Tall forests, wild rivers, ancient landscape
Tasmania is Australia’s southern island with far stretching wild lands. On the eastern border of the South West World Heritage Area is the vast and wild Southern Forests. What does remain of the Southern Forests is ecologically and culturally valuable to the Western Tasmanian wilderness area. Beyond the Airwalk are valleys of ancient landscapes, tall eucalypt rainforest, wild rivers, karst systems, diverse plant and animal life in a spectacular setting of glaciated highland peaks and lakes. Currently unprotected and being devastated by shocking industrial forestry practices that clearfell, burn and poison large areas, the Southern Forests are being lost.
Western Tasmania is Australia’s greatest temperate wilderness area and one of the world’s last. Western Tasmania is the only area in the world which provides the necessary conditions for regeneration both of native conifers such as the King Billy Pine and tall Eucalypts. Western Tasmania has the tallest forests in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia’s most glaciated landscape, Australia’s wildest rivers and some of Australia’s largest tracts of cool temperate rainforest. Western Tasmania is largely protected, however the line of protection ends where the tall Eucalypt forests start due to their "commercial value".
Many of the glaciers which occurred between ten thousand and one million years ago in Western Tasmania formed mountain ranges and highland lakes in the Southern Forests. They had their sources within the existing World Heritage Area and extended well down the valleys which today make up the Southern Forests. Deep in these valleys are the wild rivers of the Picton, Weld and Huon. A quality that distinguishes these rivers outside the existing World Heritage Area from those within it is the mature tall Eucalypt forest through which they flow.
Tasmania’s forests of tall Eucalypt, unlike many on mainland Australia, tower over cool temperate rainforests containing many species unique to Western Tasmania including Leatherwood, Celery-top Pine and Horizontal Scrub. Huon Pine, a remnant of the supercontinent Gondwana overhangs the banks of the Huon and Picton rivers in the Southern Forests and can live for more than 3000 years. The forests of the Eucalyptus Regnans in the Southern Forests are the world’s tallest flowering plants. Old-growth Eucalypts provide important nesting holes for birds and animals such as the Eastern Pygmy Possum, Sugar Glider and Yellow-Tailed Cockatoo. They also provide important habitat for Tasmania’s raptors such as the Grey Goshawk and the Wedge-Tailed Eagle.
Karst features in the Southern Forests are among Australia’s most spectacular and pristine. A cave in the Southern Forests contains Aboriginal cave painting that dates back over 12000 years to a time when glaciers descended to present day sea level on Tasmania’s South coast. Bone Cave in the Weld valley contains examples of human occupation that shows the settlement of extremely inhospitable country at the height of the last Ice Age. The Upper Weld-Mt Anne karst system is one of Australia’s largest and includes Australia’s deepest cave Anne-a-kananda. It is here that the Weld river flows underground below an impressive arch.
On a world scale the Southern Forests are clearly outstanding and far more valuable in their natural state than devastated for short term commercial profit. Current destruction in the Huon, Picton and Weld valleys threatens the Heritage Area.
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In the far south of Tasmania lies the Weld Valley. The Weld River
flows wild and undisturbed from the South West World Heritage
Area. One of the oldest and most spectacular forests to be found
anywhere on earth flourishes in this valley. Some of our most
unique and threatened plants and animals including the world’s
tallest flowering plants thrive in the enchanted Weld Valley.
This pristine area is currently unprotected and is under immediate
threat by logging, woodchipping and the proposed Southwood forest
furnace.
The State government, through Forestry Tasmania, are currently pushing roads and creating the infrastructure needed to penetrate deep into the ancient forests of the Weld Valley. Their aim is to log right to the edge of the South West National Park. This would not only destroy the unprotected forests of the Weld but also have an effect on the World Heritage values of the area protected. Added to the National Park, the lower Weld Valley would hold enormous eco tourism potential as well as protecting a high conservation area.
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The Giants of the Styx Valley
The Styx Valley contains the tallest hardwood trees on Earth. Many of the trees are taller than a 25-storey building, over 400 years old and up to five metres wide at the base. The Styx is only 70 kilometres west of Hobart (about 90 kilometres by road) and is on the edge of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area – one of the great temperate wilderness areas on Earth.
The tallest trees in the Styx are the mighty Eucalyptus regnans – the tallest hardwood trees and flowering plants on Earth. In Victoria, these trees are known as ‘Mountain Ash’, and in Tasmania as ‘Swamp Gum’. Some of these trees are over 95 metres tall. They are second in height only to the famous coastal Redwoods of North America (softwoods). This was not always the case – an E. regnans in Victoria in the 1870s was measured at over 120 metres - the tallest tree ever recorded. There may well be even taller trees that are as yet undiscovered in the remote roadless parts of the valley.
