The draft decision is at: http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2013/whc13-37com-8B-Add-en.pdf

But what the final outcome will be is unclear. It is understood that the Australian government and the environmental NGO’s will be sending delegations to lobby individual committee members to overturn the recommendation to ‘refer back’ the nomination.

Such a refer-back would enable a proper assessment of the extension and allow a change in the new Federal Government after 14 September to examine all the facts. The decision of the World Heritage Committee will be watched with interest, and a web cast of proceeding will be available to see the UNESCO delegates in action at http://www.whc37cambodia2013.kh/news/press/01/42.html

The World Heritage Committee’s recommended position next week at its meeting in Cambodia will be to send this nomination back to the state party (Australia) on the basis of concerns in relation to aboriginal heritage, management and consultation. As a mixed property that has both cultural and natural values, any proposed extension must be considered by two advisory groups, ICOMOS on cultural, and the IUCN on natural values. Cultural values include both indigenous values going back 40,000 years as well as early European settlement.

Despite the ICOMOS finding, however, and the World Heritage Committee recommendation, the IUCN has recommended the extension proceed while acknowledging it is over a 12% increase and that it includes areas not contiguous with the existing boundary.

Confusing. Yes! But such is politics at the UN.

Only last year did the IUCN describe a 10% extension the absolute upper limit for a minor boundary adjustment, it also claimed that any adjustment involving mining must not be considered as ‘minor’.

“A notional cut-off of 10% increase has generally been considered to be the absolute upper limit for a modification to be considered via the “minor modification” process, considering the Operational Guidelines clearly define such modification as having a minor impact on the extent of the property.” see http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2012/whc12-36com-inf8B2-en.pdf stated on Page 75.

Having two recommendations from its advisers that include opposite recommendations should make this UNESCO committee cautious of accepting such a controversial nomination.

ICOMOS concerns were related to the failure to properly consult the aboriginal community, the Government appears to have not only ignored the aboriginal leadership, but new neighbours represented by the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association.

Alan Ashbarry
Hobart, Tasmania

****
This is the second in a series of blog posts, the Part 1 can be found at http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/05/undemocratic-politics-again-determines-land-use-in-tasmania-alan-ashbarry/

The proposal for a “minor” boundary modification was developed by the Federal minister for the Environment, Tony Burke, as part of the outcomes of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement signed between three main environmental lobby groups and industry representatives on 22 November 2012. The industry signed up with the hope the proposal would end years of campaigning against the Tasmanian forest industry.

Photography by Jennifer Marohasy, Tasmania , May 2005

The World Heritage area has been controversial since it was first inscribed in 1982 when only 769,355 ha in size, and led to the 1983 Australian High Court ruling that the Commonwealth’s external relations powers gave it the right to prevent the flooding of the Franklin River for a renewable Hydro power scheme, not withstanding Tasmania’s constitutional land use rights.

It was the subject of the Commonwealth’s Helsham inquiry in the late 1980’s that examined the need for a further extension to the wilderness. The majority finding was overturned by the Hawke government, and a proposal adding 604,645 ha, i.e. a 78 per cent increase, was accepted by the World Heritage Committee. The extension was said by the environment Minister Graham Richardson to cement the green preference strategy to re-elect the Hawke ALP government.

Following complaints from green groups in 2008, an expert team from the World Heritage Centre, IUCN and ICOMOS evaluated the area and found no need to extend the boundary apart from some minor modifications for areas reserved since 1989, amounting to only another 23, 000 ha.*

The Wilderness Society and the ACF went to the World Heritage committee following this report with their consultant Peter Hitchcock, the dissenting commissioner of the original Helsham inquiry, to lobby for a greater extension and to overturn the expert committee’s recommendation. Hitchcock presented his report commissioned by the ENGO’s that formed the basis of their claims.

