ” adjusted to the different types of logs they will need to process as a result of the move away from old-growth clear-felling towards regrowth and plantation timber.”? If not why not?

Have they in effect pissed this money up against the wall?  Or were they conned by FT that its plantation estate would produce satisfactory sawlogs after 2020 – which is only eight, not twenty five years hence?

To claim that ‘any discussion of a transition is hypothetical’ a demonstration of Britton’s hypocrisy: incompetence at best, since this discussion has been far from hypothetical for the pst five years, and he has received over $1.5m to find a way to make the transition for his operation.>>

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Comment by David Obendorf  (20120830):

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<<Terry Edwards will be back from Fiji and no doubt Bob Gordon isn’t far away either. The pow-wow will be on with Ken Jeffreys and Evan Rolley and Glenn Britton. It looks like they will have to take Bryan out somewhere ‘noice’ for tea in Burnie and try to sort him out on a few things.

Maybe they can ask Bryan where the high quality sawlog until the plantations are available will be coming from. Bryan can ask them who’s putting up their hand to take a slice of Julia Gillard’s $15 million of the saw-miller exit money?   It ain’t easy being Bryan Green at the minute.

<<…CEO for Ta Ann Tasmania is Evan Rolley – TAT’s wood supply to 2027 is 265,000 cubic meters per annum. That is the checking move from the Industry side – no doubt about it.

Former CEO of TWS, Alec Marr is now the cock of the rock of the moth-balled Triabunna woodchip plant. Dealing with wood residue from forestry activities and sawmills. That is checking move from the ENGO side – no doubt about it.

FT Tasmania has been extremely irresponsible and culpable in its erroneous projections of high quality saw log and peeler logs from eucalypt plantations. They have led their Ministers, Canberra and local sawmillers up the garden path.

The publicly accessible plantation estate is of limited value to sustain the supply and quality required to 2030 and FT has always known this! That makes any deal on the 430,000 to 572,000 ha of HCV native forests looking like a stalemate.

Mr Bayley and Dr Pullinger should realise this fully by now. FT Tasmania – who baulked and blocked and weren’t even a party to the roundtable – had controlled the agenda and led the ENGOs into their forest territory – production forests.

The Liberals 150,000 ha of extra forest reserve looks like the position that FIAT was offering to the ENGOs in their negotiaton scenario in June 2011 (maybe even earlier).

Ta Ann doesn’t look like budging on their wood supply unless they see a very good reason to reduce their access to native forests for peeler billets in Tasmania. Any capitulation from them would come down to money [like the Gunns Ltd/FT pay out of $39 million] and negotiating with Mr Rolley on behalf of the parent Ta Ann company.

Where is Plan B, because Plan A looks like it may be stale-mated?

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Further Reading:

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[1]     >Tasmanian Forest Agreement 2012.pdf  (300 kb)

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[2]    >Tasmanian Forests Agreement Bill 2012.pdf   (300 kb)

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[3]    >TFA Fact Sheet Summary of Outcomes.pdf  (500 kb)

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[4]    >TFA Fact Sheet TFA Bill Overview Final.pdf   (330 kb)

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[5]    >TFA Fact Sheet TFA Reserve Process Short Version.pdf  (540 kb)

 

[6]  >Threats to Wild Tasmania – articles  (on this website)

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Tasmanian devil in The Weld Forest
(the forest is being logged)

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Brushtail Possum a NZ backyard Fur Trade

May 4th, 2013
[The following article was written by Tigerquoll and first published on ^CanDoBetter.net  under the title ‘Brushtail Possums are a destructive pest in NZ – but is persevering with a backyard fur trade New Zealand’s ethical solution?   Comments have been included.]

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Australia’s native Brushtailed Possum (Trichosurus vulpecula)
Click image to enlarge
[Image courtesy of Ákos Lumnitzer, ^http://amatteroflight.com/]

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Australian Possums were introduced by New Zealanders to New Zealand in 1837

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Brushtail Possums are native to Australia but a destructive introduced pest in New Zealand.

Yet is ‘Possum Merino‘ New Zealand’s ethical solution to its pest control or really just perpetuating a backward 1837 Fur Trade?

After all, it was New Zealander colonists in 1837 who sailed to Tasmania and to the east coast of Australia to poach Australian Brushtailed Possums and export and introduce them into defenceless New Zealand so as to establish a selfish fur trade.  Who else is to blame?

So thanks to colonists, Brushtail Possums have unquestioningly since become a destructive colonising pest to New Zealand, just like so many others –

  • Stoats
  • Domestic cats
  • Chamois
  • Deer
  • Ferrets
  • Goats
  • European hedgehogs
  • Horses
  • House mice
  • Rabbits
  • Rats
  • Himalayan tahrs
  • Wallabies (also poached from Australia by colonial New Zealanders)
  • Weasels
  • and arguably all non-Maori humans.

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Introduced New Zealanders and their descendants professing natural New Zealand justice need to frankly pull their imposive self-righteous heads in.

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A Maori traditional Haka

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Probably the most relevant and credible authority on this centuries old problem of human introduced possums into New Zealand should be New Zealand’s own Department of Conservation (DOC).  Yet DOC has no watchdog to vet its possum control policy, to evaluate the ethics of its indiscriminate aerial 1080 poison programmes, its budget decision making, its pest control methods.

New Zealand Department of Conservation is its own master, answerable to no-one.  It dictates possum control and culling only on the basis of it deeming it administratively cost effective and efficient. Perhaps this is a leftover culture of Rogernomics applied to lean management of New Zealand’s ecology.   On the New Zealand Department of Conservation website, the possum problem in New Zealand is clearly explained. An issue this author accepts as a serious ecological problem facing New Zealand.

Under the heading 3.3 Possum Damage to Native (NZ) Forests, the possum problem in NZ is explained as follows:

“Over the past 50 years, possums have emerged as one of the major threats to the health and wellbeing of forests throughout New Zealand. Many of these impacts are subtle and indirectly affect native birds and insects. Possums cause damage to native forests from the ground level to the canopy where, by concentrating on individual plants of their preferred species, they can kill trees by defoliation over several years. Possums preferentially feed on some of the tall canopy species – such as tawa, northern rata, kohekohe, southern rata, kamahi, pohutukawa and 20 Hall’s totara – while ignoring others. They also prefer some of the smaller trees, such as tree fuchsia and wineberry, along with mistletoe, forest herbs, some ferns, and a number of endangered shrubs.

It is difficult to imagine that possums, which are about the size of a large cat, can kill individual trees that have dominated forest landscapes for centuries before possums were released here. But when the number of possums is combined with the total amount each one eats, their impact on their preferred species is easier to appreciate. The amount of food consumed by an adult possum each night is about 160 gm of digestible dry matter. There are probably tens of millions of possums living in native forests. In total, possums are consuming thousands of tonnes of vegetation each night.

Possum populations have now modified many New Zealand forests. The rate and extent of these changes vary widely between different types of forests. Beech forests are the least affected, but in the vulnerable southern rata-kamahi forests of Westland many valleys have lost between 20% to 50% or more, of their canopy trees. In severe situations, possums have caused the complete collapse of the canopy within 15–20 years of their arrival. Tall forest is then replaced by shrublands.

While the impact of possums is most visible and dramatic when it involves canopy trees, their most pervasive impacts are often less visible. Possums have recently been described as “reluctant folivores”. This means that possums prefer to eat other forest foods than the leaves of trees. Flowers, fruit, leaf buds, fungi and insects are all highly favoured. The consumption of these foods has the largest impact on the healthy functioning of forests and the animals that rely on them. The consequences of possums concentrating on these foods are:

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Loss of Flowers:

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  • Preventing the formation of seeds
  • Removing nectar sources for birds and bats
  • Reducing the food supply for many invertebrates
  • Nectar loss reducing food supplies for chicks, e.g. kaka, tui.

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Loss of Fruits:

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  • Reducing food supplies for birds and invertebrates
  • Affecting bird breeding condition and nesting success, e.g. kakapo, kereru
  • Reducing or eliminating seed dispersal
  • Reducing the regenerative capacity of native plants.

