The civil war must continueBy FRANK NICKLASONIt is a pity that the Tasmanian Labor Party has chosen to exclude media from reporting on deliberations about the recent federal election and the Tasmanian Premier's lack of endorsement of Federal Labor's forestry policy. The Australian Labor Party's policy represented an historic shift and showed that Mark Latham was prepared to show genuine leadership on this issue. The ALP's strategy would have provided a solution which would meet conservation requirements whilst dealing fairly (and very generously) with affected workers. It was good policy and would have gone a long way towards resolving the 'civil war' which exists over this issue. In the end it was clear that Tasmanian forestry practices were not sufficiently high on the agenda of the Australian voter despite the demonstrated overwhelming support for protection of high conservation value areas and other reforms such as the banning of 1080 use. Should it have been? The conversion of large areas of biodiverse native forests to monoculture plantations is clearly an issue which goes well beyond parochial interests. It is of international signifance and of profound importance to the generations following our own. The destruction of native forests and conversion of productive farmland for plantations will be of no value to ordinary Tasmanians. It makes no sense except to a very few greedy individuals who have shown by their actions that they care little for these people or the specialness of Tasmania. Paul Lennon's assertion that he is protecting the jobs of forestry workers is false. Thousands of jobs have been lost from the industry since the signing of the Regional Forestry "Agreement" in 1997 because of the highly mechanised nature of industrial forestry and the wastefulness of clearfelling. Resource security for high value adding,labour intense industries, uch as wooden boat building, has suffered another blow with the re-election of the Howard Government and it's deceptive strategy. Add to this the impact of this style of forestry to other important Tasmanian industries and the multiple serious health risks associated poorly regulated use of dangerous chemicals and one becomes clear that the civil war must continue.
Dr Frank Nicklason
The pulp mill plan:
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