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Wynyard
Residents Submission on the Plantations 2020 'Vision'
Joint Submission by Residents of the
Waratah-Wynyard Municipality
(a tree plantation - devastated area) on the
Australian Federal Government's Plantations 2020 Vision
13th January 2002
"Bullshit is a greater
enemy of the truth than lies are." Harry Frankfurt, Princeton
University, "On Bullshit" This about sums up the Federal
Government's assertion (in the 2020 Vision set out at www.plantations2020.com.au)
that tree plantations are 'good' for local communities, local economies
and the environment.
We submit that there should be a public enquiry into the 2020 Vision, its
process and subject matter because this distorted vision reflects only the
interests of plantation corporations and NOT those of the forest,
environment and the communities as it purports to.
The process of implementing the desertification of the fertile,
high-rainfall agricultural valleys of Australia by way of covering them
with disease-prone tree monocultures is extremely flawed:
Many local councils did not get proper notification of the submission
process. Further local communites in plantation regions (ie those most
negatively affected by this industry) have not been given adequate time
nor opportunity to have an input in this process.
There is conflict of interest across the government and regulatory
framework for this 'vision' and that needs to be addressed as a matter of
urgency. Citizens with significant investments in this industry have been
placed in key government jobs and this has resulted in corrupted
regulatory overseeing of the Forest Practices Code and other Codes of
Practice. It is witnessed repeatedly as a major SHAM. This was outlined in
detail by the Australian Conservation Foundations enquiry into the
plantation industry and its compliance with National Competition Policy in
2000.
However, further evidence can be
found in the archives of the Tasmanian email networks such as TasTalking (www.yahoogroups.com/messages/TasTalking);
ForestNet (www.yahoogroups.com/messages/ForestNet)
and Mt Arthur (www.yahoogroups.com/messages/mtarthur)
. You'll find many submissions and complaints by communities over the
years that have been ignored the State and Federal bodies and politicians.
Nevertheless, despite the breach of trust and corruption inherent in this
thrust to force a major polluting and destructive industry within our
midst, we have decided to submit our concerns so that it may be on public
record (at least) that the Federal, State and (som) Local Governments
(again with vested interests) are yet ignoring and overriding the
legitimate concerns and wishes of communites.
We have seen that the plantation industry is not commercially viable and
actually destroys local economies. Your propaganda asserts the opposite
however.
The TRUTH is that in our municipality (and those neighbouring ours) we
have witnessed the following economic effects of this industry:
* Viable family farms engaged in vegetable, dairy and grazing enterprises
have been replaced by plantations that bring in a much lower income per
hectare averaged out;
* Several studies done over the last few years detailing the economic
effects of the tree plantation industry have been completely ignored by
the Federal and State Government. One study, by Alistair Graham entitled
"Forestry as if Economics Mattered" and another which was an
economic analysis of the industry financed by the Australian Conservation
Foundation found that the Australian taxpayer was actually out of pocket
for each tree clearfelled by the plantation industry.
* $4.1 million dollars annually has been withdrawn from the Preolenna
district alone when local farmers, deeply constrained by the State and
Federal Government in their attempts to sell their land to other viable
family farmers (see the Protection of Agricultural Land Policy for
Tasmania), were forced to sell to tax-lurk dependent plantation
corporations.
* Many more millions of dollars of agricultural infrastructure have been
permanently destroyed by those same corporations. Family farm houses,
dairies, fencing, tracks, irrigation piping etc all bulldozed into
oblivion. This destructive activity continues;
* The population decline in the region (caused by 'free market'
globalisation) has been further exascerbated by this industry.
* Employment outcomes for our (plantation) region are THE LOWEST IN THE
STATE. So much for the Government's assertion that the plantation industry
provides jobs. IT HAS REPLACED JOBS. Many local workers have been forced
out of regular agricultural enterprises whilst the plantation companies
continue to reduce the number of their workers. What little employment
lies within this industry is very largely irregular, underpaid, dangerous
and part time.
* The Eucalypt Niten species, comprising most of this stick desert, is
adding to a GLUT OF SUPPLY IN PULP. This does not bode well in terms of
protecting our community from the effects of a temperamental global market
place. All the economic eggs are now in a handful of baskets as distinct
from the varied economy the tree plantation industry replaced.
