Wilderness Society Tasmania Media Release

Tuesday 25 June

In an extinction crisis, ‘Un’Sustainable Timber

Tasmania continues to log species to extinction

Yesterday’s ABC 4 Corners exposé, Extinction Nation, revealed to mainstream Australia the
country’s extinction crisis, including Tasmania’s ongoing role in it.

“In the midst of this global extinction crisis, state-owned, taxpayer-subsidised Sustainable Timber
Tasmania (STT) continues to merrily log old-growth, high conservation value (HCV) forests up and
down the state supplying unethical timber, which is mis-marketed as ‘green’,” said Tom Allen for
the Wilderness Society Tasmania.

“Tasmania’s extinction crisis will continue unless there is a change of course by M.I.A environment
minister, Elise Archer MP, or Resources Minister, Sarah Courtney MP - who denies STT is even
logging old growth, HCV forests - or unless new federal environment minister, Sussan Ley MP,
takes action.”

“STT could end old growth HCV logging today and until it does, species like the swift parrot,
masked owl, giant freshwater crayfish, grey goshawk and plenty more besides will continue to go
extinct, which is as scandalous as it is ecocidal.”

“Even worse, we now have two notorious Malaysian logging companies in the state, Ta Ann and
Shin Yang / Patriarch, welcomed here by the government despite multiple allegations of their
human rights abuses, corruption and laying waste to tropical rainforests, and who are and intend
to be major customers of STT’s unethical timber.”

“The Regional Forest Agreement acts as a giant loophole, exempting STT from the flawed EPBC Act,
through which it is driving species to extinction. New national environment laws, and new national
Environment Protection Agency and an overhaul of RFAs are the solutions,” said Mr Allen.

The facts

STT still has no swift parrot management plan.

STT’s HCV management plan estimates there are 24,000 hectares of swift parrot breeding habitat
in PTPZ land within STT’s forestry management unit (FMU) and that 9,300 hectares in the southern
forests will be excluded from production. This is welcome but suggests that STT has identified
14,700 hectares of swift parrot habitat where logging ​may​ occur. No map of the 9,300 hectares
excluded from production for swift parrot habitat is provided in the HCV assessment and
management plan.

In 2017, STT flattened coupe S034A, a known and important monitoring site utilised by swift parrot
researchers at Tyler’s Hill in the southern forests
The Wilderness Society Media Release

Tuesday 25 June

In 2016, coupe HP010C was logged even after specialist scientific advice requested by the Forest
Practices Authority described it as “an outstanding example of remaining habitat for the
species…[the coupe] contains important breeding habitat, with high density blue gum foraging
habitat and numerous nesting sites”. Yet STT logged it anyway.

In 2018 logging severely impacted important swift parrot nesting and foraging habitat in Barnback
coupes BB025A and BB028E. BB025A contained approximately 15 hectares of mapped blue gum
foraging habitat, part of a larger area of 28 hectares of blue gum beyond the coupe, which has now
been clearfelled.

There is still no federal recovery plan or threat abatement plan for the masked owl
The Wilderness Society Media Release

Tuesday 25 June

Coupe LU040F, known masked owl roosting and nesting habitat near Lune River, was clearfelled in
2019, including hollow bearing trees that have little or no commercial value.

STT has set an arbitrary threshold whereby coupes that contain less than 25% mapped old growth
forest will be clearfelled.

Coupe TN067B is 90 hectares in size and contains 13 hectares of mapped old growth forest. Under
STT’s management plan, the 13 hectares of old growth forest can be clearfelled and is due to be.

Extinction is a choice that continues to be made by STT and Tasmania’s state government, which
owns it.

Proactive Liberal environment ministers are themselves a rare species. New Liberal environment
minister Sussan Ley MP is saying and doing some promising things but the test will be whether
she can get serious about the decline of nature. If not she could become another extinct
environment minister who has failed Australia’s natural heritage.

(The images above are from the report commissioned by the Wilderness Society and Bob Brown
Foundation and submitted to STT’s FSC auditors, SGS Global. We are happy to provide further
examples, including photos, of STT’s continued logging of old growth habitats.)

For further comment contact Tom Allen on 0434 614 323