Conservationists Lose Battle Against Tasmanian Pulp Mill

Conservationists Lose Battle Against Tasmanian Pulp Mill



October 2007

 The Australian government 
today gave the go-ahead for construction of a $2 billion pulp mill on the 
island state of Tasmania that conservationists have been fighting for 
months. Gunns Ltd. company will build the mill at Bell Bay in the pristine 
Tamar Valley. 
Annoucing the decision today, Minister for the Environment and Water 
Resources Malcolm Turnbull said the government is imposing "the world's 
toughest environmental conditions on the proposed pulp mill in Tasmania's 
Tamar Valley, including independent scientific and environmental 
monitoring." 

He said the government's decision was based on a report from a panel led 
by Australia's Chief Scientist Dr. Jim Peacock that said, "the panel 
accepted that the proposed mill was likely to conform to world's best 
practice." 
The government set 16 conditions relating to the management of effluent 
from the pulp mill, including stringent levels which if exceeded will mean 
the mill must close until such time as an advanced effluent treatment 
process that produces high quality water is put in place. 
Maximum dioxin levels in the effluent discharged from the mill will be 
required to be almost four times more stringent than world's best 
practice. 
And 17 conditions were set relating to the protection of both listed 
threatened and migratory species, including measures to protect the 
Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle, the Tasmanian devil, fur seals, whales, 
dolphins and rare native vegetation. 
But these conditions and others imposed by the government do not satisfy 
the Australian Greens, who said in a statement today, "The big parties 
have behaved shamefully by giving approval of this polluting mill and its 
destructive impact on forests and the marine environment. They've fallen 
far short of the mark we should expect of governments and potential 
governments on the environment, and the electorate will be reminded of 
that all the way to election day." 
Australians will soon go to the polls. Although the exact date of the 
election has not yet been announced, it is expected to take place in 
November or early December, with 33 to 68 days' notice. 
One of the most vigorous opponents of the mill is Greens Senator Bob 
Brown, who represents Tasmania. "Gunns pulp mill will have a forest 
furnace attached to it, which will burn 500,000 tonnes of forest wood per 
annum, next to a pulp mill which at the outset is going to have 80 percent 
of its resource stock of native forests," Brown said in a speech last 
month. 
"In other words, they are going to create a massive factory to burn the 
carbon banks or chemically break up the carbon banks now sitting there in 
the Tasmanian valleys and mountains holding back climate change, and they 
are going to promote the transformation of those great saving forests into 
an added hit on the global climate change phenomenon," Brown said. 
Turnbull said the government is imposing an unprecedented number of 
conditions on the mill. "In the draft recommendations of my department 
released in August, 24 conditions were imposed on the proposed pulp mill," 
he said today. "In response to Dr. Peacock's advice, the number of 
conditions has now been doubled to 48." 
The Wilderness Society, a community-based environmental advocacy 
organization, said today that the guidelines "fail to adequately address 
the concerns of Tasmanians about the damage this mill will cause." 
On August 9, The Wilderness Society's court case against the federal 
government and Gunns Ltd was dismissed on all grounds. The group filed an 
appeal five days later, which has not yet been heard. 

 
On Sydney's Bondi Beach Wednesday, the Wilderness Society unveiled a huge 
banner reading," Stop the Pulp Mill." 
"The decision is further evidence of a flawed assessment process that will 
result in extensive damage to Tasmania's native forests, waterways and the 
health of people living in the Tamar Valley," the group said. 
Gunns' pulp mill will consume four million tonnes of wood a year for 
pulping and burn 500,000 tonnes of wood to generate power every year. 
"At start-up, 80 percent of this will be sourced from Tasmania's 
irreplaceable native forests," the Wilderness Society mourned. "Areas 
including the Great Western Tiers, North-East Highlands and Ben Lomond 
will be clearfelled to supply wood to Gunns' pulp mill." 
"The approval means not only will our marine environment be polluted by 
64,000 tonnes of effluent every day, but logging of native forests for 
Gunns' proposed pulp mill will see over 10 million tonnes of greenhouse 
gases released, further driving global warming," the group warned. 
More than 11,000 people rallied in the northern Tasmanian city of 
Launceston on June 16, in a showing of community opposition to the pulp 
mill proposal. 
"It is unthinkable that in the 21st century, a government would condemn 
these wild places of endangered species habitat to be logged and turned 
into pulp. Yet, this is what has been approved by Malcolm Turnbull's 
decision," said the group. 
Australian Forests Minister Eric Abetz said the decision has been made and 
it is time "for all fair-minded Tasmanians to accept the science and end 
the division over this issue." 
 
"Today's approval of a world's best practice pulp mill at Bell Bay, 
following rigorous analysis by Australia's best scientists, is great news 
for Tasmania," Abetz said. 
"It would be fair to say the result was not necessarily as Gunns would 
have liked it - requiring the toughest and most costly standards anywhere 
in the world," he said. 
He called Greens and Wilderness Society opposition "predictable." 
"The fact is," sneered Abetz, "a pulp mill in Tasmania could emit fresh 
air and spring water and they would still oppose it." 
Senator Brown said the Greens would support a pulp mill which met the 
following conditions:

  No native forests, totally plantation-based wood source and no further 
  expansion of the plantation estate 
  Not a Kraft (sulphur-based) pulping process 
  Totally chlorine-free bleaching sequence 
  Closed loop (recycled effluent) 
  Should have a paper machine as part of the process to maximize jobs and 
  wealth creation 
  Must have the support of the local community
  
"The mill itself should become truly world-class, non-polluting and based 
on existing plantations so that no further destruction of native forests 
is involved," Senator Brown said. 
Opposition environment spokesman Peter Garrett, the former lead singer of 
the band Midnight Oil, and leader of the Australian Conservation 
Foundation, has been silent on the Gunns pulp mill decision. 
Senator Brown says Garrett has given voters no choice between the Howard 
Government's Liberal Party and Garrett's Labor Party by backing with the 
government's decision to approve the Gunns mill. 
"Peter went missing and lost his nerve, his backbone," said Brown. 
The Australian Conservation Foundation, ACF, said today that Turnbull's 
decision to approve the Gunns pulp mill is "a tragedy for Tasmania's 
forests and the marine environment of Bass Strait." 
"Mr. Turnbull has imposed 48 conditions on the mill, but the minister's 
decision leaves Tasmania's high conservation value forests and marine 
environment with dozens of new problems," said ACF Forests Campaigner 
Lindsay Hesketh. 
"The conditions do not stop Tasmania's old growth forests being logged to 
feed the mill, with the accompanying destruction of biodiversity and the 
release of around 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gas polluting carbon 
dioxide each year," said Hesketh. "The conditions do not stop toxic 
effluent being dumped into Bass Strait." 
"A world's best practice pulp mill is closed-loop, chlorine-free and fed 
by plantation trees," he said, "not old growth forests." 

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