Now in 2013, as a result of the Tasmanian Forest Agreement and lobbying by the Bob Brown foundation the new “minor” boundary modification could add 172,000 ha or 12.2% to the existing 1,411,323 ha.

UNESCO’s operational guidelines do not define a percentage to be considered to be minor, but its adviser on natural values, the IUCN, told the committee last year that its rule of thumb on ‘minor’ modifications was:

“A notional cut-off of 10% increase has generally been considered to be the absolute upper limit for a modification to be considered via the “minor modification” process, considering the Operational Guidelines clearly define such modification as having a minor impact on the extent of the property.”

It should be pretty simple for the committee to reject that this massive addition that incorporates areas that are not adjoining with the existing boundary is not just a ‘minor’ modification and request that the extension be treated as significant and subject to its normal assessment rules including consultation with Tasmanians, but…

The proposal for the ‘minor’ boundary modification has been submitted by the Commonwealth government and is supported by the Green political machine and the ENGOs, many who are members of the IUCN. The committee will be aware that the approval of a minor modification in June will prevent a new Australian government in September reviewing the nomination. It will satisfy green demands for immediate lockups and could pave the way for a green preference strategy for the ALP.

The proposal for the ‘minor’ boundary modification arises from a process that will reserve more forest and reduce the size of the State’s forest industry, a process that included a Commonwealth State Intergovernmental agreement, an Independent Verification report, and a Select Committee of the State Parliament’s upper house. A process that included the intervention behind closed doors of the Greens to gain this WHA extension.

During an independent verification stage, World Heritage values for the current forest agreement were assessed by the same Peter Hitchcock that had represented the ENGOs in 2008, and in this case supervised by Brendan Mackey, who was in charge of the overall independent verification of conservation values. Mackey is a member of the Wilderness society’s Wildcountry science panel and the Australian representative on the IUCN.

Despite the Regional Forest Agreement requiring any nomination of Tasmanian forests from the dedicated reserve system, the Federal minister, Tony Burke acted to nominate the ‘adjustment’ without waiting for Parliament, consultation with new neighbours or a social and economic impact statement. Minister Burke included 49,000 ha of existing formal forest reserves as well as the massive 123,000 ha of state forest claimed for protection as part of the Agreement.

However, the State’s upper house was prepared to immediately reserve the proposed modification until they were told by the local member that most of the forest along the Western Tiers had been harvested, much since the introduction of clear, burn and sow silviculture in the 1960’s and that the independent verification report had confirmed very little of the area contained the major outstanding universal value of tall eucalypt forest. The Parliament determined that 35,000 ha be excised from formal reservation pending confirmation by the World Heritage committee on those alleged pristine wilderness old growth forest values.

The World Heritage Committee will rely on the advice of the IUCN and ICOMOS whether or not it is a minor adjustment. If accepted as minor it will be approved without consideration to the claims of its value, regardless of its actual wilderness quality. If considered a significant extension then a full investigation is required, that may give the people of Tasmania the opportunity to be part of an open and transparent detailed expert evaluation of the area and this normally takes 18 months of investigation, consultation and documentation.

The major extension may even become an election issue and allow voters to have their say.

Cinders/Alan Ashbarry
Hobart, Tasmania

* previously reported at http://jennifermarohasy.com/2008/07/no-extension-of-world-heritage-area-into-tall-tassie-forests-peter-garrett/

Note the Forest Agreement legislation passed the Tasmanian Parliament on 30 April 2013, immediately protecting 504,000 ha of state forest including the 123,000 ha that is part of this ‘minor modification’. This means 60% of all native forest (not just WHA value) will be protected. It reduces the sustainable wood supply to industry by over 40%. The Legislation has split the green political movement as it requires durability (a cessation of market protest action) and FSC Certification to be attained prior to formally reserving the majority of the new protected areas.

