native

Please send your message to Mr Rudd to say no to the pulp mill and that you want to protect forests for our climate and future generations - not pulp them for short-term profit. Go to online petition

12 August 2008 - TAP  kicks off two weeks of civil unrest

Calendar of events

15 August Friday 2.00-3.00pm West Tamar Council Chambers at Riverside.
Demonstration to impress upon the West Tamar Council that the ratepayers will not tolerate the Council allowing Gunns free access for the proposed pulp mill pipeline to land owned by electors.

A Better Australia and TAP conducted two workshops with approximately 120 members to plan strategies to stop the pulp mill.

Sorted outputs from TAP/ A Better Australia presentations on 21 Jan 2008

What concerns does audience have for the future?

Social issues

• Ignorance & apathy of public
• Disempowerment of the young
• Lack of education & political education for our young
• Fragmentation of community into dysfunctional nuclear families
• Dysfunctional entrenched political thinking
• Insanity
• Loss of jobs to overseas call centres
• Lack of engagement in political process
• Lack of engagement in local government process
• Inability to distinguish between needs and wants
• Poor understanding of power of vote (not enough Green votes??)

Unrealisable expectation

Carbon Trade Watch www.carbontradewatch.org is monitoring the corruption of the climate change debate by the carbon offset industry particularly by tree planting.

The Carbon Neutral Myth highlights several ways in which the carbon offset approach to climate change is fundamentally flawed. See carbon_neutral_myth.pdf to read the full story.

Summary
From the late Middle Ages, Western Europe became slowly but surely engulfed by the tide of mercantilism that superceded the feudal economy. This system, which to us is second nature, was revolutionary at the time. It was, in its own way, the first wave of economic globalisation to wash over Europe.

The next TAP public forum in the series will be on alternative futures for our forests.

When 7pm - 9.45pm Monday 25 February 2008.

Where Riverside Community Centre, off Brownfields Lane behind the Riverside High School, West Tamar High way, Launceston.

Speakers
Speakers
Mike Scott (engineer) email - Mike_Scott@acl.com.au
Frank Strie (master forester) email - schwabenforest@connect.net.au
Kim Booth (Greens MHA) email - kim.booth@parliament.tas.gov.au

Decisions by Forestry Tasmania about the State's forests centre on producing one main low value product – pulp wood, but at what cost?

A celebration of 25 years of forest conservation in Jackeys Marsh, Tasmania, and the Great Western Tiers. Walks, talks and workshops for all age groups as well as great entertainment and inspirational forest films.

"Counting the Carbon in our Forests" workshop on Friday 1 Feb at 4.30pm led by Sean Cadman who describes new research into cool temperate forest carbon reservoirs and the carbon losses associated with approved logging of native forests in south eastern Australia.

Go to the 2008 Jackeys M

Wood for biofuels; a missed opportunity

Summary
Throughout the pulp mill saga, the politicians have assumed that there is no alternative use for Tasmania's plantation resource. But the rapid change in concern for global warming and greenhouse gas emissions has brought biofuels very much to the fore.

The only source of renewable biomass capable of replacing the amount of fossil fuel required to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets without detracting from food production is plantation forest grown on low value land.

A forest biofuels industry to produce fuels from wood in Tasmania would be substantially more beneficial than pulp at every level, economically, environmentally and socially. However, no one is going to invest in biofuels when the forests have already been promised to a powerful monopoly.

Ignoring the prospects for a biofuels industry exposes the failings of both major parties and demonstrates how short sighted the 20year contract with Gunns is.