BY GEOFF FRANCIS
HOBART — Tasmania's Huon Valley has a population of only a few thousand people, but it is set to become the scene of one of the largest environmental struggles in this state since the campaign against the Franklin Dam in the 1980s.
The valley's precarious environment is already at risk from the clear-felling of old growth forests and the uncontrolled spread of plantation timbers. But now Jim Bacon's Labor government wants to build a massive $100 million, 46-hectare woodchipping complex and wood-fired power station in the valley and a deep sea water port for woodchip export, at Electrona in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel.
The project has already dubbed "Woodchip Wonderland" by residents. Locals would be subjected to woodchip trucks thundering past their homes at seven minute intervals and fear the local eco-tourist industry would be wiped out overnight.
Introduced marine pests could also spell death for the burgeoning aquiculture industry and for the marine life reserve at North West Bay.
Bacon and his deputy, resources minister Paul Lennon, have set up a front organisation, a division of Forestry Tasmania with the innocent-sounding name of Southwood Resources Huon, to promote their grand plan.
Southwood's glossy brochure carefully avoids even the word "woodchip" and insists the project is for an "Integrated Timber Processing System". Forestry Tasmania's massive TV and press advertising campaign similarly avoids any reference to woodchipping.
The company does admit however that the site will use at least 300,000 tonnes of timber a year for woodchip, and another 300,000 for the power station. Even if the promised saw and veneer mills are built, independent experts calculate that no more than 3% of the estimated 800,000 tonnes of wood to be processed each year would be recoverable as sawn timber.
No mention is made of how the 25 or 35 or 45 project's megawatts of electricity output (depending on which Southwood document you read) is to be fed into the state's power grid or where the necessary overhead high voltage pylons will be routed.
Rather than falling for government attempts to get them to squabble over the different "options" for port and road locations, Huon Valley residents are presenting a united front. At a succession of consultation meetings held throughout the valley, hundreds of angry residents have been turning out to voice their total opposition to the scheme.
Neil Cremasco of the Concerned Residents of the Upper Huon told Green Left Weekly the whole consultation process was fake and unnecessary. He said that, at a series of public meetings throughout the valley, including Jim Bacon's "Tasmania Together" forums, the public has already voiced its overwhelming opposition to woodchipping, time and time again.
"They're coming to our areas and telling us what's good for us", said Cremasco, "without going through a proper and independent consultation process".
As yet, the real forces behind Bacon's Woodchip Wonderland remain unidentified. The official government line is that they are proposing only to make the site "investment-ready". Then and only then, residents are told, will it start thinking about finding companies interested in moving in.
On October 18, however, the Tasmanian government announced that South Korean timber processing company Sam-O intends to invest in the Southwood mill. While conceding that planning approval had not been granted, deputy premier Paul Lennon strongly endorsed the proposed mill, saying that all approvals should be finalised by the middle of next year.
"This whole debate gets down to two conflicting philosophies", said Cremasco. "On the one hand we have industry and the government, which appear interested only in profits at any cost. On the other, there's a growing sense of community and knowledge that there's more to life than wrecking our surroundings for a quick buck."
The only remaining legal hurdle is official council approval. Despite public pressure, this will probably be granted.
But, as opponents of the scheme consider where to from here, more and more are starting to believe that the only force that can stop this project is a sustained campaign of direct action by the community.