Media Release 27/10/2012 – Threatened Tasmanian forests left open for destruction

Conservation groups Still Wild Still Threatened and Huon Valley Environment Centre are today renewing their commitment to continue their campaigns for forest protection, in the wake of the forest talks collapse.

“The failure of the talks does not mean that the industry can bury it’s head in the sand and continue to entrench native forest destruction. The reality of global market pressures cannot be ignored and the controversy over Tasmania’s wood supply will continue,” Still Wild Still Threatened’s spokesperson Miranda Gibson stated.

“The collapse of troubled forest talks in Tasmania happens right before a summer schedule of logging looms in Tasmania’s globally significant forests. Summer is traditionally a time of increased logging and building new roads into threatened wilderness areas,” Huon Valley Environment Centre’s Jenny Weber said.

“Our markets campaign will continue as the product entering the markets for Ta Ann continues to be from world heritage value forests, a controversial product that Japanese companies do not want. Our organisations will continue to be in contact with the corporate customers of Ta Ann, informing them of the destruction that lies behind the veneer they are buying,” said Jenny Weber

“We are calling on the Federal and State Governments to protect 572 000ha of independently verified forests, regardless of the forest talks falling over. The Governments has the opportunity to make an environmental and economic gain for Tasmania, through the protection of these wild forests” said Miranda Gibson.

“Unless the government takes immediate action Tasmania will lose significant tracts of scientifically verified world heritage value forests such as Butlers Gorge, which now face a summer of destruction” said Miranda Gibson.

“The contraction of the native forest logging industry needs to be acknowledged by the Government and by industry players. There should be no further funds by the Government for propping up the ongoing unsustainable native forest logging industry. It remains that there is not a market for the woodchips from Tasmania. Yet large swathes of forests continue to be clearfelled, while logs are stockpiled with no destination. These forests are wildlife habitat, carbon sinks and globally unique environments, their protection is still urgent,” said Jenny Weber.

“A change to Tasmania’s forest industry is inevitable given the changing global market and increasing public pressure for sustainable products,” Miranda Gibson said.

Contact

Jenny Weber 0427 366 929

Miranda Gibson 0414 535 164

GROUNDSWELL OF INTERNATIONAL CONCERN ABOUT TA ANN PRODUCT

Nineteen international organisations and individuals have recently sent a letter to the Japanese corporate customers of Ta Ann. The letter stated their concern about the role that Japanese companies are playing in the consumption of Ta Ann’s timber products, which are sourced from high conservation value forests in Tasmania, Australia and unsustainable forest operations in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

Signatories to the letter include Bob Brown, Former Leader of the Australian Greens and Randy Hayes, the founder of Rainforest Action Network. International forest advocacy groups, and NGOs from Australia, Sarawak and Japan also signed on. The alliance of groups wrote in support of JATAN (Japan Tropical Forest Action Network), Markets for Change, ObserverTree and the Huon Valley Environment Centre in their dialogue with the Japanese customers of Ta Ann.

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Above: Copy of the English and Japanese letter sent to the Japanese corporate customers of Ta Ann.

The letter stated, “We appreciate that you have procurement policies designed to ensure high environmental and social standards in the product you stock, but that as customers of Ta Ann Tasmania product you may have been misled. This product is not plantation grown and nor can it be described as eco-friendly”.

The individuals and groups that signed on to the letter requested that the Ta Ann customer companies in Japan cease to deal in the Tasmanian product whilst it comes from such unsustainable and unacceptable sources. They indicated that such a source of supply would not meet the high environmental and social standards for purchase proclaimed by these companies. Ta Ann Tasmania’s wood supply has been officially documented as containing timber sourced from forests verified to be of national and world heritage value.

The letter also recognised the problems with Japanese customers stocking and promoting products sourced from Sarawak, Malaysia as some trading companies have recently started doing, apparently as an alternative source of timber to that derived from Tasmania. The serious environmental and social justice problems associated with wood product sourced from Sarawak are highlighted.

