In a joint media release yesterday, Federal Environment Minister, Senator Ian Campbell and Member for Braddon, Mr Mark Baker, launched the Forest Conservation Fund (FCF), under the $250 million Tasmanian Community Forestry Agreement.
The stated objective of the FCF is to protect up to 45,600 hectares of forested private land, targeting old growth forest and under-reserved forest communities, of which there will be a minimum of 25,000 hectares of old growth forest and up to 2,400 hectares of forest in the Mole Creek area.
Private landholders have been invited to tender for support for the long term protection of old-growth and under-reserved (under-represented on publicly-owned) forests on their lands, through mechanisms that include covenants and conservation management plans.
An additional $3 million boost for Tasmania’s ecotourism industry was also announced, with $1million earmarked to develop bushwalking and related infrastructure in the Tarkine area and $2 million for forest-based tourism infrastructure, including for forest reserves created under the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement.
Tourism grants in the range from $100,000 to $500,000, are open to application from groups including tourism operators, local councils, land managers and conservation groups, as well as from private individuals.
Tasmanian conservationists have congratulated the Federal Government for its funding of eco-tourism in the Tarkine forest but are also urging the Government to consider the Tarkine for World Heritage listing.
The Minister agreed that the area is of high conservation value and advised that it is being assessed for National Heritage listing, with the assessment verdict due in another six to 12 months. World Heritage listing would be considered once the Tarkine is on the national heritage list.
Cinders, a regular contributor to this weblog, offers the following local perspective:
The Federal Minister for the Environment, Ian Campbell visited north west Tasmania on Wednesday 10 January to make two announcements that confirmed promises made in the 2004 Federal Election to provide a ‘final balance between reservation and production of Tasmania’s native forest.
This is yet another chapter in a long running dispute created by the green movement with the help of successive Federal Governments. A story started by a grant to the Tasmanian Conservation Trust by the Australian Heritage Commission (AHC) in the 1980s to document the National Estate Values of Tasmania’s north west Forests. Peg Putt, now parliamentary leader of the Tasmanian Greens was the TCT Director that received the grant. Many other prominent greens were associated with the project, including Sean Cadman who was a co author of the chapter Botany, in Harries, D.N., (Ed.), 1992; Forgotten Wilderness: North West Tasmania. Sean who is now with the Wilderness Society, was also the consultant engaged by the AHC to assess the merits of the application for listing of the area as worthy of the National Estate.
Sean was also the one who advised the AHC to rename the area the Tarkine. A word which was a truncation of the English word Tarkinener that approximated for the name of the Aboriginal Group that lived near Sandy Cape. The AHC many months later sought the concurrence of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre.
As part of the Liberal Federal Election promise massive reserves were added to the substantial existing reserves that surround the Savage River open cut mine. The most contentious was the pipeline corridor for the iron ore slurry running northwards from the mine to the North West Coast. This area had been planned for long rotation selective harvesting for deep red myrtle a highly priced specialty timber used for craft and furniture making.
The area is numbered 25 on the above map.For the last 25 years the green movement has claimed that tourism not forestry is the answer, the Federal Government by allocating up to three million dollars for the bush walk and other tourism infrastructure, has challenged the advocates of forest reservation to now “put up or shut up”
The challenge is can the ‘Tarkine’ be a wilderness tourist haven, can the green movement build on the tourist business that already exists based upon the Arthur and Pieman rivers, the Savage River Mine and the many old mining and timber towns that are scattered through the area. Can it be integrated with the Dismal Swamp that is already a draw card? Will we see log truck drivers re-employed as tourist bus drivers, harvesting crews as tour guides etc?
In the WWF plan for tourism presented to the Federal Government prior to the 2004 election, the WWF planned to use the “road to nowhere” a coastal road running between the Arthur and Pieman rivers to drop off and collect tourists. It would be ironical if this road was used as it was the scene of protest where both Greens leader Bob Brown and the Executive Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation were arrested trying to stop its construction.
It is interesting how the green movement has reacted to the challenge of creating a viable tourism business; it seems their first reaction is to demand more reservation (450,000 ha in lieu of about 350,000 ha) and National Heritage listing followed by World Heritage Listing. Perhaps this is part of the marketing plan. However getting “bums on seats” business planning might be just as beneficial, rather than a detailed administrative process that may take a couple of years.
Something needs to be done as the Savage River National park created by the 1997 Regional Forest Agreement due to it “being the single largest area of unburnt and unfragmented rainforest remaining in Tasmania” has visitor numbers so low that they are not even recorded.