* Attractive areas of native forest and fertile farming valleys has been
replaced by a landscape of ugly shadow-casting stick-like trees that has
diminished one's desire to invest and live in this region. Consequently
those people formerly attracted to Tasmania for its natural beauty find
themselves repulsed by this ugly industry and the horror images of native
forests and native fauna lieing dead along almost every road verge. The
carcasses of 1080 poisoned native (and other) animals are left where they
lie, mostly kilometres from the site of the poison.
* Self-sufficient local economic activity has been replaced by and export
driven trade of woodchips. We need fewer oligopolies, fewer multinational
corporations and more engagement by local citizens in earning a livelihood
and trading amongst themselves. The very means for people to do this is
being taken away from them in favour of serving a handful of private
interests that are prepared to fund the re-election of the incompetents
that could create such a disastrous vision for our future.
* Tourists. Who would want to come?? The stupidity of this industry push
even extends to growing these commercial weeds along major tourist routes.
We read the tourist feedback regarding how they feel about this regularly
in the local paper.
* Once thriving communities are now thousands of acres of deserted
'vistas' (the 2020 vision). The caretaker mentality has been replaced by a
lack of commitment to the area that encourages repeated vandalism. The
landscape is no longer valued, rubbish is dumped in the plantations along
with unwanted dogs, cats and possums. The trees provide a haven for other
illegal ventures.
* Further, the abseentee land ownership inherent in the Government
'vision' results in weed infestations alongside the edges of virtually
every coupe with the dry dead trunks and other remains of the native
forest often pushed on to the verges of the road or across
once-picturesque creeks.
* Local residents forced to live in the shadow of verdant vermin
propagated by the plantation industry have stopped investing dollars in
renovating their properties and, instead, think of ways they can get out
of the area. This is difficult because their land and buildings have been
massively devalued .again, thanks to this industry. No compensation has
been offered by the implicated governments nor from the industry itself.
Many residents, however, are determined to stay in the properties they've
built up over decades and fight for their right to exist.
* The environmental impact statements that have been done and all economic
analysis of this industry and its associated processes (such as aerial
spraying of pesticides etc) does NOT take account of the value and
maintenance of the integrity of ecological processes.such as pollination
of crops by insects, filtration of water by plants etc. Thus no true or
accurate economic analysis has been done.
Environmental implications/effects of the tree plantation industry: ?
Whilst large multinational corporations seek to make a 'killing' in carbon
credits much care is taken by the Federal Government to hide the fact that
an enormous proportion of tree plantation land has been provided only
through the massive (and continuing) clearfelling of our native forest.
* Inherent in this 'wonderful' vision is an assertion that citizens living
in these plantation devastated areas have less rights to clean air, soil
and water. Local Government is sought to be corrupted and changed to a
body - one that is a passive rubber-stamper for the thrice annual aerial
spraying activity that poisons the drinking water in our rainwater tanks.
Yes, your organisation and other Government bodies have also turned a
blind eye to the constant pleadings by citizens to enforce the Forest
Practices Code and other Codes. Instead creeks are used as snig tracks by
bulldozers, native forest is cleared everywhere the eye can see .even up
to the very edges of creeks. Containers that previously held dangerous
pesticides are left in household water catchments and even howed into the
ground. Wildlife is poisoned by a non-selective chemical everywhere. Their
dead carcasses poison wombats and native quolls in turn till such
creatures are hardly seen anymore in the plantation district. [The
Tasmanian State Ombudsman can advise you of complaints that have arrived
at her office in that regard]
* No monitoring is done of household drinking water on a systematic basis.
Nor do citizens enjoy the duty of care inherent in the need to notify the
community that aerial spraying is even taking place. Simazine is being
sprayed against the label instructions and chemical applicators are
allowed to breach label instructions for all pesticides as they find their
way into waterbodies across the hinterland.
* No studies have been done into the off-target effects of 1080.
* But the 2020 Vision wants to go further than turning bureaucrats merely
turning a blind eye to breaches and widespread destruction of all that we
hold dear Ways need to be found, you say, to sabotage the voices of local
people further. "Reduce impediments to plantation development at
local government level."
