Tom McLoughlin, Sydney

The forestry assets of NSW public timber plantations have been valued at $1 billion dollars recently by ABN AMRO. This provides an opportunity for the NSW government to shift logging operators out of the native forest sector and into the existing plantation sector on existing cleared land. This can be done without any new clearing or creation of new plantations, which must be strictly regulated.

Premier Bob Carr's government is in a terrible position with the public suffering a crisis of confidence over health, transport safety and integrity of public administration in several spheres.

Meanwhile, 130 trucks a day — with 60% of those verified as carrying old growth logs — are driving into the Eden woodchipping facility in south-east NSW. Another facility is doing similar damage on the central coast of NSW.

If Carr wants to short circuit his political woes with an increasingly cynical and angry electorate then keeping his 1995 promise to ban woodchipping of native forests would go some way to returning confidence in his government.

Furthermore, this announcement could be a unity platform with new federal opposition leader Mark Latham, providing an immense and electorally appealing contrast with the failed environmental policies of the PM John Howard's Coalition government.

[Tom McLoughlin is convener of Ecology Action (Sydney).]

From Green Left Weekly, January 28, 2004.
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