The Wilderness Society has clarified its position on the Gunns pulp mill, telling a public forum in Hobart it is implacably opposed to the mill proposed for the Tamar Valley.
Wilderness Society spokesman Vica Bayley told the Hobart Town Hall meeting last night that his organisation would never approve the contentious pulp mill, regardless of any future changes to its design or operations.
He said the “corrupted” approval process for the mill made it forever unacceptable.
The strong statement followed a week of internal disputes within the local environment movement over the role of environmentalists involved in the Kelty round-table forest peace deal with the industry.
Anti-pulp mill campaigners and Tamar Valley residents last week feared the Wilderness Society, Environment Tasmania and the Australian Conservation Foundation were prepared to approve a more environmentally friendly Gunns mill as part of a deal to protect 550,000ha of high-conservation-value public forests.
Forestry Tasmania chief executive Bob Gordon said on Friday the proposed mill had to proceed, with the imprimatur of the three key environmental organisations involved in the talks, if a forest-conflict solution was to be found.
But Mr Bayley emphasised last night that the Wilderness Society would never approve the Gunns mill or allow it to be part of any future forest peace talks deal.
His new tough stance coincided with further splits emerging yesterday between Tasmanian environmental groups over the failure to halt logging in all high-conservation-value forests in an immediate moratorium.
The Still Wild Still Threatened organisation and the Huon Valley Environment Centre slammed the axing of a moratorium due to start yesterday that would have halted all logging in high-conservation-value forests.
The two groups held demonstrations outside the Government’s Executive Building in Hobart yesterday, calling for the promised moratorium to be implemented immediately.
Huon Valley Environment Centre spokeswoman Jenny Weber said the deal agreed to last week by the three environment groups engaged in the Kelty round-table talks did not protect Tasmania’s ancient forests.
Mediator Bill Kelty announced on Friday that 550,000ha of forest identified by environmental groups would be protected for the next six months.
But the deal allows Forestry Tasmania to log these forests before September if necessary to meet existing wood supply contracts with customers such as Gunns and local sawmillers.
Ms Weber called the arrangement a “fake moratorium”.
Greens leader Nick McKim said: “It’s not a full moratorium and while you are still logging, it could be argued you don’t have a moratorium at all.”
