The Wilderness Society welcomes blow-outs in Gunns' pulp mill timelines

The Wilderness Society (Tasmania) Inc
Media Release
24 June 2008

The Australian Financial Review reports today (17 June, 2008) that Gunns Ltd has been forced to push back deadlines for securing finance for the pulp mill.

"We welcome the delays to Gunns going ahead with the pulp mill and hope that the project never occurs due to the devastating impact it would have on the Tasmanian economy and other industries such as fisheries, vineyards and tourism, and the irreversible impact on our environment,' said Paul Oosting, pulp mill campaigner for The Wilderness Society.

The four major banks in Australia have given assurances they will not be part of funding Gunns' proposed pulp mill, which has set a strong precedent for other banks globally. Now Germany's Deutsche Bank has confirmed it will not be part of the project.

"No bank or investment groups that has rigorous environmental or social policies will be part of funding Gunns' pulp mill due to the lasting and destructive impact it will have on climate change, Tasmania's forests and clean green industries," said Mr Oosting.

The Australian Financial Review is also reporting that the blow-out in Gunns' timeline to secure funding is set to delay construction start-up beyond Gunns' latest deadline of September 2008.

However, according to Gunns' reports submitted to the Federal Government as part of the ongoing assessment, the company had planned to start construction of the mill on 21 January 20081.

Tomorrow in Melbourne's Federal Court Lawyers for Forests are challenging the Federal Government's approval of the pulp mill.


1 Gunns Environmental Impact Management Plan, Module A. Table 1 page 8: 
http://www.gunnspulpmill.com/permits/EIMP_Module_A.pdf