TASMANIA treasure isle under threat

Forest and Bird, Volume 16, Issue 4, 1 November 1985, Page 26

TASMANIA treasure isle under threat

by

Consarvation Director RE&BPS

Gerry McSweeney

' asmanians write about their land with a passion shared by many New Zealanders. Their words echo sentiments that we too feel strongly. Both our cultures and our history of European settlement and exploitation of the land and its native people are similar, even though New Zealand was never a convict settlement. Both countries are buffeted

by the roaring forties and in recent times were heavily scarred by Ice Age glaciations. Our links stretch far beyond the last 200 years of European settlement. Until about 50 million years ago, New Zealand, Tasmania (then joined with Australia), South America and Antarctica were linked as the southern supercontinent of Gondwanaland. Crustal movement separated Gondwanaland and as the land masses parted they each carried a sample of the ancestral beech (Nothofagus) rainforest, and other plants and animals including ancestral ratites which evolved into New Zealand’s moas and kiwi and Australia’s emu and cassowary. The Australian continent drifted slowly northwards. Its original plants and animals were boosted

by plants and animals from land links with Asia and Eucalyptus, Acacia and other species adapted to a hotter, more arid climate. However temperate rainforests still flourished in the cool wet climate of the south. Finally, 14,000 years ago Tasmania became separated from mainland Australia when sea levels rose to form Bass Strait at the end of the last ice age. Since that time, repeated Aboriginal burning has_ substantially reduced the area of rainforest. This is replaced by fire-tolerant eucalypts, through which rainforest only regenerates slowly. Rainforest today still dominates the south and west of Tasmania while drought and fire tolerant eucalypt, wattle and paperbark (Melaleuca) forest dominates the east, centre and north of the State. Because of the original Gondwanaland link, Tasmania and New Zealand still share many common genera and even species of plants, particularly in rainforest and alpine areas {eg Phyllocladus, Astelia, Coprosma, Aristotelia, Cyathodes, Pimelea and Lagarostrobus (formerly Dacrydium)].

Huge diversity The combination of species of ancient, tropical and arid-Australian origins, subject to a great range of climates and altitude, result, in Tasmania’s enormous variety of plant and animal species. Although only a quarter the area of New Zealand, Tasmania has 1543 species of plants (1460 species in New Zealand) 306 of which occur only in Tasmania and not in mainland Australia. Tasmania also has 280 bird species and 32 species of mammals. Because the dingo never invaded Tasmania, a number of carnivorous marsupials including the Tasmanian Devil, native cats (quolls), (and until recently the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine) survive here but are extinct or endangered in mainland Australia. About 13% of Tasmania is protected within National Parks or State Reserves administered by the Tasmanian National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS). The 13 National Parks cover a total area of 890,000 hectares. Significantly both mining and domestic stock grazing are prohibited in these Parks. There are a small number of other reserves administered by the Forestry Commission, Lands Department and local authorities which have conservation value but do not have strong legal protection and may permit incompatible uses. The Tasmanian Forestry Commission manages a huge area of the State

although control of much of this area has been ceded by an Act of Parliament to three woodchip companies (see map). The Forestry Commission’s only contribution so far to the protection of a representative network of natural areas are its 32 Forest Reserves. These total 15,300 hectares and have been set aside since 1975 ‘‘for the pleasure of local communities and visitors’’. These are primarily small scenic and recreational areas featuring waterfalls, lakes, big trees and even pine plantations. Mountain dominated National Parks Tasmania’s national park and reserve system, like New Zealand’s is mainly comprised of high rainfall mountainous areas usually with no merchantable timber. Two of the National Parks, Mt Field and Hartz Mountain, have had their best lowland forest excised (1950s, 1970s respectively) for logging! Lowland rainforest in the north-west and drier lowland areas of dry eucalypt forest and native grasslands in the east of

the state are poorly represented in reserves. Pure rainforest has been reduced by at least a third since European settlement. Today it is still being cleared for farming and is threatened by fire, flooding, hydro dams and by logging and woodchipping. There is a moratorium until 1988 on the logging of State-owned pure rainforest [defined by the Forestry Commission as forest over 8 m in height having ‘"‘less than 5% eucalypt eucalypt canopy cover]’’. However this narrow definition has allowed extensive logging of ‘‘mixed forests’? which contain only between 5% and 10% eucalypt canopy cover which in reality are also rainforests. The NPWS and conservation groups spearheaded by the Wilderness Society and _ the Australian Conservation Foundation are seeking extensive rainforest reserves in the north-west and south of Tasmania.

Woodchipping is the major threat to Tasmania’s remaining dry _ eucalypt forest. In the space of only four years (1969-73) the State’s major forest industry switched from sawmilling to wood chipping involving clearfelling primarily of dry eucalypt forest. Twenty- six of Tasmania’s 30 eucalypt species occur in these forests which have a very high species diversity. After chipping, many of the areas are converted to farmland, the remainder are often regenerated and where this is successful become single species tree farms. Tasmanian conservationists are seeking a 14,000 hectare national park for the largest remaining unmodified area of dry eucalypt forest in the Douglas-Apsley valleys on the east coast. Roads threaten grasslands Tasmania’s natural grasslands and grassy woodlands were once extensive in the centre of the island. Today they have been reduced to remnant patches in cemeteries, railway embankments, golf courses and roadside verges. Even here they are not safe. The huge Australian Commonwealth Bicentennial road improvement programme is likely to polish off the remnants and the race is on against the bulldozer to identify and reserve these natural grasslands. About 20 percent of Tasmania’s plant species are either unprotected or poorly protected in reserves. Scientists and conservation groups have documented a network of bioreserves aimed at protecting

