TASMANIA'S PULP MILL    

Modern ECF Pulp Mill and the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area

The pulp mill, to be built in Tasmania largest heavy industrial zone, will have no impact on the State’s high quality Wilderness or it World Heritage Area.  This lack of impact has been confirmed by the assessment process, including the referral under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act where World Heritage properties are considered as National environmental criteria.

Prominent protester Peter Cundall was awarded membership of the Order of Australia in January 2007 for service to the environment, particularly the protection of wilderness areas in Tasmania, and to horticulture as a presenter of gardening programs on television and radio. Of the 1,943,570 hectares of high quality wilderness in Tasmania, 1,880,800 or 97% is now reserved.

However, the Greens have recently released a proposal to expand the WHA from 20% to 32% of the State’s land mass, by including national parks and reserves and by adding over 120,000 ha of production forest as well as previously harvested forests as buffer zones. This would mean 2.2 million hectares of the State managed for TWWHA where all resource based industry would be banned. A critique of this claim shows that the new proposal has been recycled from 1994 and ignores the recent inspection of the property by the World Heritage Committee that found no need to expand the boundary due to forestry.

Forest Management Statement

As part of its’ commitment to sustainable forest management and informing the community, Gunns has published the third revision of its Forest Management Statement

This document details the objectives and prescriptions forest management that have been developed to ensure that forest practices are environmentally, economically and socially sustainable .

Table 2 of this Statement shows that over 44,000 hectares of Gunns Permanent forest estate is reserved for conservation values, this represents 16% of this private land and compares favourably with Australian and international forest reservation achievements.

The Developer has  issued a media statement to ensure the general public are not being misled by claims of anti pulp mill activists in relation to so called ‘High conservation value' forest, water and greenhouse impacts. The media release is available.

Misleading the public on forest issues has resulted in the findings of a recent public survey that found the public were under the false impression that the last tree was about to be cut down. Forestry Tasmania was shocked to discover uncovered a startling array of urban myths.

UPDATE: Pulp wood supply to be 100% plantation based (Gunns Limited 6th January 2009)

The New Year also saw an escalation in forest protest with police assaulted by protesters as they tried to clean up the mess left by a protest camp in the Florentine Valley .

Whilst this valley has been harvested since the 1940s and access to the protest is along a sealed road built in the 1960s, it still contains elements of old growth forest marked as Special Species Management units to be selectively harvested under long rotation for high quality sawlogs and furniture grade timbers. Whilst the Pulp Mill will not use old growth, a photo of this Valley has been constantly used by opponents to the pulp mill.

In 2008 a World Heritage Mission that inspected these forests found:

The area managed under the TWWHA management plan provides a good representation of well-managed tall Eucalyptus forest and there is similar forest outside the property which is also well-managed, but for both conservation and development objectives. The threats to these forests from production forestry activities are well managed and there no need for the boundary of the property to be changed to deal with such threats

 See the  full report of the World Heritage Monitoring  Visit

On 8 Dec 2008 Mitsubishi Paper Mill commenced a tour of inspection and a series of meetings with Tasmanian stakeholders.  MPM export 200,000 bone dry metric tonnes of woodchips processed at the Hampshire, harvested from regrowth native forest and plantations in NW Tasmania.

They are seeking to continue to gain a certificate in sustainable forest management to market their paper products. Read a detailed report on their visit.

So says the World Heritage Centre report (see below) that also confirmed that the approved pulp mill will have no impact on Tasmanian wilderness of universal value.

Member of the Legislative Council, Mr Jim Wilkinson, has congratulated the State’s professional foresters and timber workers in a speech outlining a job well done.

During the missions investigation the Tasmanian National Parks Association demanded that an area at Recherche Bay be added to the World Heritage. 

A briefing paper is available that exposes claims made about this area since 2003.

Read the full report of special mission of the UNESCO World Heritage Commission has found that timber harvesting in Tasmania's forests has no adverse impact on the World Heritage Area that covers over 20% of the State.

The Commonwealth Government has released two important reports that demonstrate the sustainable management of Australia’s forests.

The first report is from the Bureau of Rural Science: The Changing face of Australia’s forests.  This publication summarises changes in Australia’s forests and forest industry since the National Forest Policy Statement (NFPS) was agreed in 1992.

Australia's State of the Forests Report 2008 was launched by the Hon Tony Burke MP, and Commonwealth Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on May 21, 2008.

The Report shows that managed native forests offset about 5.5% of total national greenhouse gas emissions in 2005 and that there are a total of 8.5 million hectares of forest certified as being sustainably managed. There is over 30 million hectares of public forests (20% of the total forest area) is managed primarily for protection, including of soil and water values; most is in nature conservation reserves.

You can download the report here: http://adl.brs.gov.au/forestsaustralia/publications/sofr2008.html

You can also down load an extract from last years review of the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement that examines the promotion of biological diversity that shows a reservation level of the State’s forests at 47% compared to the international benchmark of 10%.

Educational resources about forestry in Tasmania are available from the Forest Education Foundation.

Fast Forest Facts

Whilst the Department of Environment states the pulp mill will only value add pulp wood available for woodchip export, the greatest controversy has been on Tasmania’s forest Management. The following facts are from the 2nd Anniversary Report of the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement

Area of Tasmania                                                     6.8 million hectares

Area of Tasmania in reserves                              2.9 million hectares (44%)

Area of native forest in Tasmania                     3.1 million hectares

Area of native forest in reserves                        1.4 million hectares (47%)

Area of old-growth forest in Tasmania           1.2 million hectares

Area of old-growth forest in reserves                970 000 hectares (79%)

% of public native forest harvested each year    1%

Area of plantations in Tasmania                        200 000 hectares   (2.9% of Tasmania)

Tasmanian forest industry turnover                $1.3 billion per annum

Number of people employed in forestry in Tasmania       10,700

Both Gunns Limited and Forestry Tasmania report on Sustainable Forest Management and both are certified by the Australian Forest Standard which is part of the PEFC (Program for Environmental Forest Certification. Forestry in Tasmania must comply with the Forest Practices Act and relevant laws such as the Threatened Species Act and the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act.

Old Growth Forest

The most controversial aspect of forest management in Tasmania is clear felling of old growth forest.

While Gunns Limited has given a clear and unequivocal commitment not to use old growth forests as feed stock to the mill many arguments against the mill are still based on old growth forests.

The various Federal/State inquiries and agreements of the last twenty years has resulted in a three fold increase in the area of reserved land in Tasmania. Consistent with that trend there has been a significant increase in the area of old growth forests reserved.

The current target is to reserve 1 million hectares of old growth forests. The current situation is that 0.97 million hectares are in reserve with the balance being negotiated in private land reserves.

Outside these reserves sustainable forest management for timber production is permitted. Tasmania's veneer and high quality sawmilling industries depend on small areas of this mature forest is in high demand for solid timber products. The forest  is subject to a range of harvesting methods to produce high quality veneer and saw logs as well as pulp wood arising from that harvest.

In 2006 -2007 11,000 hectares of public native forest was harvested, however only 780 hectares of old growth was clear felled in Tasmania's publicly owned forest.