Further reading:

Australian Government dossier and supplementary information, Dept of Environment accessed at http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/world/tasmanian-wilderness/index.html

Peter Hitchcock, 2008, World Heritage at the Crossroads, A Review and Evaluation of Critical Forest Issues relating to the TWWHA https://www.et.org.au/system/files/userfiles/Tasmanian%20Wilderness%20World%20Heritage%20Site%20Review%20and%20Evaluation%20of%20Critical%20Forest%20Issues.pdf

Peter Hitchcock, 2012, IVG Forest Conservation Report 5A Verification of the Heritage Value of ENGO-Proposed Reserves at http://www.environment.gov.au/land/forests/independent-verification/pubs/ivg_conservation_5a_heritage.pdf

You can play the interview at the ABC Triple J website  while watching a slide show. [1]
  

The issue is ongoing conflict at a blockade in the Florentine Valley along a road that was constructed in the mid 1960’s. Until recently a protest camp has blocked the path of a new spur road to access forest harvesting areas.  The timber of the Florentine Valley, together with the Styx Valley, was granted to a consortium of media companies in the late 1930′s to create a newsprint pulp and paper mill and jobs at the end of the last world recession.

 The mill is still operating, and the forests are still harvested.  

Indeed so good has been the forest management that large chunks of the Styx and the Florentine were reserved in the 1997 Regional Forest Agreement and as part of negotiations resulting from the 2004 Federal Election.

Pictures of trees from these valleys are regularly flashed around the world by the environmental movement.
 
The green movement still want more, and are demanding that a number of coupes containing old growth forest be added to the reservation system; currently a million hectares of old growth is reserved in Tasmania.
 
The coupes will be harvested by small businesses on a selective harvest basis for Forestry Tasmania with high quality saw logs destined for local saw and veneer mills.  Pulp wood arising from the harvest will be sold as export woodchip.  The refurbished newsprint mill and the approved modern elemental chlorine free mill when built will not take these logs as they are designed to use plantation grown and young regrowth pulp wood, see http://www.forestrytas.com.au/topics/2009/01/upper-florentine-valley
 
Protesters have conducted a series of operations that has stopped work in the forest and at the export wood chip mill. 

The ABC program’s summary of the broad cast states:

 ”Protestors have been slowing progress in the Upper Florentine Valley for over two years. Tension is fierce between forestry workers and the protestors.

The stakes are particularly high for the many forestry workers that run their own small businesses contracting to Gunns and Forestry Tasmania. When work is stopped, these guys don’t get paid.”

*************

1. Stopping work in the forests, Hack, Triple J, February 26, 2009 http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hack/notes/s2502820.htm

The picture of the trunk of the swamp gum was taken in a Tasmanian forest by Jennifer Marohasy in May 2005.

It is obviously a counter to the Richard Flanagan partly scripted new movie ‘Australia’, and does show that the last tree has yet to be chopped down in Tassie.

Cheers, Cinders

An important article has been published today at Online Opinion http://www.onlineopinion.com.au by Mark Poynter.

  Mark Poynter is a professional forester with 30 years experience. He is a member of the Institute of Foresters and the Association of Consultant Foresters, and author of the book Saving Australia’s Forests and its Implications (published in 2007).

Mark’s article looks at two recent publications by the Fenner School of the Australian National University.  The first by the WildCountry Hub director Professor Brendan Mackey and colleagues that colour codes carbon and speculates that there is ten times more carbon potential in forests than a world wide estimate made almost 20 years ago.

The second report critiqued is from Judith Ajani (formerly Clark) that extensively quotes the Mackey report to argue that native forests should be used as carbon stores, and existing plantations will provide all our timber needs.

Both reports appear strongly influenced by the Wilderness Society, its political ally the Greens and an organization known as the “Greens Institute”.

So it’s worth a read and even a comment.

Comment can be made at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8094 

Cheers

Alan 

The photograph, taken by Jennifer Marohasy, shows Mark preparing for his recent presentation to the Australian Environment Foundation.