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Loss of New Shoots:

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  • Reducing the ability of plants to overcome leaf loss from weather and seasonal patterns
  • Reducing numbers of new leaves, jeopardising plant health.>>

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New Zealand Department of Conservation also states that “the damage to native forests can be seen all too clearly in many areas. Possums ignore old leaves and select the best new growth.  In some areas they have eaten whole canopies of indigenous Rata, Totara, Titoki, Kowhai and Kohekohe.

Possums also compete with New Zealand native birds for habitat and for food such as insects and berries. They also disturb nesting birds, eat their eggs and chicks and may impact on native land snails.

New Zealand Department of Conservation cites examples of natural vegetation damaged by possums at Pirongia Forest Park, and the upper canopy of NZ native forest trees on the slopes of Mt Karioi, south of Raglan.”

So, assuming New Zealand Department of Conservation’s account is correct, the introduced Brushtail possum is a serious pest to New Zealand (NZ) native ecology.

But what to do about it?

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What should Australia responsibly do – repatriate back its possums?

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It’s long overdue for the New Zealand Government to get serious about its self-caused possum problem and look to resolve it once and for all for the benefit of the New Zealand ecology and the possums themselves. It needs to look at the root causes.

The possum was introduced to New Zealand by New Zealand profiteering colonists.

Many New Zealanders conveniently forget:  
It is not the possum’s fault it is in New Zealand.

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However, pouring $80 million a year of New Zealand taxpayers money into cruel indiscrimate aerial baiting is not working. If it was the possum problem would be reducing and there would not be a burgeoning possum fur trade.

Instead of perpetuating a 19th Century immoral fur trade, in order to control possums and other introduced pests in New Zealand, one option is to catch and relocate them back to their native home country habitat. This may seem highly expensive and labour intensive and far fetched, but what other option is both humane and effective?

It’s not the possums’ fault.  New Zealand colonists introduced them from Australia to New Zealand. The problem is an inherited inter-generational problem caused by New Zealand colonists. It shoud be solved by their descendants, not perpetuated as a fur trade.

Acknowledging the possum in NZ is an introduced pest, the question in this case is whether the possums in New Zealand are being killed humanely and whether this is being effectively monitored by a government watchdog worthy of the public trust?

By killing possums, humans have a moral obligation to do it humanely. Possums like all animals are sentient beings and so feel pain, fear and suffering.

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New Zealand sprays 1080 poison over its native forests

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New Zealand Department of Conservation’s official choice of death is aerial baiting with the the literally cheap and very nasty poison ‘1080’ (‘ten-eighty’, or Sodium Monofluroacetate).

New Zealand Department of Conservation’s argues it is humane and safe.

Heading out to drop 1080 poison across NZ forests
(a smiling assassin)

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But The World League for Protection of Animals argues otherwise and offers the following explanation about ‘1080’ poison.
“1080 (sodium monofluroacetate) is a cruel and indiscriminate poison used to ‘remove’ unwanted populations of animals.

Banned in most countries, 1080 is still used liberally throughout Australia to control so-called ‘pest’ species, and reduce ‘browsing damage’ caused by native animals on private land.

1080 poison is a slow killer. When ingested (usually through baited food) the animal suffers a prolonged and horrific death. Herbivores take the longest to die – up to 44 hours, while carnivores can take up to 21 hours before finally succumbing to final effects of the poison.  The speed of death is dependent on the rate of the animals metabolism.

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1080 Poison Causes a Slow & Horrific Death

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Witnesses to the deaths of herbivorous animals, such as macropods, have reported:

“Affected wallabies were sometimes observed sitting hunched up, with heads held shakily just above the ground. Generally they appeared non-alert and ‘sick’, with shivering or shaking forelimbs and unsteady balance. Most individuals then experience convulsions, falling to the ground and lying on their backs and sides, kicking and making running motions with their hind legs before dying. Many individuals also ejaculated shortly before death, and, with others, exuded a white froth from their nostrils and mouth.”
Carnivorous animals such as dingoes, dogs, foxes, and cats become very agitated, as they tremble, convulse and vomit.

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Animal symptoms of eating 1080 poison:

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“…restlessness; increased hyperexcitability; incontinence or diarrhea; excessive salivation; abrupt bouts of vocalization; and finally sudden bursts of violent activity.

All affected animals then fall to the ground in teranic seizure, with hind limbs or all four limbs and sometimes the tail extended rigidly from their arched bodies. At other times the front feet are clasped together, clenched or used to scratch frantically at the cage walls.

This tonic phase is then followed by a clonic phase in which the animals lie and kick or ‘paddle’ with the front legs and sometimes squeal, crawl around and bite at objects. During this phase the tongue and penis may be extruded, their eyes rolled back so that only the whites show and the teeth ground together. Breathing is rapid but laboured, with some animals partly choking on their saliva. Finally such individuals begin to relax, breathing more slowly and shallowly and lying quietly with the hind legs still extended but apparently semiparalysed”.

From the above descriptions, it is without question that 1080 poison inflicts great pain and suffering on affected animals. Aside from the physical pain endured over the many hours before death, the terror, fear and anxiety felt by these animals is unimaginable.”>>

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Read More:  The World League for Protection of Animals,^http://www.wlpa.org/1080_poison.htm

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The main reason why the New Zealand Department of Conservation uses 1080 is simply because it is cheap.  Dropping it it indiscriminately by air is efficient and convenient.

Whereas setting caged traps for possums is expensive. Using poisons that act faster that 1080, such as cyanide is also more expensive.

So the New Zealand Department of Conservation’s key justification for its use of 1080 is one of cost.

It also justifies using 1080 because other countries use it for pest control, like Australian & the USA , so implying that 1080 must therefore be ethically acceptable.  But New Zealanders should make up their own mind and should recall that both the USA and Australia used Agent Orange in The Vietnam War.

The Department of Conservation also justifies 1080 use because NZ has no natural mammals so the risk to non-target species are nil. But this claim is FACTUALLY INCORRECT!

On 30 July 2008, The Dominion Post reported that after a Department of Conservation aerial drop of 1080, seven kea had died at Fox Glacier from eating the 1080 poison, wiping out almost half a group of the endangered and protected parrot being monitored by the Conservation Department. DOC came up with excuses, but with such an endangered bird with so few kea left on the planet, DOC cannot afford to gamble with the kea’s extinction.

Anti-1080 campaigner Mike Bennett said the kea deaths were the tip of the iceberg. “These are only the monitored ones. If that percentage is extrapolated for the entire population, that doesn’t leave many for the next drop” and has called for a ban on all aerial 1080 drops in alpine areas.

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New Zealand is not reducing possum numbers, just perpetuating its 1837 Fur Trade

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New Zealand’s own backyard fur trade has seen a recent resergence since the 1830s when New Zealand hunters first introduced the possum to the wilds of New Zealand. the traditional method of possum slaugher is by trapping. For nearly two centuries the cruel ‘gin trap’ with serrated jaws was used. Although the trapping laws have recently banned gin traps, leg-hold traps remain the method of choice for trappers.

According to the NZ Lifestyle Block website:

“Leg-hold traps such as the ‘Lanes Ace’ or ‘Gin Trap’ have been widely used for possum and rabbit control for many years. The gin trap is more than 10.5 cm across its open jaws, which are serrated, and it is powered by a flat metal spring, so it’s a “size 1½ long spring” trap.

Traps of size 1½ or larger are more likely than the smaller traps to snap shut across the belly or chest of an animal. Although larger traps have been banned, traps of size 1½ can still be used if they are powered by double-coil springs. From January 2011 they will have to be padded, and you can’t modify them yourself to make them padded…

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Why are these traps cruel?

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When the gin trap snaps shut on its victim, the teeth bite into the skin and can cause a lot of trauma and no doubt agonizing pain.

All leg-hold traps are indiscriminate about what they catch. If they are set in possum tracks or runs it’s more likely than not that any catch will be a possum, but it might also be a cat… rat, bird or small dog. Large dogs can sometimes pull out of them but they may be injured in the process.

