By Catherine Brown
"The same woodchip shadow from Daishowa in the NSW south-east forests is creeping further and further north. It is now threatening the integrity of parts of the Deua wilderness near Cooma. There seems to be an insatiable demand for woodchipping. If the flat-earthers have their way, we'll lose the remaining wilderness — there's only 4% left in NSW — forever. We have to draw a line and say stop, no further", says Tom McLoughlin, the Wilderness Society's NSW campaign director.
Of the 4% of large intact unfragmented wilderness areas in NSW, only 2.5% are forests. The habitat requirements of many rare and endangered species depend on these areas. Due to the failure of federal and state governments, irreplaceable wilderness areas are being destroyed.
The National Forest Policy Statement (NFPS) signed by the federal and mainland state governments in December 1992 has not protected old growth forests or wilderness areas. The lengthy process that led to the statement was described by Sid Walker, of the Nature Conservation Council, to Green Left Weekly.
Due to strong pressure from the environment movement in 1989, the Labor government — "very sneakily", says Walker — gave assurances that if re-elected it would take on board conservation views. But it gave no firm pledges of action.
After Labor's re-election in 1990, the forest issue "was fed into extremely lengthy investigative processes". First, the Resource Assessment Commission evaluated options for the future of the forests and the forestry industry. This was followed by the Ecological Sustainable Development process, and finally by the National Forest Policy Statement.
The NFPS is itself another three-year process, with the declared goal a reserve system by the end of 1995. "The interim protection of areas under review by the NFPS is crucial", points out McLoughlin. "You obviously can't go and do your assessments, develop criteria and then decide which areas are essential for biodiversity, old growth forest values, wilderness values, if you are cutting them down at the same time."
Yet with the document signed a year ago, "nowhere around the country is there a moratorium, and we are already a third of the way into that period of time". Walker says, "I can't think of a single instance where the federal government has intervened to see that the NFPS is implemented faithfully to protect forests.
"We still don't have an agreed criterion for reserves; we are not even very close to getting it. In NSW not a single assessment process has kicked off in the last year, and there's only two years to go."
TWS campaigned for NFPS to include power for the federal government to coerce the states, in the hope of protecting wilderness areas under review. McLoughlin says even parts of the environment movement felt TWS was too uncompromising, too radical in not supporting the NFPS.
"Since then the rest of the movement has recognised that we were absolutely right. What we said at the time is still true now."
Yet there is other legislation the Keating government could use to protect wilderness and old growth forest areas, points out McLoughlin. Under section 51 of the constitution, the federal government can regulate the activity of corporations, including the timber industry or incorporated government operations. There are other powers under the World Heritage Act and the Australian Heritage legislation, plus the new federal threatened species legislation. "So the power is there", says McLoughlin.
Having experienced years of broken Labor government promises on the environment, TWS is extremely critical. "In the last federal election, TWS did a careful analysis of both political parties and couldn't see any difference between the federal ALP and the Coalition parties. Our slogan in the campaign was 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee wouldn't act to save a tree'. So we didn't endorse either."
The federal government's control of woodchip licences is another means whereby old growth forests could be protected prior to a decision on the reserve system. This is particularly the case in the south-east forests of NSW.
On October 29 the upper house of the NSW parliament rejected the South East Forest Protection Bill, leaving the way open for more extensive woodchipping of old growth forests there.
Later this year the Daishowa woodchip export licence covering the south-east forests and the Deua wilderness is up for renewal. "The cancellation of the licence is crucial, as 85% of wood production in the south-east doesn't go to sawmilling. It goes to the highly mechanised woodchipping operation. Nationally only 2% of the timber industry is employed in the woodchipping operation, yet it takes 60% of the wood production.
"It is an ecological scandal. It should be a political scandal, but none of the political parties seem to be prepared to address the problem", argues McLoughlin.
Native plantation wood provides better quality woodchips than native forests do. The Private Forestry Council of Tasmania acknowledged this in 1990, yet still advocated the use of old growth wood:, "It is imperative that as much of the remaining private old growth pulpwood resource as is available for sale is marketed over the next fifteen years whilst market acceptance of this comparatively low commercial quality wood is relatively high."
TWS argues for a transition strategy: thinning out regenerated native forests, phasing out such use by the end of 1995 and then switching to the quarter of a million hectares of hardwood and softwood plantations in the ground now in NSW. The big companies like Boral and Daishowa are hoarding their plantation assets, and the state forestry commission is allowing them to do so at the expense of wilderness and old growth forests.
Not only is the timber industry allowed to destroy irreplaceable wilderness areas; it is given additional government handouts in the form of free logging roads. These are often particularly expensive because they go into pristine forests. TWS has estimated that taxpayers subsidise the woodchip industry $10 per person a year.
The North East Forest Alliance is campaigning for federal and state governments to implement the NFPS along the northern NSW coast. High quality forests, including old growth, are being targeted by the woodchippers before they've been assessed for reserve status.
The Daishowa woodchip export licence in Eden, in south-east NSW, was the first granted in Australia, in the early '70s. "In a sense that is where the woodchip industry battle is most entrenched", explains Walker.
The timber industry projects itself as the main employer in the south-east. In reality it is dwarfed by the tourist industry and agriculture. There are 500 jobs in the timber industry including 100 at the woodchip mill. That's 5% of jobs in Eden and Bombala shires.
With the defeat of the South East Forests Protection Bill, Walker argues the test for the federal government will be whether it signs a 1990 agreement with the NSW government to place in national parks only those forest areas unwanted by the timber industry, or whether it enforces the NFPS.
"If the federal government agrees to sign this rotten deal, then clearly all those key conservation commitments in the NFPS will not be worth the paper they are written on", argues Walker.
"In a certain sense, the ambush by the state government of that symbolic south-east forests legislation is going to have quite a healthy effect on the environment movement generally", says McLoughlin. "There have been criticisms that we've become too bureaucratic, that we've got sucked into bureaucratic processes by the federal government. Now we are going to go back to our real support base at the grassroots level, the community mobilisation."
A broad alliance of groups has been formed to plan actions. "The time has come to get back to big public meetings and rallies in the streets, peaceful protest and resistance", concludes McLoughlin.