A detailed baseline and monitoring system as well as a management plan for the area needs to be established before public money is handed over in the hope that “we will all have jobs in Tourism”
Cinders
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
What this is all about is ringing the RFA till every ridge and valley is either on or off their timber extraction limits and that’s pathetic in this enlightened age.
When Cinders says “A detailed baseline and monitoring system as well as a management plan for the area needs to be established before public money is handed over in the hope that “we will all have jobs in Tourism” I think he and the TCA are still be looking backwards at a passing era where everything associated with wood chip and timber production in Tasmanian native forests both public and private could be taken for granted. However I do not wish to be provocative and there are other directions as this latest announcement signals.
Other readers may be aware that the map Cinders tendered highlights only remnants of once heavily forested old growth region as still intact. I know what’s missing because I lived and worked round the region for years including places like Savage River. Major mill operations in all areas gobbled the rest, much of it post ww2.
For an interesting diversion from the discussion above ABC ran an interesting segment on 7.30 “Classical guitarists turning to Tasmanian timber”
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1820643.htm
The last time I saw King Billy pine being cut was at Duncan’s saw mill in Zeehan. Their raw timber was being rapidly salvage from the vast Pieman Dam site (hydro electric scheme) in the now submerged Heemskirk Falls area. The last time I found King Billy in Melbourne was when I stripped dulux of a battered but heavily paneled antique front door in the 1960’s
If any landowner is gullible enough to enter into any sort of “partnership” with such conspicuous shonks then they will most certainly deserve all the contempt that their children will, inevitably, hold them in.
The first duty of any parent, after feeding clothing and educating their kids, is to secure their inheritance. And there would not be too many landholders who would voluntarily place their capital base at the disposal of some of the most venal scum on the planet.
There will, no doubt, be the odd token “Mcfarmer” who will supplement his off farm job with a bit of eco-welfare while trumpeting his modest achievements to anyone trapped into listening.
But most will understand that “the Devil’s 20 pieces of silver” will ensure that Bob Browns goons will be regularly surveilling your assets for the appropriate opportunity to convert them to their own ends. It will be like sharing your house with a junkie. The only thing more certain than the prospect of the TV and Stereo going missing is the certainty of his alibi.
Caveat emptor.
In common law, Helen, to demand a heritage agreement as a condition of consent is nothing less than extortion and expropriation.
And they wonder why farmers laugh when they say; “trust me, I’m from the government”?
My advice to any landowner with old growth forest is to flatten it. And if you cannot flatten it, then you have the next 30 years to ensure that the impacts of every adverse climatic cycle are lasting while every beneficial effect is short lived.
The landowners who once kicked a weed away from a seedling in a paddock should now kick away the seedling because you can always spray the weed.
Oppressive scum should never be allowed to derive a benefit from fraud, deception and injustice. You owe it to your kids to ensure that they inherit a society where oppression is not rewarded.
And only undertake regeneration effort on your own terms, when there is absolutely zero doubt that your rights and property are respected, and will remain so.
Remember, NO NET GAIN FOR SPIVS!
Further to Ian’s comments, that “goons” will be surveiling landowners assets for the appropriate opportunity to convert them to their own ends, this has happened before. I can quote from our own experience, in South Australia. And we were just one property.
Our original clearance application was over regrowth, for enough cropping land to be viable. Our property was only 10% cleared arable. The Native Vegetation Branch recommended for part consent (40%), subject to us entering into a heritage agreement (private conservation agreement) over the remainder of our application, plus all of our land between the application and our southern boundary. It was a huge heritage demand. The benefit of increasing our cropping area to 15% arable would have come no where near offsetting the huge financial disadvantage of losing so much of our established grazing enterprise. We had to object, so clearance consent was refused by the Native Vegetation Authority.
The Native Vegetation Branch then asked us , on behalf of the Native Vegetation Authority, to negotiate for a clearance consent / heritage agreement compromise. We agreed to negotiate. But financial assistance to manage the significant conservation assets in the undeveloped area between our original application area and the sea was not available until that land had been refused clearance consent. In good faith we submitted a ‘clearance application’ to cover this embarrassing adminstrative glitch, and to help negotiations along.
Clearance consent over this land was refused as intended, opening up the way for compensation over it. The Branch promptly withdrew support for clearance consent for us, and would only support heritage agreements.
The conflict then centred on whether we were exempt to maintain grazing in our regrowth country. Eventually a conciliator determined that we met every condition for exemption, and Branch failure to recognise the nature of our original application had resulted in serious income losses for us.