Alan Ashbarry, a Tasmanian with an interest in the social and economic benefit of value adding native forest timber from sustainable forestry and a member of Timber Communities Australia, has sent me his critique of the report.

It begins:

The report was funded by the Wilderness Society as part of its campaigns against the harvesting of native forest of high political value. This campaign includes opposing Tasmania’s approved pulp mill as it will use pulp wood from native forests at a time when the Wilderness society claims that their “carbon storage is critically important to combat climate change”.

So is it not surprising that the report recommends the banning of all industrial logging in Australia’s south eastern native forests.

This means closing down the native forest timber industry in Tasmania, Victoria and Southern New South Wales and stopping the pulp mill.

In the ultimate irony, if the industry is shut down, it is likely that Australia will import timber and paper products from tropical forests in developing counties as alternatives for the wood products created by sustainable forestry in these areas.

It is these tropical forests that are most at risk and are the target of the United Nation’s REDD program. This program aims to reduce emissions from deforestation or degradation of forests in the developing world.

According to data from the United Nations the REDD program does not target sustainable forestry in Australia.

All official statistics and reports show that deforestation has virtually stopped in Australia and all forest harvesting/ management is undertaken and measured against international criteria for sustainable management.

Unlike the Wilderness Society, the UN’s Intergovernmental panel of Climate Change (IPCC) recognises the value of our forest sector explaining:

“In the long term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks, while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit”

But what about the new report published by the ANU and funded by the Wilderness Society? How robust is the claim that un-logged native forests store three times more carbon than previously stated in Australian government reports and by internal climate change experts?

The report itself states: “A technical paper that details the source data, the methods used and the full results is being prepared for a scientific journal.”

In the absence of this data, I checked their maths and found the report also failed the common sense test.

The ANU report has used a new model to estimate the carbon in our forests, a model that is completely at odds with studies undertaken by the Australian Greenhouse Office, Professor Peter Attiwill, Forestry Tasmania, MBAC, and the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse accounting and they have significantly higher results than modelling by the Australian National University in 2003 and 2006.

The report’s lead author, Professor Brendan Mackey, who is a Wilderness Society volunteer on their Wild Country panel, last year in The Age demanded logging must be stopped to solve the global warming problem.

In The Age article he claimed “One hectare of mature, tall, wet forest can store the equivalent of 5500 tonnes of carbon dioxide” this is the equivalent of the large figure of total 1500 tonnes Carbon per hectare stored in the biomass and the soil [The conversion factor used for C/CO2 is 12/44 (0.273)].

Now this new ANU report in which he is lead author claims that forests “can store three times more carbon than scientists previously thought.”

The model used in the ANU report somewhat quaintly colour codes the carbon throughout the World: black is for charcoal, grey from fossil fuel, green is carbon stored in the biosphere, brown is carbon in “industrialised forests” and blue is carbon in the atmosphere and oceans. As green carbon is defined by the report as carbon sequestered through photosynthesis and stored in natural forests, the report can then ignore all that carbon that is stored in timber products from managed forests. This is extraordinary given that the carbon in managed forests is also manufactured through photosynthesis, yes even the carbon stored in the “brown” trees!

The ANU report selects only 14.5 million hectares from Australia’s forest estate of over 147 million hectares.
The new model created for this report relies on data of the ‘gross primary productivity’ and the report states: “The value of GPP used was the maximum annual value for the period from 1 July 2000 to 30 June 2005 (the maximum was used in order to exclude periods of major disturbance such as the 2003 bushfires).” This statement begs the question of why would you want to exclude bush fires surely this is “green” carbon.

Thus the model is all about potential not reality, and states on page 7:

“The difference in carbon stocks between our estimates and the IPCC default values is the result of us using local data collected from natural forests not disturbed by logging. Our estimates therefore reflect the carbon carrying capacity of the natural forests.”

