Wilderness Society lobbies against Forestry Tasmania at major energy conference in Western Australia

The Wilderness Society (Tasmania) Inc
Media Release
6 December 2006

At the Bioenergy Australia conference in Fremantle, where Forestry Tasmania is giving a presentation on proposals to burn native forests for electricity, The Wilderness Society is lobbying delegates on the devastating impacts such proposals would have.

Speaking from Fremantle, Paul Oosting, Pulp Mill campaigner for The Wilderness Society, said "Tasmania is the only state in Australia which still proposes to burn wood from native forests to generate electricity."

There are two major Tasmanian proposals to burn native forests to generate power — Gunns' proposed pulp mill, and Southwood, which is being proposed by Forestry Tasmania.
 
The four-day conference is hearing from speakers from Governments, businesses, non-government organizations and academia. The Wilderness Society has taken its case against the burning of native forests for power to the Fremantle conference in order to protect Tasmania's forests.

"The burning of native forests for electricity is not renewable. The Tasmanian state government now recognises land-clearing and logging as the state's biggest contributors to climate change. Logging also destroys biodiversity and degrades water catchments," said Mr Oosting.

Mr Oosting said "Native forests in Tasmania have built up huge stores of carbon over hundreds and even thousands of years. Logging releases this carbon into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases virtually overnight."

"Because the forests are cut down again so soon, often after as little as 50 years, it is impossible for these greenhouse gases to ever be recaptured," said Mr Oosting.

The Wilderness Society distributed pamphlets which explain that logging of native forests for bioenergy would exacerbate climate change, destroy biodiversity and degrade water catchments.

See Wilderness Society pamphlet "Burning Native Forests is Not Renewable" (1.3Mb file)

Details of the conference can be found at http://www.bioenergyaustralia.org/