Regional Forest Agreement in Tasmania

The Prime Minister John Howard signed away 25 years of commonwealth environment protection laws when he signed the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) with Tasmanian Premier Tony Rundle.

The RFA also paves the way for the nation's forests to be privatised by requiring the Commonwealth to pay compensation to loggers or miners whose 'intention' to log or mine is thwarted by any future government action to protect native forests.

The road to the RFA, which was signed at a Forestry Tasmania nursery near Launceston saw green demonstrators repeatedly block the Prime Minister's car.

In an outrageous divestment of public rights, John Howard's RFA hands world heritage value rainforest to woodchippers and miners like North, free of charge, with the prospect of multi-million or billion dollar pay-outs if there is to be any future protection for these areas.

To facilitate this John Howard is jettisoning the action clauses of four key national environment laws --
* The Australian Heritage Commission Act
* The Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act
* The World Heritage Properties Act
* The Controls on exporting woodchips or unprocessed wood under the Export Control Act

PM Howard is locking up the forests for the woodchippers and throwing away the key. It is a massive transfer of public assets to private logging and mining interests, without a sale. In fact he's taken $110 million of taxpayers money and given it to the loggers to seal the deal -- this money is 'compensation' for some postage-stamp protected areas in the vast tract of wild forests which now face destruction.

Forthcoming RFA's in Vistoria, WA, NSW and Queensland will apply the same divestment of federal powers and transfer of assets from public to private hands free of charge.

"The Prime Minister is squandering the nations environmental future!" said Senator Bob Brown. "Enabling legistlation for this sell-out of Australias wild forests should be blocked by the Senate. I call on the ALP to part company with its cringing Tasmanian counterpart and back the 70% of Australians who, in repeated opinion polls, want the woodchippers and miners out of the nations last wild forests."

Source - Press release 10 Nov, Bob Brown
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