MIS

The expanding area of plantations intended to feed the proposed pulp mill, is already having a major impact on the state.

Water

Plantations lock in water shortages. Over 40 of Tasmania’s 48 water catchments are affected by thirsty plantation trees drawing water out of the ground and lowering the water table. Consumption of water by expanding plantations in the headwaters affects everyone downstream. When plantations exceed 8% of the catchment area, river flow audits show declining water levels particularly during dry summer months as evaporation rates increase (D. Leaman).

Plantations compete for water with irrigators, farmers, domestic consumers and the environmental flows needed to sustain river health. Changes in land use to plantations lock in patterns of water consumption for decades, at a time of declining rainfall from climate disruption. Tax subsidised plantations are taking water that could be used to make Tasmania the food bowl of Australia.

Here is the online copy of the first edition [Summer 09/2010] of TAP's newspaper. You can download a pdf of the four A3 sized pages at the bottom and print off copies.

Its purpose is to detail in newspaper format how the proposed pulp mill, the fourth-largest kraft pulp mill in the world, threatens the health, jobs, lifestyle and investments of the community.

Bob McMahon TAP Spokesman, January 8, 2009

As the community campaign against the Gunns pulp mill proposed for the Tamar Valley enters its fifth year, federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has set a new deadline of March 3, 2011, for Gunns to complete hydrodynamic modelling of effluent dispersal into Bass Strait.

The extension condemns the people of Tasmania — the communities of the Tamar Valley in particular — to at least two more years of uncertainty and conflict. Investment in the region will continue to dry up because of the continuing threat of the pulp mill. The property market collapsed years ago — an analysis of sales figures for 2003 and 2008 show a 75% decline — and people have held off investing for four years in the hope that the mill plan will be knocked on the head.

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?

This is the first forum in a series jointly organized by ABA (A Better Australia) and TAP (Tasmanians Against the Pulpmill) to examine current and future problems confronting Australia and to develop strategies for dealing with them.

The format is an open public forum, democracy in action you might say, led by guest speakers with the emphasis firmly on public participation. If you have something to say, you will be heard.

WHERE: Community Centre behind Riverside High School, West Tamar Rd, Launceston (entrance off Brownfield Lane)
WHEN: Monday January 21st at 7.00pm

Pulp mill apologists have represented the mill as an economic boon to the state but they have concealed the huge public subsidies currently being paid, and still to be paid, to help the project be ‘profitable’.

Our governments are paying hundreds of millions of dollars a year to prop up our unsustainable pulpwood industry, money that is sorely needed by our essential services, particularly health and education. If the subsidies being paid to support the pulp mill and the logging industry were used instead to properly fund our hospitals and schools, then we would have worthwhile health and education services populated by properly paid staff and equipped with modern technologies.

The Tasmanian Government has not investigated the financial risks of the mill to the State and documented the subsidies. The economic viability of the pulp mill has not been tested in public.

The financial risks arising from the proposed pulp mill could have a significant impact on all players involved, foreign bankers, land owners, the public, local businesses, the government and Gunns itself.

Are MIS plantation operators and finance industry donations to major political parties driving the conversion of farmland to trees at taxpayers expense?

Here is how it works.

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.

1. Fact sheets and charts showing the essentials

TAP produced a series of fact sheets and charts describing significant impacts of the proposed pulp mill and its wood supply on the economy, environment and population of Tasmania. These impacts are largely being ignored by the Government and the proponent.