A quarter of a century ago, national public outcry over the proposed destruction of Tasmanian wilderness in the Franklin River helped bring down a Federal Government. The lessons of history ignored, today’s politicians, again on the cusp of a federal election, are set to give the go-ahead to another controversial and damaging industrial development in Tasmania, against the people’s wishes and in the face of overwhelming public outrage.
Over 25,000 GetUp! members have sent their individual submissions to Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, urging him to deny approval to the proposed Gunns pulp mill in the Tamar Valley, north of Launceston. The figure is an impressive counterbalance to the weight of Gunns' potent political influence, and accordingly the Minister has further
delayed decision on the matter to diffuse the political heat he is feeling.
Gunns argues that the mill will meet 'world class' environmental standards and provide a significant boost to the Tasmianian economy. To ensure its position as the “world’s greenest pulp millâ€Â, Gunns demands continued access to old growth forests for the next 30 years. This is the rhetoric; a mixture of economic logic and environmental placation.
The reality however is that many remain unconvinced by Gunns’ pitch. There are a number of salient environmental concerns attached to the proposed mill which highlight the ecological reprehensibility of the project. Its sheer enormity, for example, necessitates a vast consumption of wood. The Centre for International Forestry Research contends that a mill with an annual capacity of 1 million tonnes requires approximately 4.5-5 million cubic metres of wood – around 15 per cent of the total annual timber harvest of the Amazon. This factor makes a let up in the clearfelling of Tasmanian forests unlikely, a practice which not only reduces hectares of ancient trees to piles of smouldering ash but also produces levels of air pollution which antagonise respiratory conditions and lung cancer in local communities. However it is not simply humans that bare the brunt of plantation fall-out. Local wildlife, including devils, bandicoots and potoroos technically sanctioned by their endangered species category, are often brutally poisoned in order to stave off the decimation of plantation saplings.
Furthermore, it is suggested that the plant will guzzle up to 26 billion litres of water per annum, dumping around 30 billion litres of effluent into the Bass Strait. According to The Wilderness Society, such effluents will invariably contain dioxins and furans which build up within the marine food chain, leading to diseases and reproductive abnormalities in fish, with such mutations also having detrimental effects on seal and dolphin populations. These developments are unlikely to compliment Tasmania’s burgeoning wine and tourism industries, nor its prominent fishing trade. What emerges is the systematic eradication of biodiversity in Tasmania’s pristine flora and fauna.
Aside from these disturbing conservational revelations, there lies the issue of state and federal compliance in a way which flouts the integrity of democratic process. A
damning essay by Richard Flanagan (which prompted Geoffrey Cousins'
intervention into the debate) exemplifies the heavy hand of Gunns in manipulating the government – or
gunnerment, as it is perjoratively termed. Both Howard and Rudd have publicly acquiesced to the demands of the wood-chipping industry.
Rather than see a decline which would bring the state more closely in line with the rest of Australia, Tasmania’s forest-logging practices have been granted the greenlight to accelerate. Laws have been altered in order to accommodate lax environmental standards, assessments have proved increasingly shoddy, and there appears no guarantee that wood-chippers will have to answer to anyone but their shareholders. As Flanagan states: “Tasmania has mortgaged its future to the wood-chipping industry, which is today dominated by one company: Gunns Ltd. And it is Gunns – not the Tasmanian people – that has been the beneficiary of the destruction of Tasmania’s unique forestsâ€Â.
By allowing the construction of Gunns’ proposed pulp mill in its current form, not only will Australia be forcing yet another nail into the coffin of our country’s environmental future and condoning the corporate gambling of an exhaustible public resource, but will also sanction practices which eradicate the voice of dissent and encourage the corporate policing of Australian governance.
September 1st, 2007
Gunns have controlled the Tassie 'gunnerment' for decades - no opposition is forthcoming from the TAS Lennon government, and without public pressure like this campaign, the federal government would follow suit. How can Turnbull and the PM ignore these 25,000 public submissions? I'd like to know if they've ever recieved more on a similar inquiry!
Anyone who's been to Tassie will know that there is some of the last areas of pristine old-growth forests in the world. I amreminded of a poetic and flowery anti-graffiti sign i once saw on a Chinese monument: "One act of carelessness leads to eternal loss of beauty". After decades of the Green movement (which was born in Tasmania after a similar dispute - the Franklin), have we learnt nothing of the destructive tide of unchecked development?!
Anyone who speaks out against Gunns is pilloried. Well they've got a lot of work on their hands with these 25,000.