The signatories to the letter explain that practices of timber companies in Sarawak that supply plywood to the international market, have led to forced or coerced displacement of indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands. The ecological consequences of logging in Sarawak are of great magnitude. Sourcing such products would not meet the high environmental and social standards for purchase, set by the Japanese customers either.

This letter demonstrates the significant support from the global environment movement for the real protection of forests in Tasmania and Sarawak. It sends a strong message to Ta Ann’s customers that they need to take responsibility for their procurement practices, and that while the destruction continues that cannot sit on the fence. Any indication from the few ENGOs involved in the negotiations that Ta Ann’s wood supply and the products derived from it are shielded from these realities is untrue. The underlying concerns regarding native forest destruction and social justice need to be addressed by Ta Ann.

Please take action now! Help stop the destruction of Tasmania’s magnificent forests by sending a cyber message to Ta Ann’s corporate customers in Japan HERE.

Read the letter in English HERE and in Japanese HERE

Forest Witness: New destructive logging in the Russell Valley

On the 15th of October, conservationists visited an area of forest in the Huon Valley where recent logging operations have commenced.  The large scale clearfell logging of 40 hectares, using a cable logger on a steep slope, is occurring inside the proposed 572 000ha reserve.  The operation is providing logs for Ta Ann, logs for the export peeler market, and sawlogs. As this is a clearfelling operation woodchip logs are also being cut although there is no market for woodchips sourced from Tasmania’s southern forests. Despite the lack of market for the woodchip logs, the large scale decimation of native forest continues.

This steep forested slope is identified as in need for protection as part of the West Wellington region.  This native forest area is also identified by Forestry Tasmania as logging coupe RU032B.

The logging of this area highlights that the Intergovernmental Agreement is failing on forest protection. A moratorium on logging of the proposed reserves was promised by Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke as far back as December 2010, yet this logging commenced in September 2012.

Cable logging in Russell Valley Photo: Jenny Weber

Forestry Tasmania, the failed, loss-making government business enterprise now being propped up by Tasmania’s taxpayers is leading the assault on these forests. Ta Ann’s wood requirements are driving this logging incursion, according to independent reports. Forestry Tasmania was paid $12.5million to facilitate the IGA, and not to supply wood or allow wood production within the proposed new forest reserves, subject to clause 26 of the IGA.[i]

How have all the promises been reduced to this logging destruction?

• On the 14 December 2010, Federal Environment Minister Burke and then Premier David Bartlett announced their support for the Statement of Principles and committed to place a moratorium on logging within the 572,000 ha of proposed new forest reserves within three months.[ii]
• Three months later, the lack of any progress to deliver an effective moratorium led Minister Bryan Green to instruct Forestry Tasmania in writing to implement the moratorium.[iii]
• By August 2011, when the Federal and State governments signed the Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA), Forestry Tasmania was still logging inside the proposed new forest reserves.
• The IGA committed to place 430,000 ha of forests under immediate protection while a verification process was undertaken, and to reschedule other logging coupes out of the broader 572,000 hectares of proposed reserves.[iv] In cases where a mill’s wood supply could not be provided through rescheduling, the IGA included a clear provision to pay compensation to the affected mill. However the work of the independent schedulers engaged to appraise and make recommendations on Forestry Tasmania’s scheduling of logging operations was significantly limited by the failure by Forestry Tasmania to undertake the necessary pre-planning and rescheduling after earlier government direction to reschedule logging out of the proposed new forest reserves.[v]
• On 13 January 2012, Minister Burke, Minister Green and Forestry Tasmania signed a Conservation Agreement that allowed Forestry Tasmania to largely continue its planned logging of 1,900 ha within the new forest reserves during the first half of 2012. This means the Conservation Agreement protected only those forests that Forestry Tasmania had not included in logging plans. In other words, it provided temporary protection for forests that were not going to be logged and allows business as usual logging of contentious areas.[vi]

Now, in the second half of 2012, the Conservation Agreement has expired and logging continues inside the crucial 572,000 hectares.  Tasmania is still losing the very forests proposed for protection two years ago, and the promises of Government Ministers for these forests to be protected have gone stale.

