BY TOM WILSON
The Native Forests Network recently conducted a bus tour of the old growth forests of Tasmania's Huon Valley. This was their response to Forestry Tasmania's advertising blitz which urged people to "gather as much information as possible about [the proposed Southwood] development before forming an opinion".
"We gave our tour the name FLOW, For Love Of Water", explained co-organiser Jenny Weber. "It was organised with the intention of connecting the Huon River from the town of Huonville to the old growth forests, the Tahune Forest reserve tourist development, the woodchip highway, and the site of the proposed Southwood development."
"The Huon River is already suffering from over development and should be left to flow free."
What tour participants saw shocked even the most experienced activists. In short:
- Kilometre after kilometre of old growth forest that Forestry Tasmania claim to be "managing" have already been clear-felled for woodchip.
- Hectare after hectare of environmentally destructive radiata pines are being planted in their place.
- More than 1000 baits — poisonous to native wildlife — have been intensively laid to "protect" Forestry Tasmania's investment.
- Most incredibly, prior to even the environmental guidelines for this project being agreed, and well ahead of any planning applications even being submitted, building work on the infrastructure for the Southwood project is already well advanced.
This helps to explain why Forestry Tasmania tried desperately to stop this tour from taking place. At one stage, they even threatened the organisers with prosecution. Despite these threats, the local knowledge of the tour organisers ensured that they were able to visit places which are not accessible to the general public.
"Forestry Tasmania is destroying thousands of hectares of forests each year, to the detriment of both the environment and future generations", explained Adam Burling, the other tour organiser. "They have created a situation where the general public is excluded from seeing what goes on behind locked gates. A tour that took people into the forest to see what really happens, threatened their image of 'growing our future'."
"What we saw directly exposes the lies constantly being told by the forestry barons about how their industry is 'sustainable', 'employment rich' and 'environmentally responsible'", Concerned Residents of the Upper Huon co-ordinator Neil Cremasco told Green Left Weekly.
"All the clever spin doctoring and smooth words used by the woodchip industry and the Labor and Liberal governments which prop it up, cannot withstand the effect of the visual evidence on display when you see a once magnificent rainforest reduced to a smouldering, charred mess.
"No wonder Forestry Tasmania have so many locked gates throughout the State's forests. They know that if too many people saw this decimation, there would be riots in the streets!"
"Nothing symbolises their attitude more than the site of the bridge of shame and the road works already under construction", added anti-Southwood campaigner Geoff Francis. "This clearly demonstrates their utter contempt for both our community and the proper planning process. Forestry Tasmania act as if they are above the law because they are the law."
Seeing these horrific sites of waste and destruction has made Huon valley residents more determined than ever to stop a development that would see 600,000 tonnes of old growth forest a year being devoured by the proposed woodchip mill and power station.
"The campaign is continuing to gain momentum as a result of people seeing huge swathes of charred rainforest destruction first hand", explained Cremasco. "There's a growing sense of community self reliance that only a crisis seems to bring out, and it's this emerging realisation that ordinary people can and will change things, that can ensure that we win the day."