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Nationwide Plea to Save the Tarkine International, national and state environment groups have united behind the need to preserve the Tarkine, Australia's largest wilderness rainforest. Plans announced on June 4 by Labor's Deputy Premier Paul Lennon to lift a 20-year logging moratorium on the single greatest stretch of temperate rainforest in Australia have been described as a backward step for Australian science and biodiversity conservation. "Not only is the Tarkine Australia's biggest rainforest wilderness, it contains some of the most significant relics of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana left on Earth today," said Professor Aila Keto of the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society. "We don't believe that the Premier has been fully informed on this matter", said Virginia Young, National Forest Campaign Coordinator for The Wilderness Society. "Even the previous Liberal premier understood the international significance of this area and did not want to see it logged." "We are appealing to the Premier and Prime Minister to intervene. In recent weeks the Prime Minister has put forward proposals to tackle some of Australia's tough environmental problems. Protecting Tasmania's ancient forest heritage is one of the toughest." "Given that the Commonwealth Government has not yet signed off on the five-yearly RFA review, there would appear to be ample opportunity for the Commonwealth to support protection of this priceless part of our natural heritage." Glen Klatovsky from WWF Australia said, "The Tarkine represents one of the world's last great temperate rainforest stands. Based on rainforest logging standards in the area surrounding the Tarkine, WWF Australia is concerned that any proposal to log the rainforest corridor will destroy the values that make it one of the world's most important wild places." "This announcement reinforces the fact that we have a major problem with native vegetation management in Tasmania. We are now the only state without landclearing controls and probably the only place in the developed world where the logging of rainforest is still condoned. This should be a source of deep embarrassment to all Tasmanians," said Craig Woodfield from the Tasmanian Conservation Trust. "At a time when Tasmania's image and environmental record is under increasing national and international scrutiny the last thing the state needs is another blow to its reputation." "Protection of the Tarkine rainforests would offer the type of future achieved through the protection of the Daintree rainforests in Northern Queensland, a future that has delivered strong economic growth through the ongoing bounty of nature-based tourism," said Wilderness Society Tasmanian Forest Campaigner, Mike Noble. "We hear about the loss of tropical rainforests around the planet, yet temperate rainforests are rarer and more highly threatened. The Tarkine rainforest has survived for 65 million years. Its preservation for the benefit of future generations, and for the benefit of Tasmania, is of paramount importance", said Phil Pullinger on behalf of the Tarkine National Coalition. "Our task is to ensure these irreplaceable forests survive this pre-emptive strike from Forestry Tasmania and the Deputy Premier", said Lindsay Hesketh from the Australian Conservation Foundation. Read more about the magnificent Tarkine in the June/July issue of Habitat, ACF's membership magazine
Save the Tarkine
Executive Building, 15 Murray St, Hobart, TAS 7000 Premier@dpac.tas.gov.au
Federal Environment Minister, David Kemp For more information visit www.tarkine.org Contacts:
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