The Styx also contains large areas of unlogged tall Eucalyptus obliqua, Eucalyptus delegatensis and rainforest. Together these make up one of the most spectacular forests in the world. These forests are home to many native species of wildlife including the majestic Wedge-Tailed Eagle, the Eastern Pygmy Possum, the Yellow-Tailed Black Cockatoo, Owls and Rosellas. Other features that occur in the valley include limestone caves, the high dolerite bluffs of the Snowy Range, the winding, tannin-stained Styx River, and several waterfalls.
In 1996 only 13 per cent of the original cover of Eucalyptus regnans remained as oldgrowth in Tasmania. Only 4.6 per cent of the original cover is genuinely protected in National Parks and other secure reserves prior to the recent decision to protect significant areas in the Styx Valley.
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The Tarkine- Australia’s
Largest Wilderness Rainforest
The Tarkine is a large wilderness area in the far north-west of Tasmania. It is a special place with large tracts of rainforest, numerous wild rivers, big bare mountains, vast coastal heathlands and extensive sand dunes and Aboriginal middens fronting Tasmania’s wild west coast. This wilderness covers some 450 000 hectares.
The Tarkine is bounded roughly by the West Coast, the Arthur River to the north, the Pieman River to the south and the Murchison Highway to the east. The area takes its name from the Tarkiner people who inhabited the region between 175 and about 30 000 years ago. Very significant areas (73,500 ha) of the rainforest in this area have now been protected from. Unfortunately very significant areas of Tall wet eucalypt forest are still available for logging
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The Blue Tier is situated in the north east of Tasmania and is the most easterly extent of what is termed the North East Highlands. The closest major town is St. Helens, 24 km to the east, in the Break O'Day municipality. During the Regional Forest Agreement the local community contributed around 80 submissions to the Public Land Use Commission for the protection of the Blue Tier’s cultural, natural, spiritual and ecological values. Upon the signing of the RFA in 1997 only the area around the summit was protected.
Sixteen thousand years ago the Tasmanian climate was much cooler
and glaciers covered large areas of the state. Areas of rainforest
mixed with wet Eucalypt forest were much less extensive. In the
North East Highlands the only sites likely to have supported rainforest
during this time were the sheltered sites of the south and eastern
slopes of the Blue Tier, below
450 m altitude. These sites are important to protect because the
more extensive rainforest which covers the area today has spread
from them. They are places where the plant and animal life are
most likely to survive any further extremes of climate change
(this is known as glacial refugia). These areas contain some of
the rarest ecosystems on the planet and are home to ancient plants
such as Club Moss. Despite the recommendations of many eminent
scientists, Forestry Tasmania using the Regional Forest Agreement
as justification is logging in these areas with total disregard
for their importance for the future. Only small areas of rainforest
received any additional protection. Some additional protection
was given to other forests in the North East. However Ben Lommond
a stronghold for Tasmania’s endangered Wedge-tailled eagle
is still threatened by logging and landclearing for plantations
as are the water catchments for the city of Launceston.
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The GREAT WESTERN TIERS
This feature forms the towering ramparts of the northern edge
of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area and dominates
the landscape of central northern Tasmania. These forests are
highly diverse in large part because of steep climate gradients
and the diverse micro climates these create. They form the catchment
of one of Australia’s most important limestone cave systems,
the Mole Creek Karst. The lowland forests at the base of the escarpment
in places like Jackeys Marsh contain important remnants of rare,
vulnerable and endangered forest ecosystems. Only very small areas
received protection in the recent decision.
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Burning Ancient Forests for
Power
Forestry Tasmania has initiated proposals to furnace old growth forests for
power in Tasmania. Proposed sites include Southwood, located in the Huon Valley
in Southern Tasmania, and Smithton.
Southwood, the Southern Tasmanian forest furnace proposal, will consume 800 000 tonnes of logs sourced from the magnificent southern forests including the ancient Weld, Picton and Huon Valleys. The state government through Forestry Tasmania is using taxpayers money to build the infrastructure for Southwood in the hope that an investor will complete the project. An investor for the project has still not been found indicating the financial weakness of the proposal. At a time when we desperately need to be promoting sustainable, truly renewable energy, the woodchip industry has proposed the burning of native forests for power. Wind generated power is a sensible, environmentally sound source of power production.
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The Basslink development is being touted by the State Government as an opportunity for Tasmania to sell this environmentally destructive power under the guise of green power to the mainland. As consumers of electricity we have the power to demand our electricity is not sourced from the incineration of our precious native forests.
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Gunns Ltd is planning to build a pulp mill that will use outdated technology and will increase the destruction of Tasmania’s native forests. Gunns wants to build the pulp mill at Longreach in the Tamar Valley. