BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE

HOBART — Deputy-premier Paul Lennon announced plans on June 4 to lift a 20-year ban on logging in the Tarkine rainforest. The Tarkine is Australia’s largest wilderness rainforest.

The state government’s decision will allow deep red myrtle logging in the Savage River rainforest corridor. This section of the Tarkine was protected from logging for 20 years by the Tasmanian government in 1982. However, in 1997 it was declared state forest as part of the controversial regional forest agreement. The designation as “state forest” meant that the area could be logged, although the 20-year ban on logging remained in force until last year.

By June 5, six environmental groups — the Wilderness Society, the Tasmanian Conservation Trust, the Tarkine National Coalition, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society and the Australian Conservation Foundation — announced a united campaign to stop the logging.

On June 6, the Wilderness Society cited a 1999 Forestry Tasmania report that argued that even partial disturbance of the area would risk “exposing large areas of forest to an increased risk of death from myrtle wilt disease” as part of the campaign to save the rainforest.

“Not only is the Tarkine Australia's biggest rainforest wilderness, it contains some of the most significant relics of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana left on Earth today”, according to Professor Aila Keto of the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society.

From Green Left Weekly, June 11, 2003.
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