The Native Vegetation Authority recognised our exempt status and recommended a ‘hardship payment’ of part of those income losses. Then “The Authority furter determined that any payment should be part of a package involving a heritage agreement…”. We were stunned.
Our letter, asking for some explanations was intercepted by the Branch Manager, and withheld from its addressee, the Chairman of the Native Vegetation Authority. Another shock. The we were told, from three separate authorities, one our MP, that if we did not accept the package offered, we were at risk of having land taken from us by a third party conservation agency. With that third shock we collapsed.
So after five years of negotiation run around we signed a heritage agreement under pressure, without clearance consent. As we picked up the pieces, I started to ask questions, but that is another story.
My message to Tassies unlucky enough to own targeted land, as we did, is that you are on your own. Time and trickery are against you.
Freehold land in the Daintree was also earmarked for special purpose conservation and visitor facilitiy/infrastructure funds, to the tune of $23million.
Fearing misappropriation of these funds to conflicting state government interests, my company fought hard for inclusion. However, the committee directed to oversee the allocations was dominated by state government interests.
Under the pretence of cooperation, grants were offered to successful applicants on the condition of a default clause that allowed the state to liquidate the land to recover debts.
As it was impossible to anticipate every possible contingency, the condition was insupportable.
The funds were subsequently channelled onto privately-owned lands that had been strategically acquired by the state, developed as freehold properties in accordance with the grant objectives and then gazetted into NP at a later date. Certainly, they were never managed as private-sector services with user fees.
I should have also said beeyond the four paragraphs it took me to summarise, took over two years of hard negotiations during which time the administrators were paid handsomely for their professional services, while landholders were paid nothing. In the end, the state govt’s evironmental lawyers admitted that their clients seemed opposed to resolution.
Neil: That’s the price of independence hey
Thank you Gavin for your intelligent and appropriate comment. Sadly, I have to agree with you.
Helen: A comment from NSW Rural Fire Commissioner Phil Koperberg as he retreats from dutied to campaign for a seat and the ALP reminded me of our responsibilities post 2003 and it’s not about consolidating more bits and pieces for national parks anywhere in Australia. He said “the 2003 Canberra bushfires left an indelible imprint on his memory”.
In the first place it’s about finding enough people to keep the fires down in the height of the bushfire season. In the second place it’s about recovering some of the timber we might have had for our 20/20 vision and it’s not a job for a string of feuding academics or policy people. Farmers and their ‘volunteers’ know what’s possible in most cases.
From my current draft on a string of issues relating to our fresh water “Biodiversity & Sustainability”; both buzz words have become part of the modern environment management planning jargon to the point of being new fads as opposed to consolidation of good land management practice. This comment has nothing to do with the other blog thread but has a lot to do with the ACT – NIMBY-factor.
See ACT Natural Recourses Management Plan 2004-2014
Purism and idealism have no rightful place in our practice either as we evolve better strategies through mutual agreement on conserving the best of what we have today for the future.
We use the trees most suited to first stage of drought and bushfire recovery in our catchment areas. If necessary a combination of willows, blue gums and pines or lucerne, wattles and any other scrub that can be grazed off after a suitable period of root development.
Established agricultural practice that works in the short term like contour ploughing should be reconsidered over and over as we pull back from what we thought was the brink. AT this moment it all comes under a heading of “Goats in the ACT”
After more recent damage from flash flooding I’m adding a paragraph on dozers and creating old fashioned “log jams” in valleys suddenly subjected to forest clearing.
Helen: Log jams in forest clearing operations something I first saw a lot of in NW Tasmania. Feeding back into their RFA is another project. Given the hopeless old fashioned land and forest carve up these current offers are probably not the thin end of a wedge. More likely some land owners can cash up on (or in) useless rugged blocks that are unlikely to be accessible even to the timber industry in the short term.
Switching back: I made my original comment Helen thinking the die is well and truly cast at federal level.
NB: Gunns too have some rough stuff they may wish to get rid of near Hellyer Gorge for instance.
What Helen has described is not “pressure” but, reather, “Duress”. And if any commercial company engaged in such practices over the transfer of land they would be in serious breach of the Trade Practices Act.
And some may recall that this piece of legislation was introduced by the Whitlam government, with no significant reform by subsequent ones.
It introduced a number of consumer protection measures that had previously been available under common law but it came with the extremely novel concept that consumers did not need protection from the predatory and unconscionable activities of government officers.
Well one might say, beware of Geeks bearing gifts.