Negotiations over forest protection are to resume any day, but meanwhile Forestry Tasmania has drawn up more logging plans inside the proposed reserves as well as commencing logging places such as this logging coupe RU032B. For two years now the forests have continued to fall whilst meetings to discuss forest protection have not delivered.

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[i] Australian Conservation Foundation, The Wilderness Society and Environment Tasmania. Forestry Tasmania’s ongoing logging in proposed new forest reserves. 9 February 2012.

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Ibid

[v] Ibid

[vi] Ibid

AWARDS GIVE IMPETUS TO THE CAMPAIGN TO STOP TA ANN DRIVING FOREST DESTRUCTION

Key Tasmanian campaign partners on the Ta Ann campaign were recognised in the inaugural Bob Brown Foundation awards announced today.

Jenny Weber, long-time volunteer of the Huon Valley Environment Centre was named Environmentalist of the Year.

Miranda Gibson of Still Wild Still Threatened, who is spending her 9^th month perched in the Observer Tree inside threatened forest, received the Award for Courage.

Markets for Change, which works with these local groups in Tasmania, believe this is well deserved recognition for the stalwart efforts of these remarkable young women and the organizations they represent. They have both shown extraordinary dedication in the campaign to secure protection for the magnificent forests of Tasmania and incredible courage in the face of challenging circumstances.

A coordinated effort by forestry industry groups to vilify them, the groups they represent, and their campaigns, shows the industry is rattled by the effectiveness of market campaigns which bring the truth to customers and puncture misleading spin about the product of forest destruction, such as that sold by Ta Ann.

You can also stand up for the forests and alongside Jenny and Miranda by taking action HERE.

Media Releases

From Markets for Change & the Huon Valley Environment Centre …

Treachery to the forests – secret letters exposed

Prominent environmentalists in Tasmania have accused two environment groups of selling out the forests by secretly undermining the market campaigns of fellow conservationists in Japan and Australia with letters to Ta Ann’s corporate customers.

“This act is undermining the chances of achieving protection of magnificent forests in Tasmania, and also the campaigns of Tasmanian, Australian and Japanese groups who have been participating in a successful markets campaign for the past twelve months,” said Peg Putt of Markets for Change.

“We have consistently asked companies receiving Ta Ann product to call for an immediate stop to logging the conservation claim in Tasmania whilst negotiations over the future protection of these forests take place, and to refuse to take wood product coming from inside this area.

“The ACF and TWS letters are clearly designed to counteract this campaign and to appease the forest industry. They repeatedly express concern for “a sustainable future for the forest industries in Tasmania”, but not for the fate of the magnificent forests under the chainsaw. We do not believe that their members and supporters are aware of or would condone their actions” Ms Putt said.

“The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and The Wilderness Society Inc. (TWS Inc) have sent false confidence to the Japanese customers of Ta Ann. This miscommunication in the markets will increase uncertainty. The fact remains that Ta Ann is shipping high conservation value forests to Japan, and these environment groups have endorsed this controversial product in the international market,” said Jenny Weber of the Huon Valley Environment Centre.

The letter by ACF’s Don Henry and TWS Inc.’s Lyndon Schneiders requests the Japanese customers to continue to purchase the contentious wood supply that Ta Ann Tasmania is supplying.

The letter states; “As a buyer of Tasmania forests products we continue to respectfully request that you not make any decisions that could adversely affect Tasmanian suppliers during the current negotiations that are now closer to achieving a sustainable future for the forest industries in Tasmania.”

“Far from giving peace a chance, the letters have reduced pressure for the forestry industry to come to an agreement. There is still no final forest agreement in Tasmania and the outlook is bleak as forestry industry representatives have now suspended their participation in the talks,” Ms Weber continued.

“At best the ACF TWS letters are grossly misguided, at worst they are a capitulation to industry. In either case these peak bodies have shown they are willing to support the forestry industry and deliberately undermine our campaign in secret. They have endorsed the ongoing logging of high conservation value forests for Ta Ann and their Japanese customers by making this communication with the markets.”

“This is not a time for these environment groups to lose their way and become the green tick for an unsustainable native forest logging industry in Tasmania. This is one step too far for these groups who have been waylaid by a long drawn out process that has not delivered any conservation gains and these conservation groups are endorsing the very company that contributes to the devastation of the forests for which they are trying to secure protection,” Ms Weber concluded.

