Cassy O’Connor MP | Greens Leader
Forestry Tasmania (STT) lit a post logging fire in a Styx forest coupe just six days after the end of Summer, with a high fuel load on the ground after a wet season.
That fire is now out of control.
A 20 hectare coupe was torched by STT last Saturday, by Wednesday this week it had escaped the coupe boundary.
The fire now covers approximately 175 hectares and threatens the Styx Tall Trees reserve, the TWWHA, a mountain bike event at Maydena this weekend and the Derwent Valley wine grape harvest.
The smoke from this fire is also a threat to human health, and it exacerbates global heating.
STT is responsible for this runaway logging fire and they owe Tasmanians answers.
An internal review that justifies this carelessness and supports business as usual for Forestry Tasmania just won’t cut it.
Resources Minister, Guy Barnett, needs to commit to an independent examination of what went wrong and why - and make the full findings public.
Ultimately, these logging burns can’t be justified. They are a danger to people, to businesses, to threatened and endangered wildlife, to Tasmania’s wilderness and to the climate.