* 'Greening Australia' funds are squandered as patches of native forest
regeneration, funded by the taxpayer, continue also to be clearfelled. In
addition, much of the social investment of the 1980s , that money spent,
again, in native vegetation establishment for the extra 'billion' trees
that Prime Minister Hawke promised has been 'all for nought' in Tasmania.
Social effects of the plantation industry:
Many have already been mentioned above but the list is not exhausted:
* Where's the fire management plan? These awful trees are planted as close
as 60 feet from a dwelling. 10 metres from a boundary. The local council
have not informed us of any strategy to protect rural residents from an
outbreak. We are hemmed in from East, West, North and South with no clear
exit in times of fire.
* Small landholders face the intimidating prospect of being sued in
neighbourhood disputes by multinational corporations. This, at a time when
legal aid funding has been massively diminished and the corporations
engage in regular practices that promote neighbourhood disputes such as
failing to control vermin and weeds, poisoning air and soil and breaching
State Codes of Practice.
* The overnight change in the pattern of land ownership - from the family
farm to the multinational corporation - provides a social framework for a
new feudal order. It will only be a matter of time before corporations
start leasing the land to impoverished local people denied a livelihood by
the businesses these entities have replaced and monopolised. Over 60% of
the municipality of Burnie is owned by one multinational corporation alone
and similar figures must exist for our municipality (Waratah-Wynyard).
* The new landholding elite - the multinational corporation - have shown
themselves to be beyond the reach of our laws and codes of practices. Why,
otherwise would the local and federal authorities refuse to enforce the
laws when they are broken by these entities. There is a convincing case
for funding federal elections by public funding alone as the undue
influence of corporations are propped up by election-dollar bribery.
* The tree plantation oligopolies act in ways that are PARASITIC on local
communities and their resources. The public are denied access to 'common
wealth', ie to the fertile farming soils, water, ways of earning a living
in agricultural pursuits and even 'public' land. Forestry Tasmania has
destroyed much of the native flora and biodiversity that the 'public'
owned and enjoyed previously. Coupes are locked up. Most of the
agricultural enterprises and land are withdrawn from community use by the,
largely, taxpayer-funded purchase of these things by a handful (actually
less than this) of private multinational interests. Whatever is left over
is contaminated with pesticides. A tripling of the plantation base would
be the final nail in the coffin for any dregs of self-sufficiency and
economic wellbeing the community may enjoy now.
* A multinational corporation is NOT a 'person'. They should not be let
loose in the local landmarket (and other markets) to compete against
individual citizens. The laws need to be changed as a matter of urgency in
this respect. Our legal system must recognise the dangers to our society
and democracy by continuing to misrepresent the nature of economic
entities in our courts that can outbid individuals and even governments
and then hold onto land and other assets for hundreds of years. Not to
mention have almost unlimited funds to bribe our elected representatives
with election funding or, simply, 'under the counter' payments to
encourage officials and politicians to look the other way.
* Citizens in Tasmania have been denied the opportunity to engage in
small-scale agricultural enterprises by the implementation of the
'Protection of Agricultural Land Policy' instituted by the Tasmanian State
Labour Government, with Liberal Party/Opposition backing. Landholders
cannot subdivide their lands to less than 100 hectares. This rule ensures
the the price of unsubsidised land (the form ordinary citizens can access,
as distinct from corporations) remains beyond the returns available from
that investments or the citizen is simply 'outbid' by the corporate
plantation entity with a packetful of compulsory super funds or other such
legislated and unearned windfalls.
Does the Government have a 'moral right' to deny citizens the right to
engage in agricultural enterprise on the basis of scale alone? Such
criteria doesn't exist in any other type of enterprise.
* The 2020 Plantation vision sees the Federal Government in full-swing
promoting an industry over and above the interests of citizens in this
country in favour of a small private elite. To make matters worse the
Tasmanian State Government has drawn its greedy eyes of the public native
forest holdings and engaged in its sorry destruction. We want to reclaim
our public land.
Rather than the Plantation Industry facing 'impediments' as the 'vision'
states, in actual fact, it's the ordinary citizen who is massively impeded
in maintaining his health and livelihood by this dominating, ugly and
corrupted industry. The true challenge for the future is to find a way to
regain our local democracy and standard of living.
