Tarkine Road to Nowhere

The woodchip industry and Forestry Tasmania are pushing for funding from the Commonwealth Government to build another logging link road in north-west Tasmania, according to The Wilderness Society.

The Society's Tasmanian Campaign Coordinator, Amanda Sully, said that the Society had been informed by sources in both government and industry that another Tarkine "road to nowhere" is on the agenda as part of the RFA.

The road would cost $6 million and skirt the northern edge of the Tarkine. It would link the giant Hampshire woodchip mill (the biggest woodchip mill in the Southern Hemisphere) with the oldgrowth eucalypts and rainforests of the Tarkine.

"This is an obscene proposal," Ms Sully said. "At a time when government cutbacks are biting into hospitals and schools, they are looking at pouring $6 million of taxpayers' money down the throat of the woodchip industry."

"To add insult to injury, the Hampshire chipmill is highly automated and employs about 10 people."

"The road would be like a vacuum hose, " she said. "At one end would be Australia's greatest temperate rainforest, and at the other would be Australia's biggest woodchip mill."

"It would be a fast track to destruction of oldgrowth eucalypts and rainforests."

She said that sources in the government had said that the road (known within Forestry Tasmania as the North Arthur Link Road) would cut from Hampshire across West Takone to the Milkshake Hills. It would not necessarily cut through the Tarkine itself, but would be a short cut to existing logging roads that already penetrate the north Tarkine.