Threatened forest in the Weld Valley, bordering the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Photograph: Rob Blakers.

How would you feel if you were given a stay of execution – only to find the executioners turning up to take you away regardless? Tragically, that’s what’s happening to high conservation value forests in Tasmania right now.

The Tasmanian Forestry Agreement was supposed to protect these precious forests. Instead, they are being logged and having roads driven through them.

2012 began badly for the Agreement, with governments announcing a conservation outcome that protects a range of forests that weren’t going to be logged – while perversely allowing Forestry Tasmania to bulldoze ahead with business-as-usual logging in forests promised for protection.

Forestry Tasmania is cultivating conflict by failing to plan new logging coupes in non-controversial areas. Instead, this government agency is pushing ahead with new logging areas and new roads, some up to 2.5 kilometres long, in pristine forest areas that the Agreement says should be protected by now.

Recent work by an independent team of experts that went into Forestry Tasmania to verify their logging plans revealed that it had mislead Government and stakeholders about its contractual obligations to supply wood to Malaysian veneer company Ta Ann.

Meanwhile Forestry Tasmania is ensuring that supply to Ta Ann causes the maximum level of conflict with the community and undermines community expectations for forest conservation.  

A case in point is logging coupe BB21E in the iconic Weld Valley. This coupe has never been logged, is spectacular mixed aged eucalypt forest and is less than100 meters beyond the site of the longest running community blockade south of Hobart, the Weld Ark.

Thousands of people visited this area over a period of well over a year, exploring the area, studying the forests and defending the roading and logging that was planned at the time. Around 50 people were arrested when the camp was finally broken up by police and a road extended further up the pristine valley.

Now, when logging should have stopped, when there is need for a conflict-free space and when there is a unique opportunity to agree on an outcome that protects forests and helps rebuild the industry, Forestry Tasmania sees fit to push in a new road and begin logging this coupe in a highly sensitive area.

Fixing the crisis in the Tasmanian forestry industry means fixing Forestry Tasmania. It has been out of control for too long, logging special forests, wasting tens of millions of dollars and completely failing to be accountable to the people who own the forests: the public.

A solution is right in front of us: reform Forestry Tasmania and implement the Agreement now, to give the conflict-free space for ongoing negotiations.  Independently verified data about the forests and industry needs will soon present and negotiations will seek to finalise a durable resolution that protects identified forests and restructures the industry. With your support, the Wilderness Society will be working to make sure that happens.

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The Leadbeater's Possum is Victoria's faunal emblem and under threat from logging. Photograph: Ian Moodie

The little Leadbeater’s possum, Victoria’s faunal emblem and already under threat of extinction due to intensive logging and bushfires, now looks set to being fast tracked to extinction by the Baillieu Government.

The Baillieu Government wants to change the Code of Forest Practices to exempt logging from the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act. This could allow logging in areas of known endangered species habitat.

Other changes in the pipeline will let VicForests set their own logging levels as well as handing over a taxpayer funded blank cheque to VicForests to use to pay for legal cases brought against them.

The proposed changes would enable logging companies to sidestep many hard-won environmental safeguards and would send many endangered species already struggling to survive to the brink.

Creating loopholes for the loggers is unacceptable and the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act needs to be strengthened, not weakened. Premier Baillieu needs to know that this cynical political maneuver will seriously harm our forests, our wildlife, and our water catchments. Not to mention his government’s re-election chances!

The clock is ticking. Please stand up for our forests in 2012 and send the Baillieu Government a message before submissions close on 1 February 2012.

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Send a message to the Baillieu government opposing this terrible plan.

Learn more in this video update from Victorian Campaign Manager, Luke Chamberlain.

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Tags identifying the route of a new road into a High Conservation Value forest in the Weld Valley, Tasmania. Photograph: Vica Bayley

Bad things traditionally happen on Friday the thirteenth and this date didn’t bode well for the conservation agreement that could have protected critical areas of Tasmania’s native forests.

The Governments’ Forest Agreement clearly states that all logging will stop in 430,000 hectares of high conservation value forest areas. But despite the Premier and Prime Minister’s promises of protection for these unique and important forests in Tasmania, logging continues in forests of World Heritage significance.

Released on Friday, 13 January, the outcome of the conservation agreement lived up to the date’s negative reputation by failing to deliver meaningful protection for threatened forests.

Last Friday should have been a celebration of an historic milestone that protects rainforests, ancient giants and critical habitat for endangered species like the Tassie devil - but instead governments have accepted Forestry Tasmania’s business-as-usual logging in iconic forests like the Weld and Picton Valleys and Ben Lomond.

Forestry Tasmania is running rogue

Forestry Tasmania, the state-owned logging agency, continues to running amok by flouting the Government’s Agreement and planning logging and road building operations in highly controversial areas. To solve the conflict over Tassie’s forests, governments need to urgently pull Forestry Tasmania into line, ensure it works to implement their Agreement and stop it from logging areas of high conservation value.

This ‘rogue agency’ has been shown to have provided misleading information to governments and stakeholders and is bulldozing ahead with logging in places like the Weld Valley. Machines working in some areas are pushing new roads, some over 2km long, into untouched areas, opening up pristine forest that should have been protected from logging.

Fixing the conflict over forests in Tasmania will take government action to fix Forestry Tasmania. While it is running rogue, it will continue to undermine government attempts to reach a lasting resolution that delivers the meaningful forest protection agreed under the Agreement and meets expectations of the broader community.

PM needs to take control

With your support, the Wilderness Society is urging both governments to deliver on their agreement and end logging in these unique and important forests. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been in Tasmania and should have used her meetings with Tasmanian colleagues to take control of the forests Agreement and make sure logging would stop in identified areas.

The protection of these forests is a cornerstone of the Agreement. It is time for both Governments to show leadership and deliver on their commitment to protect Tassie’s forests.

All there in black and white

Clause 25 of the forest Agreement, signed in August 2011, states that:

The State will immediately place the 430,000 hectares of native forest identified in Attachment A … into Informal Reserves… - Not delivered

Clause 36 states that:

Prior to formal legislative protection of the areas of reserve identified in Clause 29, and until completion of the independent verification process in accordance with clause 20, the 430,000 hectares referred to in Clause 25 will be protected under a Conservation Agreement… - Not honoured

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• Allow logging in parks, reserves, Special Protection Zones and water catchments
• Support burning native forests for energy
• Award 20-year logging contracts (as opposed to the current five-year contracts) and provide taxpayer-funded payouts when supply commitments cannot be met
• Give power to VicForests to set their own logging levels
; and
• Use taxpayer funds to pay for legal cases brought against VicForests.

Wilderness Society Victorian Campaign Manager, Luke Chamberlain, talks here about why this disastrous new plan will do nothing to secure peace in our forests.

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Sign the Ethical Paper petition and reject paper products made from our old growth forests.

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