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And from the Observer Tree …

Still Wild Still Threatened vows to continue campaigning against Ta Ann’s forest destruction.

Still Wild Still Threatened are today raising concerns for the future of Tasmania’s forests, after the uncovering of secret letters sent from some environment groups to Ta Ann’s customers. The letters called on the customers to not make any decisions regarding their contracts with Ta Ann.

“The letters that were sent to Ta Ann’s customers undermine the campaign for forest protection, because they are calling on those customers to sit on the fence while the destruction of our ecosystems continues unabated” said Miranda Gibson, spokesperson for Still Wild Still Threatened.

“The forest negotiations have to-date failed to deliver any conservation outcomes that were promised and as a result high conservation value forests are being lost daily in Tasmania. Ta Ann are continuing to receive wood sourced from this destruction” said Ms Gibson.

“We have great fears that the forest negotiation process is being used as a way to green-wash Ta Ann’s role in forest destruction. The company continues to sell products that are sourced from the destruction of Tasmania’s world-class forests. In addition, Ta Ann continue to be associated with logging in Sarawak causing environmental destruction and the displacement of indigenous people. They need to be held accountable” said Ms Gibson.

“From the upper canopy of the Observer Tree I have been in communication with people right around the world who want to see Ta Ann immediately cease accepting wood from high conservation value forests. It is evident that on a global level there is not a market for such destruction. As long as Ta Ann continues to accept such wood we will continue our international campaign to bring an end to the destruction of our globally significant forests” said Ms Gibson.

TREACHERY TO THE FORESTS – SECRET LETTERS EXPOSED

New roading operations in the spectacular forests of the Esperance, southern Tasmania. This photo was taken in scheduled logging coupe EP011A last Friday.

We are appalled by the revelation of recent communications from the Australian Conservation Foundation and The Wilderness Society to Japanese customers of Ta Ann Tasmania.

Two letters have been sent in secret, both requesting that the Japanese continue to buy Ta Ann product originating from Tasmanian native forests, despite the fact that the wood supply requirements of Ta Ann have been identified as the driver for logging high conservation value forests in official documents on the scheduling of forestry operations. The letters espouse the desire that the supplier not be adversely affected by any change to their contracts and ask that the contracts be maintained. No concern is expressed over the ongoing logging destruction of forests used to create those products.

The Chief Executive officer of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Don Henry, and the National Director of The Wilderness Society, Lyndon Schneiders, co-signed the letters.

This act is undermining the chances of achieving protection of magnificent forests in Tasmania, and also the campaigns of Tasmanian, Australian and Japanese groups who have been participating in a successful markets campaign for the past twelve months.  We have consistently asked companies receiving Ta Ann product to call for an immediate stop to logging the conservation claim in Tasmania whilst negotiations over the future protection of these forests take place, and to refuse to take wood product coming from inside this area.

The ACF and TWS letters are clearly designed to counteract this campaign and to appease the forest industry. They repeatedly express concern for “a sustainable future for the forest industries in Tasmania”, but not for the fate of the magnificent forests under the chainsaw. We do not believe that their members and supporters are aware of or would condone their actions.

Far from giving peace a chance, the letters have reduced pressure for the forestry industry to come to an agreement. There is still no final forest agreement in Tasmania and the outlook is bleak as forestry industry representatives have now suspended their participation in the talks.

At best the ACF TWS letters are grossly misguided, at worst they are a capitulation to industry. In either case these peak bodies have shown they are willing to support the forestry industry and deliberately undermine our campaign in secret. They have endorsed the ongoing logging of high conservation value forests for Ta Ann and their Japanese customers by making this communication with the markets.

Read Matthew Denholm’s article in The Australian HERE, read the ACF/TWS letter HERE, and counteract this act of treachery to Tasmania’s forests by taking cyber action HERE.

IT’S CHAOS! UNCERTAINTY HIGH / PEACE PROSPECTS LOW / FOREST PROTECTION NIL

Hopes are receding for secure protection of Tasmania’s outstanding forests that are on the chopping block for logging destruction, and the forests peace talks are in jeopardy.