* The children of rural residents now face even more hardships as job and
entrepreneurial opportunities are depleted even further. The plantation
induced loss of population has resulted in the side-by-side loss of
community infrastructure such as local schools, halls, power lines, school
buses, banks, retail infrastructure etc. The tree devastation is literally
forcing further eviction of residents because of these large offsite
social and economic effects.
* Local communities have been legislatively and officially disempowered.
Submissions against the State Protection of Agricultural Land Policy
(making up the vast majority) were ignored. Submissions against the Water
Management Policy in Tasmania, one that sought (successfully) to withdraw
protection from household water supplies were publicly misrepresented by
the State Government. This occurred yet again with the public input
processes of the State Air Quality Policy as the government sought to
ignore concerns about aerial spraying contamination. Now Waratah-Wynyard
residents find themselves at odds with the State Ombudsman and the local
Council on the same issue of public misrepresentation of the nature and
content of public submissions on the local planning Schemes. The Ombudsman
has chosen (without reason) to action current breaches of the Forest
Practices Code and so on.
The message to local citizens is to butt out on issues of environmental
degradation and government corruption. Your 'Vision' reinforces and adds
to the oppression we already face.
* As if ignoring breaches of Codes was bad enough yet the very Forest
Practices Code and the spraying codes in the state are weak gutless
documents that set a framework for continued degradation of our
environment and violation of public health. The aerial spraying code does
not provide details for aerial sprayers as to how they can avoid
contaminating our rainwater tanks in the context of known and documented
examples around the State. Yet it states that an aerial operator can spray
as close as 100 metres from the roof of a resident and as little as 10
metres from a household dam. The Forest Practices Code incorporates this
spraying code and sets out other processes that are flawed and have indeed
led to the expected negative environmental outcome.
IN SUMMING UP As distinct from the 2020 vision we would like to see a
healthy environment, economy and strong local community. We have seen the
'clean green' image of Tasmania become increasingly tarnished by the tree
plantation corporate dominated industry.
Our soils should be reserved for quality food production. The local
economy should be based on organic enterprised owned and managed by local
citizens.
The native forests that are left should be retained and expanded to
provide an adequate backdrop for a strong tourist industry.
We want the plantation industry strategy of the Federal and State
Government to be replaced by a reafforestation program, ie the restoration
to natural landscapes managed by local citizens.
Is there a place for plantations?
Local farming communities and infrastructure must be preserved.
But above all, we reiterate our demand for an enquiry into the Plantation
2020 Vision and the corrupt governmental and industry bodies and their
unregulated industry. There is no benefit to be had for Australians if
this ridiculous vision is further pushed on uninformed and impoverished
rural communities.
Yours faithfully
Ute Meuller, 200 Scotts Road, Lapoinyah Tasmania 7325
Richard Donaghey, 80 Sawards Road, Myalla Tasmania 7325
Carol Donaghey, 80 Sawards Road, Myalla Tasmania 7325
Robert Taylor, 216 Detention Falls Road, Milabena 7325
Anne Willis, 216 Detention Falls Road, Milabena 7325
Brenda Rosser, 923 West Calder Road, Calder 7325
Robert Kildare, 923 West Calder Road, Calder 7325
Pam Evans, 923 West Calder Road, Calder 7325
Evelyn deVito, 1036 Meunna Road, Preolenna 7325
John O'Casburn, 200 Scotts Road, Lapoinya 7325
RESIDENTS OF A DEVASTED
PLANTATION COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENT
Email and hard copy (on the way with signatures) to:
National Plantations Coordinator, Richard Stanton.
PO Box E89
Kingston ACT 2604
Telephone: 02.6285.3833
Facsimile: 02.6285.3855
Email: richard@plantations2020.com.au
Curtisy Copies to:
Senator Bob Brown Senator.Brown@aph.gov.au
Senator John Faulkner, Opposition Senate Leader senator.faulkner@aph.gov.au
Senator N. Stott-Despoja, Leader, Australian Democrats
Senator.Stott.Despoja@democrats.org.au
Senator B. Harradine senator.harradine@aph.gov.au
Senator L. Harris senator.harris@aph.gov.au
Senator Robert Hill, Leader of the Government in the Senate, Commonwealth
Parliament Offices, 100 King William Street, Adelaide, S.A., 5000
Senator Shane Murphy senator.murphy@aph.gov.au
Concerned residents of Tasmania and Austrlia and the Australian media and
other interested bodies.
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