This statement was released by the Huon Valley Environment Centre on January 23. Click here for more information.
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The Wilderness Society today announced it would be travelling to Japan accompanied by staff of the controversial [Malaysian] timber company Ta Ann, to lobby customers and secure its international markets.
Huon Valley Environment Centre’s Jenny Weber said: “Our forest advocacy organisation does not support the visit by The Wilderness Society to Japan to meet with Japanese customers of Ta Ann. This misguided delegation to Japan by The Wilderness Society is being undertaken without a stick of forest being protected in Tasmania and without any certainty that the Legislative Council will install industry reforms to move forestry in Tasmania away from a reliance on native forest destruction.
“Logging is still happening inside the proposed reserves and no new reserves have been created yet. Ta Ann’s Tasmanian product is still coming from proposed reserves where the forests have extraordinarily unique conservation values. This is not acceptable to the market.
“Environment groups providing environmental credentials for an industry [that] continues to provide a controversial wood product is not okay, while forests remain unprotected and logging continues unabated, this endorsement is putting the cart before the horse. The logical and reasonable approach in anyone’s book would be to provide a green tick to forestry in Tasmania once its practices have actually changed. This cannot happen while native forest is clear felled, biodiversity is lost and Sarawak timber mafias are driving the destruction.
“Our campaign has been to inform the Japanese customers of their controversial wood supply by Ta Ann and request Ta Ann and their Japanese customers to cease receiving timber from the destruction of Tasmania’s forests.
“Our opposition to this tour of environment groups endorsing Ta Ann is about companies being rewarded for a legacy of environmental destruction and human rights violations overseas before there are any changes made by the company to halt their controversial practices.”