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Possum Trappers preferred weapon of choice:  the ‘Lanes Ace’ or ‘Gin Trap’
Widely used for possum trappers in New Zealand for many years.

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Icing sugar or flour around traps is sometimes used to attract possums, but if used beneath a trap the animal is likely to be trapped by its snout or head.

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What are the alternative leg-hold traps?

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In New Zealand it is still legal to use size 1 leg-hold traps such as the Victor within the restrictions on location and setting described above. It is smaller than the gin trap and doesn’t have serrated jaws.

The ‘Victor No 1‘ can be bought with cushioned inserts that make it more humane. It tends to cause less frequent and less severe injuries than the gin trap and larger leg-hold traps, but it can still cause severe bruising, and trapped animals will sometimes cause themselves severe injuries in their struggle to get free.

Trappers favour the Victor No 1 because it is compact, light and relatively efficient. The changes in the legislation mean that it is likely to become even more popular.
There’s good advice for landowners on the most humane way to use leg-hold traps and their alternatives on the National Possum Control Agencies website (www.npca.org.nz), and not just for possums but for ferrets too.”>>

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Rabbit caught and dead in Lanes Ace Trap. 
The steel jaws of the trap break the rabbit’s leg and it dies of pain and suffering over days.
These are used in New Zealand in the possum fur trade
[Image Source: ^http://www.animalwritings.com/archive/2004_08_01_blog_archive.asp]

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Typical traps used in New Zealand for possums are the flat jaw/leg hold’ type such as the ‘Bushmaster‘. While recognised as more humane that the serrated jaw ‘gin trap’, it can still cause suffering to a trapped animal, and of course is indiscriminate.

The Hamilton City Council on the North Island prohibits the use of leg-hold traps such as gin traps in residential areas and within 150 metres of dwellings or places where there are likely to be pets. It instead recommends Cage Traps and Timms Traps for possums and other feral animals.

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New Zealand’s 1837 Possum Fur Trade now globally profitable!

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The justification spin:

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<<…Possums were introduced into New Zealand by the caring, sharing Aussie cousins in the 1870s, to get the fur trade going. [Ed:  How do we know it was not New Zealand colonists returning to New Zealand that introduced the possum?]    Unfortunately what the possums did is have a fabulous time in the New Zealand climate, and aided by the decline in the fur industry, increased their numbers to over 70 million today.

Possums are a pest in New Zealand. Not only do they manage to consume approximately 21,000 tonnes of vegetation every night, but they are also killing native birds, and generally upsetting the ecological balance. Many native trees, plants and birds, including the Kiwi, are under threat of extinction because the possum is destroying their habitat. A possum will visit the same tree night after night and eat away until the point where the tree cannot recover. It has also now been confirmed that possums will eat both the eggs and chicks of the native Kiwi and Kokako. Where Australian plants have their own defences against the possum, NZ plants do not. The possum has no predator in NZ. Regular culling has been carried out under government supervision since the 1940s and it is estimated to cost around £20 million each year.

Very interestingly, the World Wide Fund for Nature does acknowledge that possums need to be controlled.

Although the culling began in the 1940s, it has only been in the last 30 years that good use was made of the resulting resource.

Kiwis (the human ones!), known for their ability to fix anything with a piece of no. 8 fencing wire, are a bit of an ingenious lot. They’ve managed to turn the pest into an export commodity. Possum meat goes to Asia (have you eaten ‘Kiwi Bear’?!), and the pelt is used for any number of commodities as it has properties that lend itself to both warmth and protection. New Zealand is the only place in the world where possum fur can be harvested.>>

[Source:  ^http://www.kiwikate.co.uk/]
 

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Ed:   The British colonial New Zealander’s cultural inferiority complex with nearby Australia is manifested in a hatred for Australian Possums.

Proud in denial, the fact is that colonial New Zealanders in 1837 chose to sail to Australia to capture the species and voluntarily introduce the Brushtailed Possum to New Zealand. 

In 1837, Australian possums didn’t want to go to New Zealand.  Colonial Australians at the time probably took no interest in a few New Zealanders taking wildlife for their own gain.  Maoris atthe time probably were unaware, had no say then anyway, but would have challenged the introduction had they been duly informed.

Kiwi Kate’s reference to “caring, sharing Aussie cousins” sadly reflects bigotry out of her misinformed upbringing.

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Use of Feratox (cyanide) Poison?

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According to the Lifestyle Block website NZ veterinarian Dr Marjorie Orr, BVM&S, PhD, BA and lifestyle farmer on , the most humane method of possum control is to use Feratox capsules, which is an encapsulated cyanide.

The preferred baiting method is to use these in specially designed “bait stations or sachets stapled to trees, baited with peanut butter (possums like it and dogs and birds usually don’t). The pest control companies that put out the poison will usually on request remove the sachets after a few days, and this helps reduce the risk of accidental poisoning of other animals. The poison in the capsules, cyanide, is quickly destroyed on exposure to air.  Death is quick and relatively stress-free and there is no risk of secondary poisoning of dogs that scavenge poisoned carcases.”

The test of humane killing must be conditional on the absence of pain and stress caused to the animal and that the killing be very quick.

But the killing of a native animal is wrong, despite it being introduced by humans. It has become a convenient excuse for New Zealanders to kill possums. Possum control by either DOC or the fur trade is not effective and in both cases the chosen methods are inhumane.

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New Zealand’s possum problem has been allowed to escalate into an immoral industry for profiteers. 

The New Zealand Government is responsible for failing to deal with the problem effectively and humanely.

It has perpetuated an immoral fur trade that begun in the 19th Century, and at the same time allowed much irreversible harm to be caused to New Zealand’s fragile ecology.

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Possum Comments:

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 ‘The legacy of human ignorance and delinquency is enormous’ 

(Vivienne 20091205) :

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<<Research has begun recently into biocontrol of brushtail possums as the only long-term, cost-effective solution to the possum problem in New Zealand, where possums cause significant damage to native forests, threaten populations of native plants and animals, and infect cattle and deer with bovine tuberculosis.
see the abstract for the CSIRO report

Immunocontraception is a humane means of controlling possums with wide public acceptance.

Although several studies have investigated or modelled its demographic consequences, there have been few studies of the possible effects of the presence of sterile females on local males.

Implications for biological control

Cynanide kills more quickly than 1080, but no less violently. Researchers have called this death humane!

Food is provided in a feeder for a few of days to lull the animals into a false sense of security. Then their trust is betrayed with the food being replaced with encapsulated cyanide pellets. The animals die within metres of the feeding station.

Possums are endearing little animals and what they suffer is horrific!  The legacy of human ignorance and delinquency is enormous! Our colonial attitudes continue to haunt us today, with species continually threatened and made extinct by human expansion and self-interests.>>

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‘Fertility controls the only longterm option for NZ possums’ 

(Pat, 20091207) 

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<<Fertility controls the only longterm option for control NZ possums, anything else is only a bandaid. We have the technology to do this, it only needs some more research and it could proceed. Its crazy to allow unwanted animals to breed out of control, then cruelly kill them, 1080 or not.

40 years ago we put a man on the moon….and then bought him safely back….and yet we cant humanely solve the NZ possum problem? I dont believe it! The NZ DOC appears to be as incomptent and as useless as our own Australian wildlife bureacracies.>>

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‘NZ possums’

(Possum lover, 20091208):

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<<As always- the real pest is the human.

However, I can see from this article that the New Zealand environment would be better off without the Brush Tail Possum. Apart from the cruelty a possum fur industry makes little sense as it would rely on a sustainable population of the animals – and this would mean continued deleterious effects on the environment. Bringing millions of animals back to Australia seems extremely impractical as I think there would be a lack of habitat and how would one round them all up? Human population growth is continually robbing possums of habitat in Australia even though they are very good at sharing with humans.

The poisoning and trapping options are not acceptable at all- and anyway — it seems clear that whatever they are doing in NZ to reduce the population of possums — they are not being effective, anyway !

