By Rachel Evans
MELBOURNE — Environmentalists have been sharply critical of the federal government's decision to renew 11 woodchipping company licences on December 22. The renewals came despite organisations such as the Wilderness Society and Friends of the Earth lobbying the government to protect 500 areas of native and old growth forest.
Environmentalists recommended to environment minister Ros Kelly that 500 areas be saved. Only 50 of these were recommended by her to resources minister Michael Lee, who secured only 16 areas of forest. Most of these are within the Batemans Bay region, near Kelly's Canberra electorate.
The environmental lobbyists had recommended securing areas including the threatened karri forests of Western Australia, the ancient rainforests of Tasmania's Tarkine wilderness, the World Heritage value Huon Valley and the mountain ash of East Gippsland. Woodchipping will continue in all of these areas under the renewal of the 1994 licences.
Environmental Youth Alliance spokesperson Lachlan Anderson said, "It's a disgusting show of politicians' lack of concern about the environment. Woodchipping only accounts for 2% of the timber work force but accounts for 45% of wood volume: it's an industry that is unviable in both the environment and job sense.
"Not only are they going against people's wishes (85% of Australians want the timber industry out of our native forests and into their own plantations) but they are going against the National Forest Policy statement, signed by all states except Tasmania, which proposes a moratorium on the logging of forests 'likely' to have 'high conservation value'."
The Wilderness Society, Friends of the Earth, the Democrats and Greens (WA) are among the groups to come out against the renewal of the woodchipping licences.
Among the woodchipping giants to have their licences renewed is Harris-Daishowa, the main company woodchipping East Gippsland's forests. The Harris-Daishowa licence entitles it to 900,000 tonnes of woodchips, 20,000 of that from East Gippsland.
There has been a summer-long East Gippsland campaign, organised by the East Gippsland Forest Alliance. EGFA has 12 aims including:
- to stop export woodchipping;
- to support an ecologically sustainable timber industry;
- to highlight the fact that governments and most of the timber industry are not acting in the interests of timber workers;
- to promote the establishment of a transitional policy for a diversified and viable regional economy.
The alliance is made up of the Wilderness Society, Concerned Residents of East Gippsland, Friends of the Earth, Environmental Youth Alliance and concerned individuals.
The campaign organised a successful Forest Festival on November 25-29, attracting 300 people from all over Australia to discuss actions to stop export woodchipping in East Gippsland. The festival organised the largest protest ever held in Victoria's forest on November 29, at an old logging coupe.
The ongoing forest protests have varied from tripod actions alongside human blockades of roads, to claiming areas of old growth with Christmas ribbons. Actions in the city have attempted to raise awareness around the issue of woodchipping and involve the Melbourne community in actions to defend old growth forest.
The Environmental Youth Alliance action on December 18 attracted 50 people in a loud, vibrant march down Melbourne's city streets.
One of the highlights of the campaign has been the concerted effort to build links with timber workers and to counter the efforts of establishment media to portray irreconcilable differences between workers and environmentalists.
The interests of timber workers are very much akin to those of environmentalists, Tiffany Drake from the Friends of the Earth Forest Network told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly. "We can't just walk into an industry and tear it up. The large woodchipping companies are ripping off workers as well as ripping out precious old growth.
"Woodchipping is highly mechanised and doesn't create a lot of jobs, so it's in both workers' and environmentalists' interests to create a timber industry with more jobs and less destruction. The woodchipping industry in East Gippsland only has 5-10 years left. We're proposing an end to woodchipping; no logging in old growth and possible areas that could be high value old growth; value adding, which is putting more value into the wood that is logged; and an end to down-grading."
There has been debate within the campaign around the question of worker liaison and solidarity. According to Fenella Barry, media spokesperson from the Wilderness Society, the main aim "is to destabilise the industry such that they are aware there will never be resource security in native forests, and if they want security they should move into plantations or grow their own" (the Age, December 22).
John Pierce, Melbourne Wilderness Society campaigner, said, "We have to face the fact that the woodchipping industry is dying. In five years, it's perceived to be on the cards, workers are going to be unemployed. The government and industry have to face up to it. They've had their chance to restructure the industry to be environmentally sustainable and haven't taken it."
This vision has not impressed the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, which blockaded the TWS Melbourne office. The CFMEU claimed an end to native forest logging in East Gippsland was anti-worker, as it meant an end to the industry itself.
Martin Daley from the FoE Forest Network explains: "You can't have a timber industry without native forest logging. Providing an alternative to the timber industry is a social question, based on providing a long-term solution and overall plan for the timber industry.
"We can have a timber industry with minimum destruction. There are ways of increasing employment in the timber industry, with reducing volume of wood taken out and value-adding. Of course we need to protect the areas that haven't been touched, but make areas that have been harvested before available for timber harvesting. If we call for the elimination of the timber industry in East Gippsland, then it will just move to a Third World country."
Lachlan Anderson concluded, "EYA feels it's important to understand the large multinational woodchipping companies are the ones doing the damage. Workers are simply employed (and exploited). They are also important allies: if timber workers go on strike, then woodchipping in East Gippsland will stop.
"The cooperation within the Alliance has been good. However, for the campaign to move forward, we need to address the question of a sustainable East Gippsland timber industry. The different groups need to come together to discuss these questions and initiate united action."