Tasmania's Out of Control Forests

Many are under the impression that Tasmania's sustainable logging industry is "one of the best managed in the world." However, the truth is quite the opposite. Forests are being destroyed in Tasmania despite widespread outcry and concern.

Many forests in Tasmania are being clearfelled. This process starts with the complete felling - cutting down all of the trees - of a forest with various implements such as chain saws and skidders. Next, the entire area is torched with fire started by helicopters dropping napalm into the now empty forests. The fires burn so ferociously that they produce mushroom clouds, visible from great lengths, showing the complete removal of life.

These plots of land are usually turned into large tree plantations with a whole host of negative environmental impacts. They are sustained with harmful and heavy pesticides and fertilizers, contaminating local water sources. Next, to protect the baby seedlings, carrots that are soaked in 1080 poison are dispersed to kill off native grazing animals that could potentially pose a threat to the seedings, this leads to the deaths of not only possums, wallabies, and kangaroos, but also the deaths of several officially protected species such as wombats, bettongs, and potoroos.

Many Tasmanians seem to be overwhelmingly opposed to old-growth logging, but Gunns Ltd, the beneficiary of the logging worth over one billion dollars, seems to be calling all of the shots in the Tasmanian Government with regards to conservation and logging. The corruption has become so bad that many Tasmanians joke that it is no longer a "government" but a "gunnerment". At this point, many believe that there is very little that Tasmanians can do to stop the mayhem - perhaps the only way to promote change is to push for a major investigation from a body more powerful than the Tasmanian state's.

Source: http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2007/may/1348543148/richard-flanagan/out-control