(As I write this I hear on radio National that a few hundred camels will be shot in central or northern Australia because their numbers have got out of hand and they come close to human settlements looking for water. Who brought the camels to Australia? Who put them to work in opening up the centre of the continent.? Who abandoned them to the wild when they had served their purpose?)

Back to the possums- realistically it seems to me that it’s a choice of either accepting the possums and a changed environment (just as humans changed the ecosystem by extinguishing the moa) or making a concerted effort to humanely totally eradicate the animals from NZ. There is no point in partially reducing the population as more possums will fill the available habitat.

More info on the practicalities of sterilisation would useful.  If only there was a measure of the suffering that humans inflict on each other and on other animals. All other suffering on the planet would be dwarfed by this measure.>>

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‘New Zealand complacent about its wildlife’ 

(Tigerquoll, 20091208):

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Yes, I agree the real pest is the human. Yes, I agree the New Zealand environment would be better off without the Australian Brushtail Possum.

To round up and try repatriating the many Brushtail possums in New Zealand back to Australia would be extremely impractical. Do we know the numbers and their geographic concentrations? Assuming the possum are on both islands, can one island be targeted first?

Where would they be repatriate to?  Possums are territorial mammals. Even in Australia native wildlife experts claim that it is not possible to relocate possums, which poses problems for both possums already in Australia and for the reintroduced possums. The cost exercise would highlight the extent of the problem and the real costs of New Zealand having neglected a serious pest invasion for nearly two centuries. This reinforces the scale and complexity of introduce pest problems when left ignored.

But what is the alternative that is both ethical and effective?

The sterilisation science sounds encouraging, yet even then ‘immunosterilization’ as it is formally labelled has questions about efficacy of fertility control, the means for delivering antigens. Then there are the potential legal and social concerns that relate to the possible future use of antigens.

But I do recommend this is where the $80 million of New Zealand taxpayers money should be diverted instead of indiscriminate 1080 drops by helicopter. Question is why has the New Zealand Government become so complacent about seeking a humane and effective permanent solution?

Australia’s feral camel problem in central Australia is comparable to New Zealand’s possum problem. I understand they will be shot, which suggests a faster clean kill (so long as the shooter is a trained marksman with appropriate knowledge of camel to effect a single round quick kill, rather than some recreational shooter), but what to do with the carcasses? Is shooting humane and ethical? Is shooting the only answer, or is it just the cheapest and nastiest quick fix coming from some staffers desk? Could these camels not be herded and shipped live back to their native country in the Middle East or North Africa or from wherever their ancestors originated?

Question again is, why has the Australian Government also ignored the feral camel problem for so long to allow it to build to becoming so numerous and widespread?
I am not in favour of New Zealand ignoring its possum problem, because such a defeatist stance would only perpetuate further destruction of New Zealand’s forest ecology and to inevitable local extinctions of native flora and fauna. It would also encourage the perpetuation of New Zealand’s immoral fur trade, which is no different to Canadians commercially clubbing fur seals.

Is the New Zealand Government just as complacent with its Biosecurity? Less than a month ago Queensland cane toad was found in an Australian tourist’s hiking boot in Queenstown on the South Island. All it needed was a mate and it would have been off and breeding. “A MAF biosecurity spokeswoman confirmed the toad arrived last Tuesday but was not spotted.”>>

[SOURCE:  ‘Cane toad evades Kiwi airport biosecurity’ , by Tamara McLean, AAP, 20091126.   Read More: ‘Cane toad catches ride to Queenstown’, by Will Hine, Fairfax NZ, ^http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3098565/Cane-toad-catches-ride-to-Queenstown]

 

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Footnote:

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It makes it hard for New Zealand’s Department of Conservation to act to properly address New Zealand’s chronic feral possum infestation, when the government sacks 140 of DOC’s staff demanding it cut $8.7 million in operational expenditure…

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‘DOC cuts 140 jobs’

[Source: ‘DOC cuts 140 jobs’, 20130326, by Michael Daly, Fairfax NZ, ^http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8471779/DOC-cuts-140-jobs]

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<<The Department of Conservation (DOC) has announced plans to cut about 140 largely regional management and administration positions.  The job losses are part of a reorganisation under which DOC’s existing 11 regional conservancy boundaries will be replaced with six new regions.

DOC director-general Al Morrison says the new structure would maintain DOC’s own conservation delivery work while setting the department up to work more effectively with external partners.

“DOC must adapt if it is going to meet the conservation challenges that New Zealand faces – even if you doubled DOC’s budget tomorrow we would still be going ahead with this proposal.”

DOC would continue to operate out of the same number of offices as now with more than 1200 operational staff, Morrison said.  About 118 management and administrative positions would go as a result of the new flatter organisation.  A further  22 operational roles would be cut through efficiencies gained by setting up new support hubs for activities such as asset  management, inspections and work planning.

The size of the proposal was aimed at ensuring DOC met its $8.7 million savings targets and continued to meet its current delivery work.

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[Ed:  This should pay for John Key’s $7 million funding to Immigration New Zealand to “increase visitor numbers by smoothing processes at the border”  ^http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10878911].

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A conservation partnerships group would be set up focused on working with community groups, iwi, local authorities, private landowners and businesses to attract more resources to conservation, Morrison said.   Recreational and natural heritage field work would be the responsibility of a conservation services group.

Consultation with staff about the proposals had started and no final decisions would be made until staff feedback had been considered.   Any changes would not take effect for some months.

“I acknowledge this will mean a difficult period for many staff and we will be making every effort to ease the impact of these proposals,” Morrison said.

A freeze on hiring new staff had been in place and about 160 positions were filled with temporary staff.    “It is simply too early to say what impact these proposals will have on individuals – we will look at all options such as redeployment and relocation to minimise redundancies.”

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‘GAPING HOLES’

The Green Party earlier today predicted the proposal was to axe 140 jobs.

“With the department already pared to the bone these latest cuts will mean less protection of our special native plants and wildlife,”  Green Party conservation spokesperson Eugenie Sage said.   “DOC manages more than a third of the land in New Zealand and the argument that volunteers and a few corporate sponsors will fill in the gaping hole these cuts and continued pressure on department spending create is nonsense.

“National is trying to turn DOC into a corporate entity focused on stakeholders and corporate sponsorship at the expense of its key role to to protect and preserve native plants and animals,” Sage said.   “This National Government is toxic to the environment and is polluting, digging up and selling our children’s future.”

Prime Minister John Key this morning said the department was over-staffed with middle management and bureaucracy.   “What you have seen is, over the good times under a Labour government a big buildup in kind of the middle management and bureaucracy, and in the leaner, harder times where the Government doesn’t have a lot of money to throw around, we don’t have that much money,” he said.

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King of Overseas Holidays, John Key,
He flew first class with his wife to attend a foreign royal wedding on 20110429
Here he’s looking resplendent in his bespoke $6,000 suit washed with pounamu.
Total cost of Key Junket which did nothing for New Zealand, NZ$200,000?

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“Government agencies now needed to be leaner, and more efficient”, Key said.   He compared the restructuring to a similar exercise at Telecom, which was expected to axe hundreds of jobs this year.

“If you go and look at what is happening at Telecom at the moment, on a different scale … but no-one is arguing that the chief executive isn’t doing the right thing trying to make sure that organisation is leaner and more efficient,” he said.   The Government had a responsibility to taxpayers, he said.

“The management at DOC have a responsibility to ensure that their resources are directed in the right place and that is what you are going to see today,” Key said>>

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Ms Eugenie Sage
Green Party of Aotearoa representative:

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“National is trying to turn DOC into a corporate entity focused on stakeholders and corporate sponsorship at the expense of its key role to protect and preserve native plants and animals”.

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Comments are closed.

Bluefin Tuna – call to boycott Sushi

May 4th, 2013
Despite Southern Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) being endangered,
the Australian Government continues its weak policy of appeasing the Japanese – the main poachers and customers of Bluefin Tuna.

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<<The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora is abbreviated ‘CITES’.

