Conservationists vs. Forest Loggers in Tasmania

Correspondent: We did ask if the minister in charge of forestry could answer these
points but he was unavailable. In a recent interview from Australian TV
program he said that whatever concessions are made to the greens they are
never satisfied. Already 40% of Tasmania is officially protected and that’s
8 times Switzerland with a single land mass but what the others say will
always tell you is there just a third of that protected area is covered by
trees. The rest is grassland and bare rock. This is no day within struggle
between environmental campaigners and the logging interest.

Andrew Scott: It has got to be said that if we haven’t had their influence in the decision
making process that obviously human nature being as it is we wouldn’t
have moved to the position that we now adopt as an industry. If we didn’t
have that honest to make sure that we did the right thing we probably
being humans we probably wouldn’t have got to standards we are today.

Correspondent: Andrew Scott gave up farming 16 years ago to become a contract
logger. He says he has seen most of the cowboy practices go by the way
side and that’s the result he says of green pressure. The conservation lobby
is well organized. They give as good as they get. This patch of forest was
destined for a clear fell. In the last ditch effort to save it a group of activist
got the local forest in Tasmanian manager to visit the site with them.

Erica Ford (Investors for Forests): As we’ve heard this wasn’t aim the suitable for pulp
wood so why the hell knock it down.

Correspondent: Clearly the message got through because later we learned that the
decision to log had been reversed but the activists are not content and it is
7% of the unprotected forest has been logged they’re fighting to safeguard
what remains that includes 60,000 hectares of cold temperate rainforest
and this is where it’s coming to ahead the –valley an 90 minute drive from
the capital city Hobart.

As with the Franklin River protest the campaign to save the trees here to
catapult Tasmania back into the international headlines have 120 meters
the tallest tree ever found grew in Australia. The last stronghold of the
tarring Eucalyptus is in the sticks. Definitely rename the valley of the
giants by the wilderness society. It’s pressing for 15,000 hectares to be
declared a national park.

Senator Bob: This probably was a robust youngster in the forest in 1642 when – there on
the west coast of Tasmania and was mature joined in the forest when
captain cook arrived over 100 years later. As it is it was logged just a
couple of years ago shattered. The wood chips from the top of the tree
have been sent to Japan put through a paper mill gone into the paper cycle
and will by now have ended up in a land fill.

Correspondent: To try and get Australians interested in the faith of the giant trees
in the wild life that depends on them the wilderness society is buzzing in
visitors in Christmas 1999 it hung out 3,000 solar powered fairy lights on
one of the tallest trees. The lights still come on every night.

Wood chip exporters in Tasmania about 115 million U.S. dollars every
year California earns 2/3 as much from the tourist who come to see the
redwoods. Outside the million reserves we found that there was no
slowing down in the felling.

Senator Bob: This is in part of handkerchief reserve of about 10 or 20 hectares forest of
Tasmania is keeping the biggest trees in small reserves. There’s a problem
with that. The rest of the forest is cut down and the next storm belting in
that bike and spice hits into the reserve and belts the tree and its actually
knocking the top.

Correspondent: Out there in the path of the Chainsaws maybe the tallest flowering
tree in the world. The activists are trying to find it before the loggers an
entry in the Guinness book of records with all the publicity that would
bring might save their valley of the giants but they’d better hurry. The
irony is that Tasmania’s wood chip exports maybe doomed anyway on the
mainland and in South African Latin America vast industrial eucalyptus
plantations producing high quality fiber for paper making will soon flood
the market, native forests provides poor quality fiber.

Male: The worry for those in Tasmania’s high quality timber industry is that the
most useful rainforest species will soon be exhausted.

John Young: At the moment it looks pretty dicey I mean the area of the type of forest
from which top pine example comes in this part of Tasmania has been
halved in the last 6 years and if that rate will decrease continues. There
weren’t be any left for the future, for future after you know the next 20
years or so. It will all be gone.

Correspondent: John Young is the founder of a boat building school aimed at
keeping the traditional craft alive.

John Young: In a way when people who requires timber work have the kind of reason
the salvage between conservation in one hand who would really prefer this
type of forest not to be logged at all and the forestry commission and the
general forestry industry which wants to clear.

Correspondent: Owen Muskett is a fifth generation saw mill of high quality
veneers. This seems to have no doubt that the old great forest have been
managed to sustainably by the state governments. He is competent that
there will be a plentiful supply to insure that his sons will carry on the
business.

Owen Muskett: It’s fantastic that I have gone through and worked out at how much
can actually prices each year and that’s still happening is a price is the
material prices in you know they’re always continually looking at there
are ways that they are learning into that process.

Correspondent: About 1/5th of the state has United Nation’s World Heritage status.
It’s impossible for a first time visit to not to – this place and not to feel for
reasons of sound ecology and economy as much as possible should be
safeguarded. Despite doubling wood chip exports since 1997 and having a
land clearing riding a poverty stricken tropical forest nation the Tasmanian
government believes it is leaving enough forest for a future generation to
decide.

Hans Drielsma: If we left this forest now for 400 years of course we would get that
back so it’s really question for our children for their grandchildren to
decide how they will use this forest in the future but all the species are
here.

Peg Putt: Tasmania is just the most fabulous jewel we’ve got these incredible areas
of untouched wilderness that just stunning in their beauty and their range
of ecosystems and everything that’s there. We do have love them
protected. It has been as a result of a long and bitter years of struggle by
the conservation movement but there’s more it’s just as fabulous it’s a
treasure for the whole world.