By Tony Iltis
HOBART — The signing of the Tasmanian regional forest agreement (RFA) has been postponed for a second time. Originally scheduled for June 30, then postponed until July 18, it is now due to be signed in early to mid-August.
Meanwhile, environmentalists throughout the state are unanimous in their condemnation of the options paper, which:
- <~>fails to secure reserves on private land (leaving most of Tasmania's dry forests, woodlands and grassy woodlands unprotected);
- <~>reserves 200,000 hectares of low conservation value land, because it is also of low commercial value, while ignoring many high conservation value areas;
- <~>allows logging in many high conservation value areas while "reserving" unviable fragments of these forests (some 100,000 ha of the proposed reserves); and
- <~>fails to protect the habitats of many threatened animal species, including the spotted-tailed quoll, the eastern quoll, the forty-spotted pardalote and the giant Tasmanian freshwater lobster.
There has been considerable disenchantment with the influence of the logging industry over the process.
According to information published by the Tasmanian Conservation Trust, the Parks and Wildlife Service did not advocate substantially expanding reserves because the service is under-funded and management felt that new reserves would over-strain its resources!
Most of Tasmania's famous forests are threatened, including the 360,000 ha Tarkine Wilderness and the 60,000 ha southern forests, which contain the tallest trees in the southern hemisphere.
Once the RFA is signed, it stands for 20 years, but environmentalists are unanimous that the campaign against the RFA will not end until it is revoked.
Opposition to the RFA was the main theme of the successful June 5 World Environment Day rally, organised by the Wilderness Society, with Resistance and other groups helping to build it.
Since then, despite the widespread opposition to the process, there has been little activity against it. Letter-writing stalls have played a useful role in educating people about the issues, but will do little to change the government's mind.
On July 25, the Wilderness Society blockaded a logging depot at Bell Bay, north of Launceston, holding up three logging trucks for a few hours.
Actions like this are a good way to raise the profile of the campaign, but many activists (and almost all non-activists) cannot participate due to their remote location and the need for secrecy. These actions and media stunts could be a useful part of a campaign focused on actions such as the June 5 rally, in which large numbers of people can participate.
At this stage no large-scale rallies are being planned, due in part to the limited resources of groups campaigning on the issue. However, activists are informally discussing organising a rally in Hobart for late August or early September and convening open organising meetings to involve individuals and members of a variety of organisations.