The Australian federal Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. Government is a signatory to CITES and since and CITES international trade regulations have been enforceable under Australian law since 27 October 1976. Every signatory to CITES is required to designate a management authority. In Australia this is effectively the Threatened Species Scientific Committee.

On 7 September 2005, Australia’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee concluded that the Southern Bluefin Tuna (SBT)… “continues to be overfished despite the international management arrangements which have been formally in place since 1994.”

“The parental biomass is currently in the order of 3 to 14% of that in 1960 (its unfished size). In addition, BRS has classified SBT as being ‘overfished’ every year since the first BRS fishery status reports were first produced in 1992.

“Stock assessment models have shown a significant historic decline in the biomass of SBT. The mature population of SBT has declined significantly over its last three generations (since the 1980s) and is currently at a very low level.

Therefore, the species is eligible for listing as endangered under Criterion 1.”

The Threatened Species Scientific Committee recommended this to the Australian Government.

Australia’s then Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator the Hon Ian Campbell decided against listing the species under the EPBC Act…“as it may weaken Australia’s ability to influence both the management of the global fishing effort and the global conservation of the species.”>>

[Read More:  ^http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/species/southern-bluefin-tuna.html]

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CITES COP15 draft resolution March 2010 on Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus thynnus)

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* Fishing capacity is at least double that needed to catch the current legal quota and that recent estimated catches have been four times greater than the maximum catch recommended by scientists to prevent the collapse of the population.

* A 78.4% cut would be needed in the fishing effort by the fleet targeting East Atlantic and Mediterranean Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

* East Atlantic and Mediterranean stock status, fell by 80% in the southern Iberian
Peninsula between 2000 and 2006

* The loss of groups of older fish in the shoals present in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean fishery and the drastic fall in the reproductive biomass, which is currently only 36% of the level that existed at the beginning of the 1970s, are clear symptoms that this population is in imminent danger of collapse.

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CITES has recommended to:

a)  Establish a science-based recovery plan for the East Atlantic and Mediterranean stock
… and to ban industrial fishing – particularly purse seining- during the entire spawning season (May, June and July)

b)  Establish immediately an interim suspension of the East Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery

c)  Permit resumption of fishing activities only according to the strict science-based ICCAT population-recovery plan

d)  Set up protection zones for spawning grounds in the Mediterranean, including the waters within the Balearic Sea, Central Mediterranean, and Levant Sea, during the spawning season.

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The Japanese, consumers of 80% of the world’s Bluefin, have rejected the ban and the recommendations, while Australia has not accepted the ban.  Australia’s federal minister for the environment etc, Peter Garrett, has refused to join the United States and the European Union in seeking a trade ban.>>

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March 2010:  Peter Garrett rejects bluefin trade ban

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<<Australia has refused to join the United States and the European Union in seeking a trade ban on imperilled northern bluefin tuna, sparking an outcry from conservation groups.

The fish’s plight is seen as a key example of poor global fisheries management, and its fate a potential precedent for Australian tuna fisheries.

The decision by the Environment Protection Minister, Peter Garrett, to go for trade controls instead of the ban has angered the groups, but Australian tuna fishers said it was a sensible outcome.

Listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the northern, or Atlantic, bluefin has lost 72 per cent to 82 per cent of its original stock under pressure from illegal or unregulated fishing for the sashimi trade.

”What’s driving it over the edge is that about 90 per cent of the catch is unregulated export to Japan,” said Glenn Sant, the global marine program manager for TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade network.

Mr Sant said a study he took part in for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation showed that northern bluefin met the criteria for an appendix one listing under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The appendix one listing, supported by the Obama administration and the EU, would prohibit international trade. It is strongly opposed by Japan and would need a two-thirds majority to be approved.

At the CITES meeting starting today in Qatar, Australia will argue for a lesser appendix two listing that provides instead for more tightly managed trade of the fish.

The Australian Marine Conservation Society said the fears of the domestic bluefin industry should not be allowed to dominate government decision-making.>>

[Source:  ‘Garrett rejects bluefin trade ban’, 20100313, by Andrew Darby, Fairfax Media, Hobart, ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/garrett-rejects-bluefin-trade-ban-20100312-q465.html]

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CITES failed Bluefin Tuna in 2010

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<<The triennial meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is still underway in Doha, Qatar, this week, but so far news coming out of the conference is a mixed bag. Some trees have been protected, tigers gained a few friends, and a rare salamander got some attention, but all hopes to save the critically endangered bluefin tuna were sunk in a secret ballot that put commerce ahead of science and conservation.

Populations of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) have dropped 97 % since 1960, but the tasty fish remains in high demand in Japan, where sushi bars are willing to pay up to $100,000 or more per fish.

A possible CITES ban on bluefin tuna—supported by the U.S. and 27 European Union nations)—has been in the works for months. Japan, meanwhile, had already announced that it would not comply with such a ban if it were enacted.  Unfortunately, the ban failed, and fishing will continue. CITES’s own press release, titled “Governments not ready for trade ban on bluefin tuna,” is surprisingly candid about how this happened:

Japan, Canada and several members States of the Arab league opposed the proposal arguing that regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) as ICCAT [the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas] were best placed to tackle the decline of bluefin tuna stocks.

They added that an Appendix I listing [which would ban trade in the species] would not stop the fishing of the species. After a passionate but relatively short debate, the representative of Libya requested to close the deliberations and go for a vote. Iceland called for a secret ballot. The amendment introduced by the European Union and Monaco’s proposal were defeated (20 votes in favor, 68 against, 30 abstentions) in the middle of much confusion about the voting procedures and mixed feelings of satisfaction and frustration from participants.”

Obviously, pro-tuna groups were not happy about this series of events. “It is scandalous that governments did not even get the chance to engage in meaningful debate about the international trade ban proposal for Atlantic bluefin tuna,” said Sergi Tudela, head of fisheries for the WWF Mediterranean Programme Office, in a prepared statement.

Oceana, a conservation group devoted to the health of the oceans, called this “a clear win by short-term economic interest over the long-term health of the ocean and the rebuilding of Atlantic bluefin tuna populations.” And Greenpeace International oceans campaigner Oliver Knowles stated, “The abject failure of governments here at CITES to protect Atlantic bluefin tuna spells disaster for its future and sets the species on a pathway to extinction.”

We’ll be covering more CITES decisions—both good and bad—all week.>>

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[Source:  ‘Sushi-cide: Secret ballot kills hopes for bluefin tuna protections’, by John R. Platt, 20100323, ^http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/2010/03/23/sushi-cide-secret-ballot-kills-hopes-for-bluefin-tuna-protections/]

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Call to Boycott Japanese Cuisine

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Japanese cuisine includes sashimi, which typically is Bluefin Tuna. Bluefin is the raw fish used in Japanese ‘maguro’, and ‘o-toro’ dishes and in many sushi combinations.

The Australian Government may pasty to the Japanese, but that doesn’t stop ethically driven citizens boycotting Japanese restaurants and sushi shops, which sell raw fish which is typically the critically endangered Bluefin Tuna.

It’s time to send a blunt message to the Japanese that their fettish for Bluefin is backward!  Some are labelling the plight of  ‘BLUEFIN SUSHICIDE‘.

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Japanese eating the Endangered into Extinction

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RTA-come-RMS…We Are Not Moving!

May 3rd, 2013

[This article was written as a letter by the Editor and first published in the Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper in print eight years ago on 20050202. 

Back then, some of us realised the devastating scale of threat that the RTA Trucking Juggernaut posed for the Blue Mountains, notably a few older wiser folk did too.  We attended token RTA Community Meetings which for Leura were then hosted by spin doctor Iain McLeod and RTA consultants

But our vocal democratic concerns fell on deaf ears and crocodile smiles.  In hindsight the ‘consultation’ was purely so that the RTA could record community attendance on paper as being ‘consultative’ and thus legally compliant before it bulldozed through our villages anyway.    Leura was just one village of many.

