The Bob Brown Foundation is welcoming calls from those environmental groups who once supported the Tasmanian Forest Agreement, but are now calling for an end to native forest logging in Australia.
“Japanese customers who buy native forest timber from Tasmania have been purchasing these controversial products under the false assurances of the questionable Tasmanian Forest Agreement for years. Today, that false security has been publicly abandoned, with those conservation groups joining our calls for a complete end to native forest logging, as featured in The Australian,” said Bob Brown Foundation Campaign Manager, Jenny Weber.
“It’s long overdue, but the Borneo logging companies we have been battling for twenty years, Ta Ann and Patriarch & Sons , must now leave Tasmania and stop destroying its native forests.”
“The confidence in Japanese markets to sell Tasmanian forests, glued together with Borneo tropical forests, was granted by some environmental groups who have today publicly joined us in a call for an end to native forest logging. There is no longer a social licence to sell Tasmanian timber, as it kills wildlife, destroys their habitats, and contributes to the climate crisis.”
“The questionable forest agreement gave Ta Ann and Patriarch and Sons the license to profit from Tasmania’s forest destruction. While this logging occurred, the Swift Parrot has become critically endangered due to logging, and climate change has escalated into a crisis. Tasmania is decades behind in ending native forest logging, and we need action now to save these world-renowned forests,” said Jenny Weber.
“I travelled from the devastated forests of Tasmania to the boardrooms of companies in Japan buying this forest destruction, to inform them of the destruction of wildlife habitat and critical carbon storehouses. It was a shocking disgrace when some environmental groups told these companies to continue buying Tasmania’s timber. Today is a great day for the forests, endangered species, and the climate. With these environmental groups now joining the call to end native forest logging, timber products taken from conflict sources in Tasmania no longer have false security.”
“Over these past years, I’ve also been upriver in remote Sarawak with the Penan people, who were fighting for their forests and their lives against Ta Ann. But they had also received a visit from Eric Abetz, who told them to allow Ta Ann to log their homes. This disgraceful support of global forest destruction—from Tasmania to Borneo to Japan—must end,” said Jenny Weber.
Photo by Tim Laman
