The rural hinterland landscape of Tasmania is currently undergoing a transformation unseen since the soldier settlements were divided up and the title deeds handed out. This time the title deeds are being bought up by consortiums of plantation pulpwood companies formed to take advantage of the lucrative tax concessions and incentives on offer from the State and Federal Governments. Family farms are falling like dominoes across the State, as thousands of acres are being bought and taken out of food production. These farmers were never given the government support that the forestry companies survive and thrive on, hence they are selling out, with some certainty of a better way of life. This is the legacy of a government, which favors forestry over food production; and corporations over communities.
If the new sunrise enterprises on which Tasmania has built its agricultural reputation were given the tax breaks that forestry companies are given, the Tasmanian economy would be booming. Agricultural production for niche markets in areas such as essential oils, water, vegetables, fruits and nuts would flourish and return long-term sustainable economic benefits. The world is hungry for organic produce of any kind. We have all the necessary environmental conditions to produce the largest variety of foodstuffs of almost anywhere on the planet. We would not be waiting 15 years for a return on investments, which in the area of pulp fibre is dubious given it is subject to global forces such as plantations covering millions of square kilometres in South America and the Iberian Peninsula. Fibre from these plantations threaten to flood the market at a time when digital technologies are set to replace wood-fibre as means of material communication.
Tasmanian industries such as Agriculture, Viticulture and Floriculture cannot compete with the rest of the world with sheer mass or volume so we therefore need to target niche markets which inturn downstream and value add our rich resources.
The rural landscapes for which North West Tasmania is famous and which have an aesthetic value and fulfil a need beyond economic fundamentalism are in decline, or disappearing altogether. Tourism is a direct response to the growing need for an increasingly urbanized population to experience a sense of place and renew their contact with the natural, most manifest in World Heritage values where specific places are deemed worthy of preserving into perpetuity and therefore worthy of protection. Tasmania's rich farmlands are also worthy. Our legislative system does all it can to protect heritage buildings from inappropriate development, yet we are allowing our farms and farming heritage to be carved up into corporate holding pens for a speculative cash fibre crop or mapped statistic to show our commitment to the world carbon sink.
Tourism and food production are totally compatible concepts and in fact have a co-dependency which meshes into an experience of positive benefits to the farmer and tourist alike. Be it cellar door sales or a farm tour, the benefits are mutual. A loop which is self-sustaining and perpetual. Our tourists come here to see our diverse, patchwork landscape and rural farmland, not the mono cultured plantations that are being established on good agricultural land or that are replacing native forests. As defined in the Draft Policy on the Protection of Prime Agricultural Land, “Prime agricultural land is a finite resource and only represents between 1.7% and 6% of the area’s currently mapped”. (Loss of Agricultural Land 2.).
Another major concern is the real possibility that emission producing industries, both Australian and International, will have the right to invest in intensive tree plantations on our prime agricultural land with the sole objective of gaining carbon credits. We continue to log our old growth temperate forests, and now buy up our best cropping farms having a bet each way on whether we go with woodchips or carbon credits, this depends on the whims of Government and world market prices in the future. City dwelling investors can feel warm and fuzzy about owning their plot of trees in the back blocks, doing their bit for the environment, oblivious to the massive negative social and environmental effects that their investment dollar causes. If there were incentives to plant trees in marginal and degraded land and steep slopes we could have it both ways. But why bother when you can buy flat cropping land and claim 100% tax deductions using investors’ money.
We hold forums on the youth drain from small communities when under the current regime the only prospects for our youth threaten to be as a handful of future log truck drivers. We wonder why local agricultural shows are in decline - down the track there simply won't be local agricultural shows as the quantity and diversity of produce will fall away. Have we factored in the effects on the food processing industries, which employ whole communities throughout the state? There will be a cut-off point where they simply won't be viable if the capacity to grow produce and diversify is undermined. In our haste to transform our rural landscapes into a speculative cash fibre crop or convenient politically expedient carbon sink, we are destroying the very heart of what is the icon of the coastal hinterland.
Contrary to the forestry industries claims, the export of whole logs and wood chips “do not” create abundant employment or wealth to this state. This is very evident on the North West Coast where we have seen the closure of our pulp mill (250 direct jobs) and a large number of sawmills in recent years, at the expense of an ever increasing wood chip pile on the Burnie Port. The aesthetics of this operation has a detrimental affect on locals and tourists alike. (Burnie People Building Burnie Report 1999.) Tasmania is sacrificing its potential to become a world class producer of quality food and is kidding itself that wood fibre is just another crop like spuds. That argument is like comparing fishing with oil wells - both industries operate in the same environment but have vastly different outcomes. Will woodchips sustain whole communities like the cropping of fruit and vegetables?. The plantations being established along the rural heartland of the North West Coast and elsewhere are to be mechanically harvested. Other than to truck them to the mill for chipping then on to the wharves for temporary storage there will be no flow-on benefits to the community. Community infrastructure is withered away. What has taken several lifetimes to establish is now surplus to requirements - fencing is removed so straight rows of pulpwood can grow unimpeded across the landscape.
Property devaluations are a direct result of Plantation establishment, as very few people wish to live next door to an Industrial Tree Plantation that kills off community spirit. As a farm is replaced with a plantation, infrastructure such as sheds buildings and fences are removed and the family that had been an integral cog in the community is no longer there. This results in a reduced demand for services such as Post Office, School, Church, Hall, Shop and general delivery services. This phenomenom is often referred to as the Domino Effect. This in turn renders a whole community vulnerable to its inevitable prey, the Plantation Companies.
Small holdings next to the plantations have been severely devalued and in some cases-almost impossible to sell. This is only the beginning. Stage One is to move in cashed up with superannuation funds and 100% tax right-off, offering over and above market prices on the best land. Stage Two over the next few years, will be to pick off the remaining farms at bargain prices. Property owners surrounded by plantations will have no option other than to sell out for what they can get. So overall these corporations are getting the best basalt cropping soils on the planet, as cheap as chips!
There is some evidence that suggests that there could be major negative impacts on water yields in the catchment areas where plantations are established, however, there has been no studies done to date, on the affects of Plantation Forestry in relation to social, economic, cultural or environmental factors. Planting pine trees onto pasture and gorse covered cathchments in Moutere Catchment, Nelson N.Z, reduced annual run off by 55% and ground water recharge by nearly 70%. (The Plantation Effect). Where Plantations are established around soakages, bogs, springs and wetlands there is a threat to the ecosystem due to the altering of the present flora and fauna’s habitat. If this habitat is unique for this specie then there could be a threat to its existence in that area.
Every land user in Tasmania is governed by the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act and the Environmental Management and Pollution Control Act, however, any Forestry activity that is carried out under the umbrella of a Private Timber Reserve is exempt from these two legislative Acts. These exemptions give the Plantation Companies a huge advantage over our traditional agricultural land users.
Author : Forestry Commission of Tasmania.
Title : Forest Practices Code of January 1993.
Publisher : Forestry Commission of Tasmania.
Date Published : January 1993.
Place Published : Hobart, Tasmania.
Author: DGL International.
Title: Burnie. The fighting spirit of a community.
Publisher: DGL International.
Date Published: May 1999.
Place Published: unknown
Author : Greenpeace New Zealand with support from Grant Rosomon (M. Appl. Sci.)
Title : The Plantation Effect.
Publisher : Greenpeace New Zealand.
Date Published : August 1994.
Place Published : Wellesley Street, Auckland.
Writer: The Australian Greenhouse Office.
Title of Page: Carbon Trading, Emission Trading and Carbon Credits.
When Created: 8th October 1999.
Source Address:www.greenhouse.gov.au/emissionsstrading/quanda.html
Date accessed: 6th May 2000.
MALCOLM RYAN
BURNIE TASMANIA