Yet many affected locals not in the know, then belatedly started selling up and got pittance or went broke.  This is a snapshot into tragic story of tyrannical bureaucracy bulldozing its power and trucking vested interest through a local community, as if this is not the Australia we know. 

To follow in the coming years we attended RTA-come-RMS community meetings ahead of destruction of Katoomba, Medlow Bath, Lawson, Hazelbrook, Bullaburra and Mount Victoria.   

Rebellious Blackheath looks set to be the last bastion of community resistance against the 4-laned trucking expressway juggernaut.]

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Back in 2005 this long established Leura Service Centre
protested with a sign here to the RTA expressway development, reading:

‘We Are Not Moving’

But the RTA legions came, they lied to locals, then proceeded to engineer a massive new expressway at 4 metres above this premises,
until Leura Service Centre became out of site of its motoring trade.
[Photo by Editor, 20130503, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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Prompted by the protest sign of this highway business, as one passed by it on occasions along the highway, this sense of injustice hit a raw nerve.  This inspired this Editor to write the following letter of solidarity to the local newspaper back in 2005.

Pre- Juggernaut
Great Western Highway outside the Katoomba Hospital (left of photo) showing the stand of endemic Eucalyptus oreades
listed on Blue Mountains Significant Tree Register which has proven to be mean crap.
[Photo by Editor, 20061222, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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‘We Are Not Moving’

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<<Back when first coming up the Mountains, I reminisce a sense of arrival upon reaching Katoomba’s old highway sign: ‘Altitude 1017m’ and stirred by the stands of grey slender and bowed mountain ash, robust on the ridgetop.  With Sydney far behind, I had arrived in the cooler upper Mountains; my escape and destination.

I have since learned these unusual bowed trees are ‘Eucalyptus oreades’, special to the upper Mountains.  But these twenty odd ‘oreades’ just opposite Katoomba hospital are now being clear-felled by the RTA to widen the highway.  Temporary fencing is up and the dozers are in.  Within weeks another tangible remnant of Mountains natural-heritage will disappear.  Sadly, the outcome of the little known ancient ridgetop spring, just below, will fall to the discretion of drainage contractors.  This spring has for eons sustained a fern microclimate and fed Leura Cascades/Falls.  How really precious is what’s downstream?

Sydneysiders have been ‘opening up the west’ since Cox made convicts force the western road across the ridgetop in 1815.  Progress and populations beyond continue to demand a better, more efficient transit across our Mountains.  Widening the ‘great’ Western Highway surely will  dissipate weekend bumper traffic and allow truck drivers to enjoy fewer gear changes.  But expedient are the defiant roadside businesses, heritage and residents’ amenity.  With the roadside planting tokenly native, disregarding journey experiences to become the same as anywhere else.  NSW’s population absorption policy is not ours, yet Sydney’s metropolis officially extends to Mount Victoria.  What transit efficiencies do these highwaymen plan to force through Mt Vic…perhaps our last built-heritage bastion?

Progress through the Blue Mountains, of all places, deserves to be tempered by a proactive rigorous heritage conservation strategy.  As our unique built, natural and cultural heritage of the Mountains piece by piece disappears, so too does its magic and the Mountains appeal as a destination, sanctuary and home.>>

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Established Blue Mountains highway business bullied out of business by the RTA in 2005
[Photo by Editor, 20130503, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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The then head bully, RTA Director Les Wielinga

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The 4-laned Trucking Expressway at Leura  (complete with dodgy cycle lane)
The RTA-come-RMS Concrete Destiny for the remnant Blue Mountains villages
of Bullaburra, Mount Victoria and Blackheath.
Despite what the Bullaburra Progress Association naively believed,
no community is more special than Linehaul Trucking!
[Photo by Editor, 20130503, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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Bypassing Rail Again

May 2nd, 2013
[This article was written as a letter by the Editor and first published in the Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper in print 20080827]

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…come…

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…is the same road-centric organisation, different in name only.

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And is lobbied constantly by the …

and the…

…for bigger and faster and more roads.

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<<Before fuel got expensive and before climate change got serious, road-centric transport planning culminated in the Auslink national transport policy with a heavy bias to building roads. Auslink remains the unquestioned policy behind why the Great Western Highway is steadily being widened out to four lanes to Orange.

As the RTA carves its juggernaut through the Mountains, trees are felled, creeks polluted and villages and towns are losing their rural identity to a suburban sameness.  Communities have become divided by a wide, noisy and anti-pedestrian barrier.  Katoomba, Leura and Wentworth Falls, have become prefixed by ‘north’ and ‘south’ (of the highway).  I wager north and south Hazelbrook/Lawson/Bullaburra will follow suit and Blackheath’s on the cards.  The millions to add two extra lanes are not to alleviate weekend tourist bottlenecks, but so long-haul truck drivers can drive faster.

Bob Debus is pushing to spend some $450m to bypass Mount Victoria for a route “more suited to the operation of heavy vehicles.” (Debus website)  But spending millions to encourage more trucks on our roads is a poor economic gamble.  Rising fuel costs of trucking are forecast to price out the viability of produce and exports.  A key driver is the constant lobbying of MPs by road lobby groups.  NRMA’s Motoring and Services donated $225,000 to political parties around last year’s federal election. NRMA’s president justified this as “a reality of being involved in the political process today” (Sun-Herald 10-8-08).

I recall voting out Kerry Bartlett for declaring his dumb Bells Superhighway hand.  Bob’s conveying the same road-centric thinking; albeit via a different route.  Take the following comparable statistics from the Australian Rail Association: “A train between Melbourne and Sydney will use 45,000 litres less fuel, replace 145 semi-trailers and saves 135 tonnes of greenhouse gases.”

So why are we bypassing our rundown rail? >>

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…the Elephant in the Room..

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<<The Australasian Railway Association (ARA) is a not-for-profit member-based association that represents passenger, freight, track, manufacturing, construction, supply and other rail companies in Australasia.

The Australasian Railway Association (ARA) is the peak body representing all passenger, freight, track operators and the wider rail supply industry in Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia.

Our fundamental purpose is to create an environment that will permit the Australasian rail industry to prosper. When issues arise that affect the whole industry, the ARA takes the lead facilitating an industry response.

The ARA is actively involved in the development of rail policy to ensure the industry’s views are represented.

As well as shaping policy in the areas of passenger, freight, rail safety regulatory reform, the environment, technology and research, the ARA is also involved in programmes aimed at improving the productivity, capacity and overall safety of the Australasian rail industry.

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Our Vision

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The Australasian Rail Industry’s vision is that Rail will become the transport mode of choice because of its economic, environmental and social advantages.

In achieving this we aim to provide enhanced passenger services for our communities and have more trains carrying increased volumes of bulk freight and goods.>>

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Read More:  ^http://www.ara.net.au/

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Short Term Minister for Infrastructure and Transport
(so long as it excludes Rail)
Short Term Minister for Regional Development and Local Government
(so long as it excludes Rail)

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Coalpac Coal Mine to kill Cullen Bullen village

April 26th, 2013
Rally in Springwood last Sunday to save the Gardens of Stone from mining
[Photo by Editor, 201340421, Photo © ^Creative Commons]

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Coalpac ‘Consolidation’ Project

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Two years ago in July 2011, corporate coal mining company, Coalpac Pty Ltd,  lodged a development proposal with the New South Wales Government to expand its open-cut and high wall coal mines.  The sites are within the proposed extension of the Gardens of Stone National Park and surround the small rural village of Cullen Bullen in central-western NSW, both situated along the Castlereagh Highway about 25 km north-west of Lithgow.

Coalpac’s  Consolidation Project involves expansion of mining operations at (1) the Cullen Valley and (2) Invincible coal mine, and establishment of a new quarry and associated infrastructure.   Basically, Coalpac wants to consolidate (mining spin for ‘expand’)  its Invincible and Cullen Valley coal mines and construct a new quarry in the Ben Bullen State Forest near Lithgow.

