9 August 2011
The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) believes the Intergovernmental Agreement on Tasmanian Forests is bound to fail. The agreement was signed on Sunday by Australian Labor prime minister Julia Gillard and Tasmanian Labor premier Lara Giddings. AFPA says the agreement is based on commitments to the Greens and ENGOs that mean the forest industry's wood supply cannot be met sustainably.“Governments have not provided the much needed certainty to industry through legislative guarantee of wood supply. This is because they know that the timber required for the future needs of the industry cannot be sourced from the allocated forest area after the ENGO and Greens reservation claims are met,” AFPA transitional CEO Allan Hansard said.
“A letter from Forestry Tasmania to Bill Kelty, who facilitated the industry ENGO negotiations, confirmed this. We wanted the wood supply to industry to be based on sustainable forest management principles, including sustainable yield. The agreement announced by the prime minister is based on a 'cut-out and lock-up' approach which means both government and anyone who supports this agreement is willing to support unsustainable forest management practices."
The fate of the agreement, which differs from a deal flagged by the prime minister a month ago, looks set to be determined in Tasmania's parliament, says the Sydney Morning Herald.
At issue is the removal of a legislated supply of 155,000 cubic metres of native timber for loggers which is to be replaced with a regulated target of the same amount. If there are not enough logs available, the government would compensate logging companies.
Forestry Industries Association of Tasmania chief executive Terry Edwards says the deal would be a crippling blow to the sector.
"If this agreement stands as it is written and is implemented as it is written, then the Tasmanian timber industry is as good as dead," Mr Edwards said on Monday.
Acting Tasmanian premier Bryan Green says Mr Edwards' concerns about the deal were unfounded, as the supply and reserves were yet to be determined.
"If you read the document, it says quite clearly, the volumes that are to be established in Tasmania on into the future. What we need now is a verification process ... to allow us to get the facts on the high-conservation-value areas weighed against the volume that's going to be required for the industry."
The state and federal governments have said the deal would end decades of bitter dispute over the use of Tasmania's forests, but protests continued on Monday morning.
Members of environmental groups Still Wild Still Threatened, Code Green and the Huon Valley Environment Centre entered the Ta Ann wood veneer mill in Smithton, in the state's north, and two people chained themselves to machinery. Ten people were charged with trespass, and all will appear in Burnie Magistrates Court at a later date.
Meanwhile, timber company Gunns has sought an extension of its share-trading halt as it awaited news of potential compensation over its decision to exit native forestry logging.
AFPA says the agreement will not encourage sustainable forest management and could embarrass Australia and Tasmania internationally.
"It will result in further contract buy-outs which will reduce the scale of industry and lead to large industry closures and significant impacts on local communities in Tasmania. While industry and local communities that rely on the industry have no certainty that they will be adequately supplied with timber, the ENGOs have all the certainty they need of having forests put into legislated formal reserves," Mr Hansard said.
“The ALP-Greens coalition can add this agreement to the long list of bad decisions this year such as having commercial plantations excluded from the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) and sustainable and renewable wood-waste biomass excluded from its Clean Energy Future (CEF). Unfortunately, these decisions are clearly signalling to us that the ALP-Greens coalition is no friend
of the forest industry or the communities it supports across regional Australia,” he said.
AFPA is seeking urgent meetings with key Ministers to clarify the key issues in this agreement. Under the agreement a total of $276 million, including $15 million from the State Government, will be provided in the following areas:
* $85 million to support contractors affected by the downturn in the industry, and in particular Gunns Limited’s decision to exit native forest harvesting;
* $43 million to facilitate protection of new areas of high conservation value forests;
* $120 million over 15 years, including an initial payment of $20 million to identify and fund appropriate regional development projects; and
* $7 million per annum ongoing to manage new reserves.
Tasmania will immediately place 430,000 hectares of native forest into informal reserve, subject to verification, which the governments will protect under a Conservation Agreement.
Sources: AFPA media release and Sydney Morning Herald