This year the Bell Bay Wharf 6 export data was expanded to show where the woodchips are going. We live on the Earth's driest continent and our economy is already being dragged-down by climate change. So who makes money from destroying Tasmanian carbon sinks and how do they get away with it?
ARTEC's exports go to just 2 Asian countries with Taiwan getting over 90,000 tonnes. These are non-FSC native forest woodchips sold by the Tasmanian government owned STT. Artec appears to be a thinly-veiled front company for STT and the relentless Asian carbon conveyor belt.
Neville-Smith Forest Products (NSFP) plantation chips go to just 3 Asian countries with the majority going to China. In 2018 'capitalist' Taiwan was buying cheap non-FSC chips from Artec while 'communist' China bought more expensive FSC woodchips from NSFP. The other Bell Bay exporter New Forests (called 'Forico' in Tasmania) declares their woodchip exports on the TasPorts web site while both Artec and NSFP-Smartfibre continue to hide all shipping. Thats why TAP tracks their exports.
Overall volumes of Smartfibre plantation chips lag Artec by 1/3. This is due to the higher costs and inherant weaknesses of clonal plantations in Tasmania. FSC certification of these chips is highly dubious with NSFP certification organization Global Mark offering multiple certification schemes.
All Tasmanian wood chips only go to Asia. The fact the majority of the Earth's population live in one circle in Asia means Tasmanians have no conscience when it comes to supporting global population explosions. Our climate is being changed by sheer numbers of people and nothing more.
So Australia is mindlessly feeding our forests to the Asian population explosion. Forests that once stabilised the Earth's climate. Our government claim we have to do this because of debt, trade imbalance and jobs but the truth is we are already economic hostages of Asia.
UPDATE - BULK COAL CARRIERS NOW USED TO MOVE TASMANIAN WOODCHIPS TO ASIA
On February 9 a large shipment left Bell Bay for China transported by a bulk coal carrier. The global downturn of coal exports has led to the re-assignment of large capacity bulk coal carriers as wood chip carriers. An indication of how ruthless and irresponsible the Asian overpopulatiuon juggernaught has become.