The ANU report argues that “If logging in native eucalypt forests was halted, the carbon stored in the intact forests would be protected and the degraded forests would be able to regrow their carbon stocks to their natural carbon carrying capacity.”

Until this report it has mostly just been the forest sector that has stated the forest re-grows after harvest and can maintain both biological diversity and carbon carrying capacity.

The report authors then make a series of assumptions to determine the carbon sequestration potential of the logged forest area.

The report claims that an average carbon carrying potential of 360 t C ha-1 of biomass carbon (living plus dead biomass above the ground). It also claims the highest biomass carbon stocks, with an average of more than 1200 t C ha-1 and maximum of over 2,000 t C ha-1 are in the mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forest in the Central Highlands of Victoria and Tasmania.

These are the areas of highest political value and have constantly been in the middle of the debate about forest management for the last decade or two.

It is these figures that clearly demonstrate that the model fails basic maths and common sense. If the carbon volumes are converted to the actual volume of trees, it means that there would be trees growing on trees!
Carbon density of eucalypt wood is about 0.325 t C/ m3, this means at 2,000 t C ha-1, this is 6,153.84 m3 of wood, say 6,150 m3 per ha. If only half of this could be considered the timber available to the forest sector(exclude branches, litter, rotting wood, stumps), then this wood equates to a volume of logs of about 3,000m3/ha.
Therefore in an average coupe of 50 ha this represents 150,000m3 of log, it means based on the model that two average size coupes will produce over 300,000 m3 of log.

To compare just how big a figure this is, Forestry Tasmania has a legislated requirement to supply the whole of Tasmania’s saw milling industry 300,000 m3 of saw logs each year from the 1.5 million hectares it sustainably manages!

In 2006-07 Forestry Tasmania harvested over 11,500 ha of native forest for a harvest of 301,526 m3 of sawlog, 283,880 m3 veneer and peeler hardwood and 2,136,687 tonnes of pulpwood. By approximating a tonne of pulp to 1.5 cubic metre this would be about 330 m3 per ha or 16,500 m3 per average coupe.

Even The Wilderness Society used a completely different figure of only 225 tonnes pulp wood per hectare, when calculating the impact of the approved pulp mill on Native forests. Even allowing for harvesting residues this is a tiny fraction of the new model’s figures.

The report fails the common sense test but it was published by a reputable university and has been given all the credibility of an independent scientific report by the mainstream media including the ABC.

The Wilderness Society and the ANU chose to release the report to the media rather than first publish it in a scientific journal subject to peer review. Now the report is likely to be used to lobby the United Nation committee that current forest practices degrade the forest. This lobbying attempt is just after their failure to convince UNESCO over wild allegations about the Tasmanian World Heritage Area.

Until the data and the calculations supporting this report have been subject to full independent scrutiny, the reports status must be considered just another claim in the ‘war of words’ on forestry.

Alan Ashbarry
Tasmania
www.tasmaniapulpmill.info

———————-
** The report’s title is rather long: Green Carbon: The role of natural forests in carbon storage
Part 1. A green carbon account of Australia’s south-eastern Eucalypt forests, and policy implications
Authors are: Brendan G. Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra L. Berry and David B. Lindenmayer
Published by: The Fenner School of Environment & Society, The Australian National University
And you can download it from: http://epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon/pdf_instructions.html

The bank developed the policy over the last few years in consultation with its customers and stakeholders.

The policy demands that its customers when engaged in the forest industry must meet extensive criteria including independent environmental certification and the protection of high conservation value forest. Forestry must be legal and not be undertaken in World Heritage Areas, National Parks and conservation reserves.

In terms of high conservation values the policy looks at international and national definitions. High conservation value forest is not defined by lobby groups such as the Wilderness Society or by the forest industry but by a fully open and transparent process. In Australian identifying HCV forest has its roots in the 1992 National Forest Policy Statement, defined in what is known as the JANIS criteria, and implemented by the Regional Forest and Community Forest Agreements.

