Cassy O’Connor MP | Greens Leader and Forests spokesperson
Late on Friday, under the cover of a Budget update, so-called ‘Sustainable’ Timber Tasmania finally released the FSC audit report – which they received six months ago, in early February.
The audit report is damning of the government’s forestry GBE.
The Greens sought to obtain the FSC audit report early last week through Right to Information, because it had been buried for six months. Given it’s so damning of STT’s logging practices, it is little wonder the government had kept the report under wraps.
What we know from the auditors is that there is no way STT should ever get FSC, so long as it keeps logging old growth forests, which provide critical habitat for rare, threatened and endangered species.
These forests are home to not only the critically endangered swift parrot, but also masked owls, Tasmanian devils, giant freshwater crayfish and wedge-tailed eagles – among many others.
This is on the head of Resources Minister, Guy Barnett, who has overseen the government’s forestry GBE’s absolute incapacity to get Forest Stewardship Certification, the escalation of logging through the COVID-19 lockdown, and the continued driving of Tasmania’s native species to extinction.
In State Parliament this week, the Greens will again move to end native forest logging in Tasmania.
Protection is the only way, in a climate and biodiversity emergency, to manage Tasmania’s biodiverse, carbon-rich forests.