all Tasmania’s endemic plant species. As well as seeking better protection for Tasmania’s native plant communities, Australian conservationists are battling hard to preserve wilderness areas in the south and the north-west of Tasmania. To do this they want substantial enlargement of the present National Parks in Western Tasmania. This is the only way to prevent logging, mining, and hydro dam construction. Dams destroy wilderness They have an enormous challenge before them. Tasmania has a long tradition of environmental destruction. Lake Pedder was flooded in 1972 after huge protest. The Liberal Premier of Tasmania, Robin Gray and his dam-loving colleagues, still feel very bitter towards conservationists. In 1983, the Australian High Court empowered the Federal

Government to stop the Tasmanian State Government building the FranklinGordon dam in South-West Tasmania. The dam site and river were the scene of huge public protest and even worldfamous botanist David Bellamy was arrested. The Franklin dam issue became a key Federal election issue in 1983. The Tasmanian Labour opposition are little better. In March 1985, Opposition Leader Ken Wreidt stated ‘‘we stand by the view that we should develop our hydro resources to the maximum....’’. One of the leaders in the campaign against more hydro dams in Tasmania’s wild south-west, Wilderness Society’s Bob Burton, has produced an excellent report called ‘‘Overpowering Tasmania’’. This reveals that the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission’s power demand projections have grossly over-estimated demand. The State has an embarrassing oversupply of power which can only be sold at bargain basement prices. Present and planned hydro power developments in the rugged west are hideously expensive and far more costly than low pollution thermal generation from low sulphur coal in the north-east of the State.

400 S ha . a s week. , s . , _ The major threat to Tasmania’s native forests is now woodchipping. A huge 2.6 million cubic metres of hardwood native forests are chipped each year. Virtually all of this is exported unprocessed to Japan. Over 400 hectares of forest are cleared in Tasmania each week and woodchipping threatens all the proposed reserves. Clearfelling for woodchips is irreversibly turning natural tapestries into controlled tree farms or derelict land. One company, Associated Pulp and Paper Mills (APPM) alone holds the exclusive and long-term rights to pulp the wood from over half of Tasmania. Two other woodchip companies have concessions over much of the remainder of the forests. The companies operate under export licences issued by the Federal Government which expire in 1988. Conservation groups and even Forestry Commission staff want controls on these licences to help Tasmania’s environment and economy. Studies published by Tasmanian conservationists show that far from benefitting the Tasmanian economy, woodchipping incurs major economic costs. Since woodchipping commenced twelve years ago, 4,000 jobs have been lost in the State’s forest industry. Woodchipping employs eight times fewer people per volume of wood cut than paper-making and is also propped up by a $20 million annual public subsidy for roads, railways and administration. Alternative forestry schemes which create more jobs, generate more revenue and are far less environmentally destructive have been put forward in a Forest Industry Strategy for Tasmania by conservation groups who

have united in a coalition called the Forest Action Network. Overall their plan shows that it is possible to create all the proposed reserves and improve environmental controls on forestry operations without loss of jobs. Nature tourism booming The Network is also actively promoting nature-based tourism which provides jobs without destroying natural and wilderness values. Their booklet Explore Tasmania’s Wild describes hundreds of natural areas throughout the State for camping and nature walks and other outdoor activities. They have also produced brochures to guide tourists through Tasmania’s South-West World Heritage Area. Sadly their enthusiasm cannot be harnessed by State Government agencies, well aware of the world-wide boom in nature-based tourism. "The Franklin-Gordon River blockade focussed world attention on Tasmania, however we’ve been _ instructed by Government not to capitalise on the publicity in our tourist promotions’’, says Tourism Department director, Gordon Dean. The State Government has even banned Tourism Department and Parks and Wildlife Service offices from displaying attractive tourist road guide brochures produced by the Wilderness Society. Parks and Wildlife Service staff were recently instructed by Government not to even talk to the Wilderness Society! Despite this, the tourists keep coming and last year 72,000 people went on tourist cruises up the Gordon River from the small West Coast town of Strahan.

Times are changing. ‘Tasmanians know that if they don’t promote their natural areas, mainland Australia visitors will simply go to New Zealand which has no hesitation in such nature tourism promotions. The tourist attractions of convict settlements and casino are giving way to rainforests, wild rivers and wilderness. Meanwhile the courageous stand of Tasmanian conservationists both within Government agencies like the Parks and Wildlife Service and in the coalition of conservation groups can only be admired. They deserve our full support. In 1976, the Tasmanian state government commissioned a Canadian consultant, David Young, to report on Tasmania’s forests and forestry. In a chapter entitled ‘‘It Tolls For Thee’’ he concluded: ‘‘The 400,000 people who live in Tasmania enjoy one of the richest and one of the most beautiful parts of the earth. What they have done to it, and what they are doing to it, is an offence against nature, and a crime against their fellow [humans] .... What is needed is the scarcest resource of all: humility. Until the people of Tasmania abandon the arrogant view that they have a right to destroy the island, desecration, despoilation and waste will continue. No report, no recommendations, will generate humility.’’ The report was not released. we The author acknowledges the assistance of an ANZAC Fellowship for a four month conservation study tour in Australia in early 1985, and the help of the Wilderness Society and Australian Conservation Foundation. All photos except for the pigmy possum by Gerry McSweeney