In terms of sustainable practices, ANZ will engage customers involved in large scale forestry activities to advocate credible sustainable forest management (SFM) certification. However, the bank acknowledges it is the customer’s choice on which internationally recognised certification scheme is adopted.

Forest certification schemes provide a way of defining sustainable forest management as well as third party, independent verification that a timber source meets the definition of sustainability. Certification schemes include a mechanism for tracing products from the certified source forest to the end use.

A number of certification schemes operate throughout the world. Operating in Australia are:
• Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
• Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)

So it’s a bit surprising that our national broadcaster The ABC is running claims from the Australian Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) that ANZ’s new forest policy is too broad. And that “the bank’s new guidelines on providing funding for forestry and timber processing projects lacks detail.”

The FSC in Australia is run by a board of Directors including representatives from Timber Workers for Forests, Timber Communities Australia, The Wilderness Society, Australian Conservation Foundation, Friends of the Earth, Paperlinx, Timbercorp, Integrated Tree Cropping and one independent. It is chaired by Sean Cadman, the National Forest Campaigner of the Wilderness Society.

The other certification scheme is the Australian Forest Standard that is part of the PEFC. Its Board comprises 10 Directors, with representation being four from government, three from the Forestry and Wood Products Sector, one Employee Representative, one General and up to two Independent members, one of whom is the Chair of the company, currently Geoff Gorrie.

In light of these schemes it is difficult to understand the motive of such criticism by the FSC, perhaps it is due the inclusion of a competing scheme by the Bank or perhaps it is due to fact the Wilderness Society is currently targeting the ANZ bank about the Tasmanian Pulp Mill?

In Tasmania, Forestry Tasmania, Gunns Ltd and Forest Enterprises Australia have been externally certified as complying with the international standard for environmental management systems (ISO 14001) and have also been externally certified against the Australian Forestry Standard (AS 4708) rather than the FSC.

Gunns Ltd has received Commonwealth and Tasmanian approval to build a pulp mill to value add woodchips that would other wise be exported from forests covered by the Regional forest Agreement.

Alan Ashbarry
Website: http://www.tasmaniapulpmill.info/home
About: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001252.html

They did so after the developer, Gunns Limited, published an Integrated Impact Statement comprising 7,500 pages of social, environmental and economic analysis representing a planning investment of more than $11 million and in excess of 350,000 hours of research, study, modeling and reporting.

A report that was debated examined and generated even more studies, reports and media attention.

Yet despite this, the general public throughout Australia is being asked to oppose the mill.

The latest campaign is to rally against the ANZ bank because the pulp mill will “be a disaster for climate change, It will be 80% native forest-based”.

This is despite the IIS and the shed full of additional information showing that the majority of timber used during the mill’s life will be from plantations (64%) and that the reports detail that over 1 million tonnes of CO2 emissions will be saved each year in reduced shipping and the generation of renewable power.

With the passage of time, much of the information is hard to find, so a new web site has been started to look at the claims being made in the Media and to get to the facts behind the headlines. The Web site will link to a range of reports and information on the Mill and Tasmania’s sustainable forest management.

You are invited to bookmark my new web site http://www.tasmaniapulpmill.info/home and visit it regularly as it will be updated frequently. If you have a question or issue that you want more detail, there is a contact section.

Alan Ashbarry
Hobart.

Rudd and Garrett have been warned that the preference deal stitched up by Richo with the greens came at a huge cost to the Nation including “Two of the most noticeable Labor government pay-offs were the banning of a promising mining project at Coronation Hill, an area located within the boundaries of Kakadu National Park but in reality a patch of rubbishy wasteland, and of a paper pulp mill in southern Tasmania, opposed by a NIMBY coalition including hobby farmers who joined Bob Brown’s burgeoning state Green party temporarily to push their interests:.:

The Australian Article quoted warned that the ALP must not fall into the same trap.

