Environmental perceptions one factor in pulp and paper review
Enhancing community understanding of the environmental sustainability of the pulp and paper industry is just one challenge included in “The Pulp & Paper Industry Strategy Group Issues Paper”.
Released on August 21 by Senator Kim Carr, minister for innovation, industry, science and research, the paper identifies key issues facing Australia’s pulp and paper industry, which generates more than $9 billion in revenue annually.
The paper was written by the Pulp and Paper Industry Strategy Group, which Senator Carr established in June to review the pulp and paper manufacturing industry, and devise strategies to develop it. Besides identifying factors that will help the industry build its innovative capacity and attract new investment, the paper lists “government and community responses to climate change” as another factor.
Australian Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown, says Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had already agreed $20 million a year to the industry. Senator Brown said the government would raid the public purse to inject millions of dollars into the pulp and paper industry.
“I call on Minister Kim Carr to clear the air on how many millions the Rudd Government is preparing to inject into this industry – including Gunns’ proposed pulp mill in the Tamar Valley in Tasmania.”
The strategy group comprises senior representatives from leading pulp and paper companies, unions, industry experts and all levels of government. It is chaired by Stephen Payne, Manufacturing Division head in the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, with two deputy co-chairs, Jim Henneberry, CEO of Australian Paper, and Michael O’Connor, national secretary of the CFMEU’s Forestry and Furnishing Products Division.
The group is expected to present its final report to Senator Carr in November. The paper is available at www.innovation.gov.au/PulpandPaper
Three-quarters say “no”
A Galaxy poll published last month had 74 per cent of Australians opposed to a pulp mill being built in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley – more than five times the number who liked the idea.
Just 14 per cent said they supported the mill, proposed by timber giant, Gunns Ltd.
Commissioned by the Australian Greens, the survey polled 1,100 people. Twelve per cent listed “don’t know” or refused to answer, and Australian Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown says if they were excluded, it would bring to 84 per cent the figure who opposed the mill.
Results were:
• strongly support: 3%
• support: 11%
• total support: 14%
• strongly oppose: 42%
• oppose: 32%
• total oppose: 74%
• don’t know/refused: 12%
The question asked was: “The logging company Gunns proposes to build a pulp mill in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley. A substantial amount of woodchips being used in the mill would be sourced from Tasmania’s native forests. Do you personally support or oppose the building of the pulp mill?”
One bloke and a whipper snipper
Rhetoric is possibly the main thing flying weeks after Gunns announced it would begin clearing its proposed Bell Bay pulp mill site, despite still not having full government approval for the $2.2 billion mill.
Last month, the Wilderness Society declared Gunns’ move to begin land clearing “a charade designed to further fuel community conflict and create the illusion that its pulp mill project is still on track”. Paul Oosting, the society’s pulp mill campaigner, said, “The pulp mill is not a real project.”
Gunns had announced plans to build a pipeline on a publicly owned reserve, “despite not having Federal Government approval to operate the mill, the necessary agreements from local council and landowners, and funding for the mill”, Oosting said.
Tasmania’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has said Gunns could only undertake minor “slashing and mulching” of understorey vegetation on the site, and was not allowed to clear vegetation in the Trevallyn reserve, nor along the pipeline corridor.
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