Coalpac’s colliery extension

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Coalpac acquired the assets of the Lithgow Coal Company in February 2008.  Coalpac was originally owned by the Liberman family and remains privately owned.  Coalpac has a 20-year contract to provide thermal black coal to nearby Mount Piper Power Station owned by Delta Electricity.

The scale of the expansion will see production of up to 3.5 million tonnes of coal from the two mining operations and up to 640,000 tonnes of extractive material a year from the quarry operation.    The intended life of the coal mining is to be 21 years.

The relevant authority, the NSW Department of Planning and Infrastructure’s, Deputy Director-General Richard Pearson said the company’s first environmental assessment did not adequately address the project’s potential impacts on biodiversity, natural, historic and Aboriginal cultural heritage, noise, air quality and groundwater.

The magnificent Gardens of Stone under threat of mining
(Hamilton Lund, Tourism NSW)

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In January 2012, Coalpac re-submitted its development proposal and “after liaising with the department on a number of issues, the proponent submitted a revised EA in mid January which has now been deemed adequate,” according to Mr Pearson.

However, many localand regional people continue oppose the expansion, no less the immediate residents of Cullen Bullen.  The public exhibition period for both mine sites was for eight weeks between 1oth April and 1st June 2012.

The proposal includes:

  • Consolidating development consents and project approvals at both the Invincible and Cullen Valley coal mines so that one approval regulates mining across both sites;
  • Expanding open cut and high wall mining areas, to extract an additional 108 million tonnes of coal;
  • Upgrading and building associated infrastructure to process 3.5 million tonnes of coal per annum and transport coal off the site by road and rail;
  • Producing up to 640,000 tonnes of sand products each year;
  • Clearing approximately 960 hectares of vegetation, primarily within Ben Bullen State Forest; and
  • Rehabilitating the site.

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Cullen Bullen satellite map
[Google Maps 2013, click image to enlarge]

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A threatened species confirmed to be existing in the Ben Bullen State Forest area adds to a growing list of flora species Coalpac Pty Ltd has failed to identify within its flora assessments for current and proposed mining projects. Environment group’s caution the company’s track record raises further concerns for the community over the ‘Coalpac Consolidation Project’ Cullen Bullen NSW.

The Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) recently confirmed the existence of the threatened species Persoonia marginata within Coalpac Pty Ltd’s Cullen Valley Mine mining lease.

To cirumvent ecological provisions of the national Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act), sections 18 and 18A (Listed threatened species and communities) and sections 20 and 20A (Listed migratory species),  the proposal includes a biodiversity offset strategy, which would potentially allocate more than 1,755 hectares of land as biodiversity offsets.

“Despite undertaking seven field surveys before lodging this Proposed Action at least 75 plants were missed in their surveys. There are in fact at least 350 plant species of which 6 are listed as Rare or Threatened Australian Plants (ROTAP) existing within the proposed area to be cleared. In effect, the ecological surveys have understated the diversity of the area to be open cut,” says Chris Jonkers, Natural Areas Project Office of the Lithgow Environment Group.

“Due to Coalpac’s track record of inadequate flora assessments, environment groups are calling for the Department of Planning to commission an independent flora assessment. The results of this combined with other threats to matters of national environmental significance, we would see the proposal be rejected by the NSW Government,” says Mr Jonkers.
“The natural and recreational values of the area have a life span well beyond the 21 years Coalpac would take to destroy the heritage value of this gateway area to the Gardens of Stone,” says Mr Jonkers.

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Coalpac’s Invincible Colliery undermining below  pagodas of the Gardens of Stone
[Photo: Leone Knight, ^http://www.abc.net.au/rural/regions/content/201204/3490112.htm]

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Coalpac’s open cut coal mining expansion is set to be within 500 metres of Cullen Bullen residents and threatened to operate 24/7, causing unrelenting industrial noise and to inflict toxic coal dust upon Cullen Bullen and over 21 years, so effectively killing Cullen Bullen.

Nearly all residents of nearby Cullen Bullen have protested against the mine’s expansion, except a few who are selfish employees of Coalpac.

In April 2012, residents of Cullen Bullen presented the Member for Bathurst with a petition opposing a proposed open-cut coal mine near the town.   Over two thirds of the Cullen Bullen residents signed the petition against the open-cut development; however they do say they would support the proposal if the mine was underground.

Paul Toole the National’s member for Bathurst says they have legitimate concerns, and he would be taking them to the NSW Minister for Planning Brad Hazzard.  Squat difference that made.>>

[Source:  ‘The Battle for Cullen Bullen’, 20120427, ABC Rural, ^http://www.abc.net.au/rural/regions/content/201204/3490112.htm]
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Invincible Mine

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Divide and Conquer the local residents…

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According to Blue Mountains Conservation Society campaigner Justin McKee, Coalpac seems to be employing an ‘age old’ Caesarian mining strategy of ‘divide and conquer‘ in order to get its way in forging ahead with its devastating open cut mining project.

“The process any mining company will follow to divide and then conquer a community is age old and I’ve witnessed this in the Hunter Region time and time again,” Mr McKee said.

“First a company will employ the nicest person they can possibly find to be the community relations officer to forge local relationships.   “The company will then go about understanding exactly what the local issues are, create local community opinion leaders while buying up land and offer the loudest people in the community either jobs or above market rate sums for their property and demand they sign confidentiality agreements.

“All the while the company will claim the middle ground in all its communications so that others’ opinions seem radical.

“Finally, the company will set about marginalising everybody else so that the community is left completely divided.”

[Source:  ‘Protect the Gardens of Stone’, media release, Blue Mountains Conservation Society, 20110531]

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Cullen Bullen General Store
[Photo:  ^http://sweetwayfaring.blogspot.com.au/2011_01_01_archive.html]

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Plea by Cullen Bullen resident, Eva Rizana

Public Speech delivered at Springwood on Sunday, 21st April 2013
Eva is a long standing resident of Cullen Bullen.

 

<<Good Morning Everyone.  Firstly I’d like to say that I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak here today. I’m not a public speaker but will do my best.

I’m here today to give a local perspective on the Coalpac Consolidation Project and its impact on the people of Cullen Bullen.  My name is Eva Rizana and I spent the first 25 years of my life as a resident of Cullen Bullen and have both lived there and visited on numerous occasions since.
My grandparents had businesses in the township. A bakery in the 1960’s and the Post Office during the ‘70’s, ‘80’s and 90’s. I myself worked at the post office, a local berry farm and at the school.  My family still owns a half acre block and family home in Cullen Bullen. For those of you who don’t know Cullen Bullen is a town about 20 minutes out of Lithgow as you head towards Mudgee.

While most of what I will share with you today is my own personal story, there are many residents of Cullen Bullen who have similar stories to tell.

I first came to know about the Coalpac Consolidation Project when we received one of their newsletters in our mailbox. The newsletter outlined the Coalpac Consolidation Project. There was a map along with some technical information about the operation of the mine. To be honest I didn’t really understand all the technical information, but the map made it very clear that the proposed mine would be very, very close to the town. Essentially the Coalpac Consolidation Project would mean that the 200 residents of Cullen Bullen will be living in the middle of an open cut mine for the next 20 years. Like most of the residents of Cullen Bullen at that time, my family felt lost, confused and extremely isolated.

The proposal is for the mine to operate 24 hours a day 7 days a week, with blasting occurring several times a week. In some cases the mine operations will be only 500 meters from homes, and obviously the people living in those homes.

The NSW Department of Health, along with local doctors have raised concerns about the impact of mining operations on the health of the residents. While I’m extremely grateful for their contributions and welcome the knowledge and expertise that they bring to the argument, I find it slightly disturbing that we have a system that requires professional evidence that living in the middle of a 24 hour, 7 day a week open cut mining operation for 20 years, is detrimental to people’s health. To me and to the majority of residents of Cullen Bullen its simply logical that being within 500 meters of the dust, fuel fumes, noise and in close proximity to the blasting generated by the mine isn’t good for the health of residents.