Now on the ABC’s 7.30 report told of how former Liberal leader John Hewson thinks “Turnbull’s mad not to just set up an inquiry that kicks the issue off the election agenda.”

He of course is referring to Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull, in effect he is urging John Howard’s Liberal Government to do a “Richo” when the ALP “killed off “ the Wesley Vale pulp mil just before the 1990 Federal Election. By doing so according to the Institute of Public Affairs he created sovereign risk and economic hardship in Tasmania.

Let’s hope Minister Turnbull will take notice as the greens will never give their preferences to the Liberal National Party coalition as their state aim for this election is to defeat the Government.

Of course the 7.30 report couldn’t resist the misty vision of the Tamar Valley to portray it as ‘wonderful, beautiful wine growing area, wonderful sort of tourist area, and so on’. They did not show that the proposed mill is to be located in Tasmania’s largest industrial estate.

But perhaps that just par for the course for the National Broadcaster on the 5th of July they claimed the pulp would taint fish (http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200706/r148708_526664.asx) that featured vision of scallops being caught when the ABC was aware the vision was from 1999. That the fact scallops had not been caught in Bass Strait west of Flinders island since then is confirmed in public government /fishing industry reports.

More myths are flying about but will history repeat itself?

Cinders

The Federal court confirmed today that the Assessment of Tasmania’s proposed pulp mill was fair and reasonable and that the public had ample opportunity to state their views.
A Federal Court judge rejected the claims by the Wilderness Society and a group calling itself Investors for Tasmania’s future and dismissed their application to overturn the Commonwealth assessment process.
The Federal Court was asked to review two decisions made by the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment and Water Resources.
The first decision was to make the mill a controlled action in relation to threatened and migratory species and Commonwealth Marine Waters. The second decision was that the relevant impacts of the proposed action be assessed on preliminary documentation (eg all the documentation created under the failed RPDC process, including the Draft Integrated Impact statement, Peer reviewed reports, Supplementary information and 700 odd public submissions that had been gathered since 2004.)
The Wilderness Society made the following allegations:
• there is no valid referral of the proposal to support either decision;
• in making the first decision, the Minister misconstrued the EPBC Act, failed to take into account for the potential adverse impact of sourcing timber from Tasmanian forests to supply the pulp mill;
• in making the first decision, the Minister failed to consider whether the pulp mill would have or is likely to have a significant impact on the environment on Commonwealth land;
• the Minister misconstrued and/or misapplied the EPBC Act in making the second decision;
• in making the second decision, the Minister denied members of the public interested in the assessment procedural fairness;
• the second decision is invalid because it is affected by apprehended bias in the Minister;
• the second decision involved an improper exercise of power by the Minister; and
• the second decision was manifestly unreasonable.

The Investors appear to have also alleged that the Minister took into account Gunns’ commercial imperatives in making his decision.

The Federal Court rejected all allegations.

This means to me that the Assessment approach and decisions leading to it are valid.
The Judge was satisfied that the Minister acted in accordance with the Law, with fairness and without bias in making his decision on the assessment process that was demonstrably reasonable.

That there is no need to assess the impact of the mill on Tasmanian forests as these and the species of flora and fauna are protected by the Regional Forest Agreement.
That is was entirely appropriate for the Minister not to consider Commonwealth land. In relation to World Heritage Values the green groups did not even raise this as an issue, thus claims to UNESCO that WHA will be impacted are clearly unsubstantiated.
.
Many people in Tasmania have been concerned about the process of assessment since the developer withdrew from the RPDC assessment in February, some 2 years three months after the start of the “18 month” assessment. However much of the challenges raised with the Federal Court would have applied to the RPDC process, in fact one member resigned due to a claim of bias by the Greens.

The decision now means that Tasmania can get on with the assessment process and have a decision by both the Federal Minister and the State Parliament based on the scientific evidence.

Copies of the Federal Court’s Judgment are available here.