Response to “Time for clear goalposts on Gunns plan” published in The Age 20th September 2007

Basic, irrefutable facts are too often overlooked when the community becomes absorbed in a public controversy, particularly when that controversy occurs on the eve of a Federal election. And politics and science are uncomfortable bed-fellows, as the debate over the proposed pulp mill in northern Tasmania demonstrates.


Your correspondents, Wintle and Bekessy, based their call, for a careful consideration of the potential long-term impacts of the proposed Tasmanian pulp mill on threatened species, on several false assumptions.

First, despite Wintle and Bekessy’s assertions, the establishment of the pulp mill is not intended to, and will not in fact, lead to any increase in the harvest of native forest.

Tasmania harvests around 5.0 million tonnes (Mt) of regrowth and plantation eucalypt pulpwood annually, which is used to supply two existing pulp mills and the export woodchip market. Woodchip export accounts for over 4.8 Mt, alone sufficient to supply the needs of the pulp mill, which we understand is planned to use 3.2 Mt initially, with a capacity to increase to 4 Mt over time. A review of future eucalypt plantation production recently released by the Australian Government’s own Bureau of Rural Sciences projects future Tasmanian pulpwood production at 4 Mt per annum.

We can be quite definitive about the position in respect of Tasmania’s public native forests, as a detailed review of sustainable wood yields has recently been completed and published. Over the next 15 years, pulpwood production from eucalypt plantations will significantly increase while pulpwood production from native forests will fall. Allowing for the continuation of production at no more than the rate established and maintained over the last 10 years, the review shows the overall growing stock (i.e. the “capital” in the forest) is undiminished for the next 90 years.

Another important element of this analysis is that the broad age structure of the forest estate is also maintained over this period, including the proportion of mature forest (that more than 110 years old).

Forestry Tasmania seeks to extract and sell timber on a sustainable basis, and the pulp mill will have no bearing on our calculated sustainable future production levels. This is important in further considering whether it is necessary or appropriate for the mill assessment to consider forest harvest effects.

As part of the detailed assessments that preceded the signing of the Regional Forest Agreement between the Commonwealth and Tasmania, the environmental effects of forest management and harvesting were considered and the necessary environmental approvals and “permit” conditions were incorporated into that agreement. It is on the very basis of these approvals that the pulp mill proposal has been possible. The Commonwealth has already exercised its powers, and there is no necessity, nor effect, in the Federal Minister considering these issues again, as they will have no bearing on the planned harvest strategy.

This begs the question: how can Wintle and Bekessy call for a new review into the pulp mill’s effect on wildlife, when there is to be no change to harvesting plans?

Wintle and Bekessy rely on a study carried out by the University of Melbourne in 2002. This study, commissioned by Forestry Tasmania, examined a number of forest management scenarios for north-eastern Tasmania and used a model to predict that the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle would experience an increased risk of local extinction. The 2002 study showed that the 11 species selected for study have different habitat requirements, all respond to forestry differently, and none is a good predictor of any other. The eagle is a top predator and a landscape species, an icon worthy of special attention and with special requirements - but clearly not a good predictor of 10,000 to 50,000 other species as claimed.

This model is currently being reworked in a continuing collaboration with the University of Melbourne, correcting algorithms and assumptions about forest harvesting activities and their effect on species. Neither the 2002 model nor the incomplete updated model make precise predictions about extinction for the eagle. Rather, they indicate the qualitative sensitivities of species to management. Indeed, even the current model does not incorporate many changes to forest management implemented since 2005 under the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement and subsequently. The recent revision of the model does nevertheless provide managers with a clearer picture of issues to resolve in achieving a truly sustainable basis for ongoing activity, including the need to manage production forests for future eagle nest trees. These issues will continue to be progressed.

The suggestion by Wintle and Bekessy that Forestry Tasmania has not adequately responded to these studies is puzzling, even setting aside the ongoing efforts to clarify the results of the model itself.

Since the study was first reported, there have been several significant shifts in management. An additional 178,000 ha of oldgrowth forest was protected in conservation reserves as a result of the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement. That agreement also provided for a shift in forest silviculture to variable retention techniques which better retain biodiversity habitat within harvested landscapes. This initiative has been actively progressed and is the subject of a major scientific review which includes an international conference “Old Forests, New Management” to be held in Hobart in February 2008 under the joint auspices of Forestry Tasmania, the International Union of Forest Research Organisations and the CRC for Forestry. The use of 1080 as a poison (implicated by some in reduced eagle fecundity) has been eliminated from State forests, as has the conversion of native forest to plantation. Each of these management changes bears directly on elements incorporated into the modelling, and together they provide a basis for significant improvement in wildlife management.

Further than this, Forestry Tasmania has significantly enhanced its protocols for reducing disturbance to nesting eagles. Forestry Tasmania spends more than a quarter of a million dollars annually to identify eagle nests on State forest and establish whether they are active, and works closely with State conservation authorities to determine whether activities near nests could disturb breeding eagles. Forestry Tasmania staff have located most of the 536 known eagle nests on State forest, and have established reserves of at least 10 ha around each of them. Forestry activities are kept at a distance of at least 500 m, or 1 km line-of-sight, of active nests during the breeding season.

Forestry Tasmania has a strong commitment to sustainable forest practices. A healthy and sustainable forest is after all the foundation of our business, and we invest significant financial and human resources into seeking the right balance of productive activity and environmental protection.

We will continue to strive for this goal, whether or not a pulpmill is built. There is however little doubt of the social and economic benefits that will follow from enhanced domestic processing and value-adding of a resource which is currently predominantly exported in unprocessed form.

These benefits must be weighed against the environmental risks posed by the pulping process itself in a new pulp mill. This is the relevant focus for the assessment process.


Dr Steve Read is Chief Scientist for Forestry Tasmania, and Honorary Associate Professor , School of Forest & Ecosystem Sciences, The University of Melbourne. Dr Hans Drielsma is Executive General Manager for Forestry Tasmania and a member of the Australian Forestry Standard Technical Reference Committee.
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