BY ALEX BAINBRIDGE
HOBART — The May 1 blockade of the Forestry Tasmania building coincides with the beginning of the Resource, Planning and Development Commission (RPDC) hearing to consider an appeal against the development proposal for the Southwood woodchip mill.
Despite the mounting pressure on Forestry Tasmania, the state Labor government is still firmly defending the woodchip industry. The office of federal Labor parliamentarian Dick Adams has even helped flag a proposal to allow logging in forest reserves.
Forestry Tasmania, a "government business enterprise", is involved in several controversies. Most prominent is Forestry Tasmania's proposed sponsorship of the second "10 Days on the Island" arts festival next year. Prominent artists have opposed Forestry Tasmania's sponsorship and many have vowed not to participate unless the sponsorship is withdrawn or rejected by the festival's board.
A group, Artists for Forests, has been formed and has begun collecting pledges to a community fund to replace the Forestry Tasmania's $50,000 sponsorship. More than $30,000 has been pledged in the first week.
In another embarrassment, on April 19 a report prepared for the Tasmanian Conservation Trust revealed that Forestry Tasmania's profit margins have steadily decreased over the last seven years. The decrease occurred despite a dramatic increase in timber extraction.
Forestry Tasmania is also vigorously defending the Southwood mill proposal in the appeal hearing with a QC and a barrister.
Neil Cremasco of the Southern Forest Alliance told Green Left Weekly that this is a "naked act of aggression" and an indication that Forestry Tasmania is planning to give the hearings an "adversarial" character.
Cremasco believes that the RPDC is the first decision-making forum in which activists have a chance to stop the Southwood development. The RPDC has previously made pro-environment decisions.
Cremasco described the anti-Southwood activists as being concerned people who are trying to save the environment "in their lunch hour", They are up against Forestry Tasmania's high-powered lawyers and full-time paid staff and this shows "the system is built for people with money, influence and power".
Meanwhile, the campaign to save the pristine Weld Valley from being woodchipped is continuing, albeit at a slower pace since the blockade there was broken by police earlier this year.
Adam Burling of the Native Forest Network told GLW that work has commenced on the road to the Weld Valley, protected by security guards and an exclusion zone.
[Alex Bainbridge is a member of the Socialist Alliance.]
From Green Left Weekly, May 1, 2002.
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