Hooray!!
It’s time to break out the champagne!!
In a rare show of forest-policy commonsense the Tasmanian Government has apparently accepted the umpire’s decision and abandoned plans to log special timbers (including Tasmanian blackwood) in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (TWWHA).
News reports just in say the UNESCO recommendations will be accepted but that the Government was still committed to supporting the [special timbers] industry.
Here’s the Tasmanian Governments announcement on the UNESCO Report:
http://www.premier.tas.gov.au/releases/monitoring_mission_report_on_the_twwha
Here’s the single recommendation in the UNESCO report regarding logging the TWWHA and some worthwhile comments from the UNESCO Mission:
Recommendation 2
The State Party should confirm an unambiguous commitment that the property is off-limits to commercial logging in its entirety, and fully reflect this commitment in the Management Plan for the whole of the property.
The mission would like to put on record that it considers the interests of the special species timber sector per se fully legitimate and by no means excessive. Despite the regrettable lack of conclusive data, the mission finds it difficult to imagine that resource security could not be achieved in the vast forest estate available for logging outside of the TWWHA. While a mixed World Heritage property, recognized for globally significant cultural and natural heritage, is not the place to experiment in the view of the mission, there is every reason to further discuss and test sustainable forest management elsewhere in Tasmania in less polarized fashion. The political support to the special species timber industry should be channelled to areas available to commercial logging outside of the TWWHA, while fully considering that there are areas outside of the TWWHA, which are likewise of the highest conservation value, including in the Tarkine area. New approaches to manage the desired species can draw on longstanding research conducted in Tasmania and a growing body of knowledge about the ecology of the species (UNESCO, p. 13).
The concept of “outside the TWWHA” should include commercial private growers.
Here is the link to the UNESCO report:
http://whc.unesco.org/en/documents/140379
To see my many blogs on this issue go here:
https://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/?s=UNESCO
So now the State Government is faced with developing a Special Timbers Management Plan with next-to-no public special timbers resource.
http://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/forestry/special_species_timber_management_plan
What will be the next political play?
Tasmanian blackwood has been and will continue to be the backbone of the special timbers industry, and the only Tasmanian special timber species with the potential for a profitable commercial future on private land.
Will the Tasmanian Government and Parliament now look to a different future for the special timbers industry or will politics continue to reign supreme in Tasmanian forest policy?
Review of the DRAFT Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area Management Plan 2014: Director’s report and representations
The Tasmanian Planning Commission (TPC) has just released the TWWHA Managememt Plan 2014: Director Report and Representations.
http://www.iplan.tas.gov.au/Common/Output/TrimWS.aspx?id=811538&ext=PDF
With UNESCO emphatically ruling out it out the issue of logging special timbers in the TWWHA is now dead and buried (at least until the next management plan review).
Timber Harvesting is discussed on pages 11-12 of the TPC report.
However the TPC is clearly confused. It interpreted my representation as supporting special timbers logging in the World Heritage Area!!
Ok! Maybe I didn’t explicitly say NO!
Maybe I was too analytic and not emphatic enough.
https://blackwoodgrowers.com.au/2015/02/10/draft-twwha-management-plan-representation/
So let me make this perfectly and emphatically clear –
In no way do I agree that the Draft Plan “allow[ed] the management of Tasmania’s unique special species timber for sustainable production within legislated categories of reserves …[whilst] not compromising the Outstanding Universal Values for the TWWHA”.
I do NOT support any special timbers harvesting in the TWWHA!!
I just wanted to clear that up and leave no doubt in anyone’s mind.
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Posted in Commentary
Tagged special timbers, Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area