I know of numerous residents whose health has already been impacted by the existing mine operations, just over the hill in Tyldesley . Their symptoms include itchy eyes, itchy skin, skin rashes and hives as well as breathing difficulties. These symptoms clear up or go away when they leave the area for extended periods of time such as going away on holidays, however quickly return once they come back home to Cullen Bullen. I’m also disturbed that the very real experiences of these people can’t be offered as further evidence on the detrimental effects of open cut mining in close proximity to people.

In addition to these health concerns many residents have concerns that relate to damage to the structure of their homes as well as the financial impact the mine will have on the value of their homes.

I understand that Coalpac has agreed to compensate residents for any damages caused to their homes by the mining operations. Sounds reasonable doesn’t it ?….Until you find that your home has been damaged and that Coalpac can present a multitude of reasons other than its mining operations to explain the damage. So not only do these people have damage to their homes, they are also out of pocket and angry at the empty promises made and assurances given.

Quite frankly, the majority of residents of Cullen Bullen don’t trust Coalpac to fulfil in full the terms of their proposal and we also feel let down by some authorities in not forcing them to comply with some of the terms already agreed to.

To offer an example:

As mentioned, Coalpac has an existing mine just outside of Cullen Bullen. They started mining operations there about 12 years ago. Their original mine was open-cut but was supposed to convert to underground mining after a certain period of time (approximately 4 years I believe). Well here we are 12 years later and the mine is still operating as an open cut mine. My understanding is that the mine couldn’t go underground due to fire in many pockets of coal. This sounds reasonable and I’m certainly not promoting the use of mining practices that would endanger the safety of the miners or other workers – but can you see how from our perspective Coalpac has developed for themselves a reputation of not fulfilling promises. Most residents believe that if the proposal were to be approved Coalpac would start pushing the envelope in terms of things like blasting times, noise and dust restrictions, and proximity to homes and pagodas.

Speaking of Pagodas, I believe some of you went to visit the unique “Gardens of Stone” recently. These structures along with other beautiful landscapes make the area around Cullen Bullen a great place for tourists to visit. Australia’s own Grand Canyon is just up the road near the town of Capertee while Cullen Bullen itself is surrounded by many unique rocky outcrops and pagodas, all of which are now under threat.

According to a recent article published in the Lithgow Mercury (10th March 2013) written by Noel Craven, a man who I understand has extensive experience in the mining industry – based on current mining techniques and reserves, Lithgow’s mining industry has a lifespan of around 40 years. That’s only one generation of workers. I want to repeat that because I believe it’s a significant point. Lithgow’s coal industry is not sustainable beyond 40 years.

So much mainstream media has been focused on the local jobs that the Coalpac Consolidation Project could provide. However all of the energy being given to this argument takes the focus away from the fact that according to Noel Craven’s statistics taken from Lithgow Council Economic Development Strategy, Coal Industry Profile, almost 30% of Lithgow District’s workers will be faced with unemployment in 40 years.

I find that figure completely staggering. How can mainstream media be so focused on the comparatively small number of local jobs currently under threat by mine closures when the entire industry itself will be gone in 40 years?

Now here’s the thing – If the Coalpac Consolidation Project is approved, the very thing which may have saved Lithgow and District from mass unemployment, in the form of tourism to places such as the Gardens of Stone, will be gone.

It seems to me that the voices that are being heard in mainstream media are not painting a complete picture. Yes, mining does create local jobs and that is important, but to the best of my knowledge only 3-4 residents of Cullen Bullen are employed by Coalpac. That’s 3 -4 people out of a population of around 200 people.
Coalpac’s Consolidation Project proposal states that around 1 -2 % of its workers will be sourced locally. In my opinion, the media, including Sydney based Shock Jocks have either been manipulated or have themselves manipulated the facts surrounding this situation and many people now believe misinformation. It seems to me that the voices of people such as me are being drowned out. Again another reason I’m grateful to have been given this opportunity to speak and hope that I am doing justice to the many who have been standing their ground in and around Cullen Bullen for 12 and in one case 17 years.

I’d love to say that the current situation around the Coalpac Consolidation Project has brought the town together. Unfortunately, from my perspective the Cullen Bullen that I grew up in has already disappeared. The sense that, even though things weren’t perfect, we all pulled together when we needed to has gone. Big business and big money, along with loads of misinformation have divided the town. The fact is that the majority of residents do object to the proposal as evident by the more than 4:1 ratio of submissions from Cullen Bullen residents to the Department of Planning objecting to the proposal. The few ( 3-4) Coalpac employees along with their families understandably  support the mine. To me, it feels like the people of Cullen Bullen are being used as pawns in a game that we have no chance of winning. Coalpac knows how to play this game and are using their knowledge and resources to win.

The social dynamics of Cullen Bullen have been changed beyond recognition.

In closing, I appreciate the spotlight that the “Icons Under Threat” Tour has put on the Coalpac Consolidation Project and the negative impact it will have on the health and financial well-being of the residents of Cullen Bullen. We don’t want to become another Maitland, Singleton or Ulan moonscape.
While you might hear a different story in mainstream media – the truth is the vast majority of Cullen Bullen residents are opposed to the mine, and anything that can be done to avoid future generations having to fight this same battle over and over again would be most welcome.

Thank you.>>

[Source: Eva Rizana, (resident of Cullen Bullen), public speech, 20130421]

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Community rally opposing coal mining

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<<The fight to save the Gardens of Stone near Lithgow came to the streets of Springwood on Sunday when residents rallied in the town square calling on the government to protect the area from coal mining.

Organised by the Blue Mountains Conservation Society, Lithgow Environment Group and Nature Conservation Council of NSW (NCC), the rally was the final event in a week-long tour by senior NCC staff of areas across the state facing coal mining and gas developments.

The Gardens of Stone has escarpments, canyons, upland swamps, rock arches and pagodas that provide habitat for many endangered plants and wildlife.

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NCC chief executive officer Pepe Clarke said even though the Planning Assessment Commission made damning findings against the proposal in December, the area was still vulnerable.

“Coalpac’s revised open-cut coal mine proposal at Cullen Bullen north of Lithgow is still a very real threat to this iconic area and must be opposed at every opportunity,” Mr Clarke said.

“The O’Farrell Government now has an historic opportunity to protect this unique part of the state’s environmental heritage for future generations and to improve its poor environmental credentials by declaring it a State Conservation Area. People should not have to fight this fight — this should be protected up front.”

Pepe Clarke of NCC speaking at the Springwood Rally, 20130421

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Tara Cameron, vice president of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society, said approval of the proposal would open the door to the “visual cancer of strip mining along the steep forested edges of the Greater Blue Mountains”.

“These long thin strips of steep and elevated lands are very difficult to rehabilitate and will become, for all time, areas of visual blight, destroying the region’s greatest tourist asset, its stunning scenery. It must be stopped,” she said.

“To allow open-cut mine anywhere is bad, but to ruin the Gardens of Stone would be intolerable. The government has a clear responsibility to reject the Coalpac proposal and protect the area forever by declaring it a State Conservation Area.”

Blue Mountains MP Roza Sage responded that “although the Gardens of Stone are not in the Blue Mountains I fully understand the concerns of the conservation society.   The Coalpac expansion proposal was referred to the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) and the commission’s independent review report was publicly released on December 20, 2012. The PAC recommended that the coal mine expansion project not proceed, partly on environmental grounds.

“A final decision on the proposal is still to be made by the government. No decision on Gardens of Stone [stage] 2 [proposal] National Park can be made before that time,” she said.>>

[Source:  “Springwood protest over Gardens of Stone mine proposal, 20130424, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/1454027/springwood-protest-over-gardens-of-stone-mine-proposal/?cs=2062]
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Gardens of Stone being mined to oblivion
(Photo:  Blue Mountains Conservation Society)

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One Response to “Coalpac Coal Mine to kill Cullen Bullen village”

  1. jim oneil says:

    Being a part of the wiradjuri tribe, my family , my mother and her family come from cullen bullen.since the 1800s “any indigenous damage”is un place able ..my sister and i are the last of the older ones.but we all know, big industry bullys anyone in there pathway.Arthur oneil.
    P.s not amused!

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