We are reminded of the famous Monty Python skit about the dead parrot. In that hilarious swing at misleading claims, the assertion that the bird was not dead, only resting was undermined by the fact that it was actually nailed to its perch.

The forest industry itself has dramatically increased the levels of uncertainty around Tasmanian forest products by staging a walk out that will make markets nervous. The Forest Industry Association of Tasmania (FIAT), The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) and the national forest contractors body claim to have merely suspended their participation in the negotiations, but this suspension will only be revised if their absurd and unacceptable conditions for resumption are met. Not dead, only resting?

This shambolic state of affairs has been cast even further into disarray by the dramatic resignation of the Chair of the Board of Forestry Tasmania, and the open defiance of government by a top executive of the public corporation. The agency has gone rogue.

At issue is the decision by the Tasmanian government to heed independent expert advice and reform Forestry Tasmania, the Government Business Enterprise charged with managing forestry on public land. It has been propped up by $640 million of federal and state grants in the last decade and is making huge ongoing losses predicted to be as much as $35 million per year over the coming 5 years. These losses are impacting the constrained public purse and the delivery of vital health, education and policing.  Forestry Tasmania’s current structure and functions have been assessed by URS (consultants engaged by Treasury) as a failed business model for these times.

Neither Forestry Tasmania, nor the forest industry, will accept the preferred reform option that was presented to government and endorsed by Cabinet. This model would enable government to implement its wishes for the forests that belong to the people of Tasmania and put its management of forestry onto a more sustainable footing. But subsidies that benefit industry would end.

It is now about who is actually in charge here, the government or the industry? The likelihood of the government acceding to the bullying and tantrums is not high, and if they do then the impact on the forest talks will be to gut them. Additionally minority partners in government, the Greens Party, have flagged withdrawing their support for government if it reneges on the agreed reforms.

No agreement to protect in secure reserves even one stick of the expanses of high conservation value forest has been reached. Such forests are still being logged and the product of that forest destruction is ending up in the markets. Further, we suspect that Forestry Tasmania is actively planning to log new, highly controversial areas of the reserve claim and to push new roads into World Heritage value forests.

Interestingly, the Monty Python dead parrot sketch segues into the equally famous lumberjack song. The character gives up trying to pretend that the parrot is alive and cuts to his real ambition – ‘I never wanted to be a pet shop owner, I always wanted to be a lumberjack’. Hmmm.

Greenwash, forest certification, the AFS & PEFC

A new Australian Forestry Standard spoof website is up and running, which exposes the greenwash & which features a hilarious short film, which you can watch above. Ta Ann Tasmania’s wood supply is sourced from logging coupes across Tasmania, many of which contain forests of world or national heritage value. Incredibly, these logging operations have been certified by the Australian Forestry Standard.

Forestry operations across the country that destroy threatened species habitat and high conservation value forests are certified by the Australian Forestry Standard (AFS), which is endorsed by the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). Click HERE for more information about the AFS and PEFC.

Serious concerns have been raised about the AFS’ lack of environmental sustainability. Even tennis star Pat Cash has no love for this contested certification process – recently going on record saying that Planet Ark had lost its way in aligning itself so closely with a standard that essentially places a big green tick on clear felling and burning of high conservation value forests.

Don’t believe the greenwash. AFS certification and PEFC endorsement are completely inadequate for Australian wood products as they do not prevent globally and nationally significant forests from being destroyed and entering the supply chain.

Visit this excellent new website at australianforestrystandard.com & make sure you share it with all your friends!

UNCERTAINTY FOR TA ANN AS THE FOREST INDUSTRY LEAVES PEACE TALKS IN TASMANIA

The Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT) and the national forest industry representative group, the Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA), have both suspended their participation in the forests peace process.

Yet Ta Ann Tasmania is reliant on the delivery of a forests agreement to maintain markets access.  Customer companies in Japan are well aware of the ongoing conflict over controversial logging of high conservation value forests to produce Ta Ann plywood, logging which has continued without respite in key areas.

