BUSH BASH
By SIMON BEVILACQUA
18jan04
TASMANIA'S forestry industry has promised to take the fight up to conservationsists in a fiery national debate.
The industry will wage a multi-media attack to counter last week's high-profile Spirit of Tasmania III protest.
The counter-attack comes as the Tasmanian forestry debate assumes national proportions.
Federal Labor leader Mark Latham sparked hope for environmentalists when he said he would tour the Tasmanian wilderness -- putting himself at odds with Tasmania's pro-forestry Premier Jim Bacon.
Activists like Wilderness Society co-ordinator Geoff Law hope the Federal Government will end the debate like it stopped the Franklin Dam in the 1980s.
Articles critical of the forest industry have appeared in all major Australian papers in recent weeks.
Television crews and newspaper reporters are making regular trips to Tasmania to cover the debate, including the ABC's Four Corners program, The Sunday Telegraph and The Financial Review.
The Sunday Telegraph last week ran an editorial calling for an end to clearfelling of Tasmania's ancient forests.
"Clearfelling in Tasmania has become an international news story, and the damage to Australia's reputation as a clean, environmentally responsible nation is serious," it said.
An article in The Bulletin by author Richard Flanagan has ignited a passionate national letter writing campaign.
And now Aussie celebrities Olivia Newton John and Jimmy Barnes have called for the destruction of Tasmania's native forests to stop.
etc, etc...
The full link:
http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8422515%255E921,00.html
The leatherwood sting
By SIMON BEVILACQUA
18jan04
CLEARFELLING of native forests has cut the heart out of the commercial leatherwood honey industry in southern and north-western Tasmania, says the Tasmanian Beekeepers Association.
The beekeepers say the leatherwood industry has been reduced to little more than a hobby in the south.
"It's simple, forestry has clearfelled the leatherwood trees, they're gone," Beekeepers Association president Julian Wolfhagen said. "If it keeps going at this rate the commercial industry will be gone."
Beekeepers have been fighting to secure their industry resource for years in face of massive clearfell forestry operations. Until recently the major push has been from beekeepers in the south.
Beekeepers state-wide have now fallen in.
The beekeepers have huge concerns over forestry operations in the North-West where the commercial leatherwood industry has been cut in half.
etc, etc...
The full link:
http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8420195%255E3462,00.html
Where have all the flowers gone?
By SIMON BEVILACQUA
18jan04
BEEKEEPER Robbie Charles can remember when he and his father used to run 800 hives within 20 kilometres of their home.
That memory goes back 20 years.
Today, Mr Charles says, he has to drive at least 2-1/2 hours with his hives to find enough leatherwood trees for his bees.
"They've logged the guts out of it around here," he reckons.
Mr Charles lives at Mawbanna, near Smithton on the North-West Coast. He has been beekeeping since a boy when he used to go out with his dad, Rube.
"Dad was crying out for them to save leatherwoods all those years ago and no one ever listened," he said.
"He protested all his life to get some of it saved."
The full link:
http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,8420194%255E3462,00.html
PLUS:
EARLIER ...
The Eleventh Hour
The Discover Tasmania News service has run an anonymous contribution
which claims the rising Aussie $ is the final nail in the coffin
of Southwood...
DOUBTS OVER SOUTHWOOD
Everything's fine ... What the Premier told Nippon Paper
http://www.nipponunipac.com/e/news/whatsnew031211.html
The issue debated ...
RAPID RESPONSE EMAIL: What do you think?
If you bounce,
tuffinlindsay@hotmail.com
Sunday, January 18, 2004