Forests covering hundreds of thousands of hectares in Australia’s island state of Tasmania have been earmarked for logging, with the new state government to repeal a historic forestry deal.
The conservative Liberal state government has unveiled its plans for undoing the Tasmanian Forestry Agreement, a deal reached in 2011 by industry groups and conservationists.
The agreement was sanctioned by the previous minority Labor government, which lost the recent election.
AAP Newsagency report about 400,000ha of forest set aside in the agreement as potential reserves will be reclassified as “Future Potential Production Forest” by the new government.
However, there will be no logging in these areas for at least six years as the timber industry is rebuilt.
Resources Minister Paul Harriss said the new Liberal government was acting on the overwhelming mandate it had received at last month’s election.
“We opposed the forest deal because it was based on politics not science, which destroyed jobs and regional communities, and which locked away forever future productive forest,” he said.
“This had the effect of denying future generations of Tasmanians the use of this productive and renewable resource, simply because of the politics and short-term market conditions of the day.”
The government’s planned changes also include that no further reservations of forest be made without a two-thirds majority support of both houses of the state parliament.
Labor opposition Leader Bryan Green said the move would plunge the forest industry into years of uncertainty and conflict.
“If you voted Liberal thinking it would provide stability and certainty to the forest industry, you will be let down,” he said.
In a separate move the conservative federal Liberal-National government is seeking to have the UNESCO World Heritage Committee remove large sections of Tasmanian forest from its listing.
The move is also aimed at increasing logging within Tasmania’s forests.
