Local politicians support logging in State reserves

Before the lockdown, logging protestors walked the crowded and busy length of Emu Bay Road in Deloraine.

Photo by Wendy Miller

By Sharon Webb

State reserves close to the Meander Valley are up for logging and Meander Valley’s legislative councillor Tania Rattray has said she will support government initiatives to log them.

Local areas available for logging include the Reedy Marsh Forest Reserve, the Gog Range Regional Reserve, Dogs Hill Forest Reserve near Mole Creek, Mt Roland Regional Reserve, Caroline Creek Forest Reserve near Railton, Mt Careless Forest Reserve near Frankford and the Western Tiers.

At a Deloraine information session in March, Tom Allen from the Tasmanian Wilderness Society told 60 residents that from 8 April, State Reserves totalling 360,000 hectares are available for logging.

The session followed a march up Emu Bay Road by local and Launceston people against logging in the reserves, labelled Future Potential Production Forest by the State Government.

‘From 8 April the Resources Minister Guy Barnett can pick some reserves and offer them for logging,’ Mr Allen said.

‘High conservation value forests can be logged – areas bordering the Tasman, Douglas Apsley and Ben Lomond National Parks, the Wielangta Nature Reserve, the Styx, the Weld and the Florentine Valley.

‘Forests are our best form of climate change defence. These reserves have huge carbon values. If they were logged it would be the equivalent of five million more cars on our roads or doubling aviation emissions each year.’

As the member for MacIntyre, Ms Rattray’s electorate covers many of the timber reserves in what the government has labelled a Future Potential Production Forest Wood Bank (FPPF).

Her electorate includes the whole of NE Tasmania further south than St Marys, west through the Northern Midlands and most of the Meander Valley, including Mole Creek and as far west as Cradle Valley.

Ms Rattray said, ‘I support access and harvesting the resource required for speciality timbers products that are an important part of the timber industry. 

‘Given the challenging times that our communities, our state and our country are living through, support for a strong regulated sustainable timber industry in my view is a responsible approach.’

Minister Barnett, who also represents the Lyons electorate in which some reserves are located, said he would welcome applications to log reserves listed as FPPF.

‘The government continues to engage with the industry about the FPPF and has no immediate plans to convert the FPPF land to production forest,’ he said. ‘The legislation provides for conversion of FPPF land to permanent timber production zone lands after the April 2020 date,’ he said.

‘Contrary to recent claims, the Wood Bank is not open to harvest from April 2020.

‘Instead, the legislation outlines a specific process to allow for any application for conversion to occur after this date. This includes approval from both Houses of Parliament.

‘There have been no applications made to date.’ 

But Mr Barnett said the government would welcome logging applications in FPPF to create jobs in regional areas.

‘The Tasmanian majority Liberal Government is a strong supporter of Tasmania’s forestry industry, which contributes $1.2 billion to our economy and employs more than 5,700 people through direct and indirect jobs, many in regional areas,’ he said.

‘We have a long-term plan to rebuild Tasmania’s forestry sector after it was decimated by the Labor/Green Government lockups.’

Mr Allen said the Wilderness Society had legal advice saying that the application process Mr Barnett referred to does not exist in any formal sense.