Tasmania should be a world leading, globally responsible state. Our forests are internationally renowned and the Tasmanian Greens’ Forest Transition Strategy shows how, by taking pride in this profoundly significant heritage and emphasising our natural advantages, our forests can also contribute to building a clean, green, clever economy and create an employment-rich, non-conflictive forest industry.

Tasmania’s remaining native forests are valuable for their own sake, but they are equally valuable to this and all subsequent generations as an important component of the ecological processes which sustain human life, as a habitat for many native species, as a protection for our soils and clean water supplies, as a sink for greenhouse gases, as the centrepiece of our tourist industry, as a resource for recreational, cultural and spiritual pursuits, and as the basis for a range of commercial activities.

Past and present governments have given preference to wood production over all other uses. The Greens do not accept this. We uphold the integrity of forests in their own right, after which we prioritise ecologically sustainable and beneficial forest industries such as tourism, honey production, photography, music, other arts and crafts, and the manufacture of high value ‘specialty’ timbers products.

It is unacceptable that exemptions from planning laws and provisions in other legislation waives the application of ecologically sustainable objectives and removes the wood production industry from planning and community oversight.

The wood products industry can be divided into two sectors: native forest logging and plantations. The Greens will intervene to protect the environmental values of native forests, end massive woodchip exports and expedite the transition to using established plantations for value-adding and job-creating ventures. This transition is not dependent on extending plantations. The current problems with plantation establishment and management regimes include the use of hazardous chemicals, the impact on water tables, the insulation from community controls, and the low-value use for pulp.  These are all matters which the Greens will redress.

Measures:

Administration: end exemptions under law for forestry practices; bring Private Timber Reserves under a reformed planning system; ensure that Forestry Tasmania and other relevant bodies are open, accessible and accountable to the community; restructure Forestry Tasmania to end conflict of interest; strengthen a reformed Forest Practices Code through a properly constituted Environment Protection Agency; ensure royalties cover costs of production and maintenance of the resource, give a good return to taxpayers, and encourage transition out of native forests (with the exception of specially managed Specialty Timber Zones, see below); regulate for Forestry Tasmania to pay municipal rates; ensure that Tasmania’s public forests remain in public hands and are not privatised through joint venture or other arrangements; ensure that maximum value-adding and local processing are essential criteria for wood allocation; ensure government purchasing policies are in place for environmentally preferred paper products and that compulsory targets for waste paper recovery are met

Forest Protection and Promotion: protect all native forests of high conservation value by establishing a comprehensive, representative and extensive native forests reserves system based on public lands; ensure the protection of forest ecosystems on private land where necessary;  protect biodiversity, wilderness, water, soils, old growth, endangered species, karst, scenic, aesthetic and recreational values;  support forest-based tourism, taking advantage of forest protection;  maximise retention of native vegetation on public and private land, including urban forests and skyline protection; increase forest cover through restoration forestry on degraded and cleared land

Native Forests: shift to higher value-adding from lower volumes of timber through the creation of new Specialty Timber Zones outside reserves;  cease industrial scale woodchipping;  make provision for other users, including leatherwood honey production;  require immediate substitution of regrowth logs from areas outside reserves to cover transition from high conservation value forests while plantation wood comes on line;  withdraw legislation requiring forestry to provide  a minimum of 300,000 cubic metres of eucalyptus sawlogs a year

Plantations: end the conversion of native forests into plantations; investigate and remedy problems with current plantation practice; expand domestic processing of plantation product, encouraging a more diverse range of processing ventures and the creation of new jobs;  transfer the skills and experience of the plantation sector into areas where significantly higher volumes of sawlog and pulpwood can come on line; provide finance for retooling mills to process plantation sawlogs and for plantation management training to maximise sawlog and veneer production

Maximising Timber Value:  preference veneers and engineered or manufactured timber products as opposed to products which are price-taking, undifferentiated commodities such as woodchips or pulp; promote the environmental and commercial advantages of timber recycling and reuse

Worker Support and Sustainable Communities: support workers through all phases of any industry transition, including up-skilling and retraining;  provide Industry Development Assistance to production which is environmentally benign, and which encourages stable employment and viable rural communities