No agreement has yet been delivered for the secure, permanent protection of any forests whatsoever, after years of talks. A recent ‘interim agreement’ comprehensively failed to deliver any forest protection.

Yet Ta Ann claim they are seeking environmentally acceptable wood and are reliant on concluding a forests deal to prove to the market that unacceptable logging has been fixed and new reserves created. The prospects of a peace agreement have been dealt a blow by their own industry association.

Does Ta Ann Tasmania have any influence within the forest industries associations that are supposed to represent them?

Sawmiller members of the association are trying to bully the Tasmanian government into changing their decision to split the state forest agency, Forestry Tasmania. This agency is losing $35 million a year or more and being propped up by taxpayer funds that are urgently needed for health, education and policing in Tasmania. The government decision to bring Forestry Tasmania under tight government control was announced in Parliament last week, pursuant to advice from expert consultants URS. The main beneficiaries of the current situation where Forestry Tasmania is rampantly politicised and funnelling public money into the industry are the big sawmilling companies of Tasmania, who do not want to lose their privileged position.

With the forest talks again in disarray a resolution of the conflict is now further away. This continues and exacerbates uncertainty for Ta Ann.

TALK TO JAPAN ABOUT TASMANIAN FORESTS – YES WE DO!

Logging coupe CO003A, Counsel area. Image by Rob Blakers

We regularly send update reports to Ta Ann’s Japanese customer companies about the latest on Tasmania’s forests. Unbelievably, the news that we communicate with people who have the power to help save these magnificent places has been treated as a scandal by supporters of logging, warranting an accusatory article in Hobart’s Mercury newspaper.

Ta Ann’s customers continue to receive timber from Ta Ann that are sourced from contentious forests for a product they are selling as ‘eco-friendly’. If Ta Ann get clear market signals that their corporate customers don’t want to be involved in the destruction of Tasmania’s iconic forests, then this could encourage a rapid transition to more sustainable options.

Last week we sent this message:

UPDATE FROM TASMANIA – FAILURE TO INCLUDE FOREST PROTECTON IN INTERIM FORESTS AGREEMENT
Dear customer companies of Ta Ann Tasmania product,

I am writing to keep you updated with developments in Tasmania, as agreed when we visited you in Japan.

Last week participants in negotiations over the future of Tasmanian forests and the forest industry signed an ‘interim agreement’. This agreement fails to resolve the key issues of forest protection and future sources of wood supply. The failure to reach agreement on forest protection after more than 2 years of negotiations is of serious concern, and means that the forests issue is not resolved in Tasmania.

Our media release of 16th August: ‘FOREST RESERVES DELIVERY IS VITAL TO FOREST PEACE BUT MISSING FROM ‘INTERIM AGREEMENT’ is attached to this message. In this statement we warn that the failure to deliver an agreement for forest protection is very serious, and we urge action on this vital matter. We have joined forces with several other forest conservation groups to issue this media statement.

Further, logging and road building continues inside high conservation value forests that were previously promised comprehensive protection from logging whilst their future is negotiated. Official reports indicate that Ta Ann’s wood supply requirements have been driving this logging.

Our new report detailing this ongoing logging destruction, A FOREST A DAY, is also attached. This report compiles information and photographic evidence of the values and current or imminent logging of 29 forest coupes that are within the high conservation value forest areas under negotiation for future protection. Governments have failed to fulfil their promise that these areas would be given interim protection and not be destroyed. This report outlines the unique values of these places which are on current logging schedules.

Product that you are currently receiving from Tasmania may have originated from one of these high conservation value forests, and cannot be guaranteed to be ‘eco-friendly’.

Please support our requests that:
1. delivery of secure protection of high conservation value forests in Tasmania be rapidly agreed, and that
2. in the meanwhile the logging destruction of high conservation value forests be immediately halted.
Yours sincerely,

Peg Putt
Markets for Change

Jenny Weber
Huon Valley Environment Centre

We think you’ll agree that it is nonsensical for our detractors to characterise an ordinary email communication about the origins and acceptability of wood products as ‘environmental terrorism’. The answer is for more people to make their concerns known too. To take action CLICK HERE.