Many Tasmanians know our forests were once the World's best carbon stores. Who would guess the actual drain holes that swallow Tasmania's carbon and deliver it to the insatiable Asian pulp market can be seen on Google Maps? There has been a systematic cover-up of Tasmanian wood chip exports and FSC is involved.
At left is the ARTEC native forest wood chip mill and drainage pipe supplied at a loss by Forestry Tasmania. To the right is the FSC 'chain of custody' carbon drain from the NSFP-Smartfibre chip mill. All ships that export from Bell Bay 6 are hidden by the Tasmanian shipping regulator TasPorts.
In an opaque and loss making industry such as Tasmanian forestry, cover-ups are routine, but how can Smartfibre's FSC auditor Global Mark pretend hiding entire ships is 'chain of custody'? Bell Bay Wharf 6 currently exports over 200,000 tonnes a year and both Artec and Smartfibre want to increase exports many times over. Now Artec is waiting for downstream-FSC certification delivered by the bankrupt Forestry Tasmania. As usual, most of the infrastucture is provided by the state at a loss.
The Earth's weather is now more dangerous and unpredictable so why is FSC hiding the destruction of carbon storing forests? By covering-up multi-million dollar wood chip exports FSC could be facilitating tax evasion because it's hard to know which wood chips are being 'drained' at any point in time. With a single wood chip conveyor it's also possible to mix wood chip exports at any time. Does Global Mark know if wood chip mixing is happening? TAP has evidence of wood chip carriers loading at other ports on the Asian run. The fact FSC has been a party to multi-million dollar income hiding is a disgrace. The main role FSC has played in Tasmania is to transfer ownership of the local timber industry to foreign control. FSC did everything they could to tranfer Gunns certificates to New Forests knowing Gunns were trading while insolvent.
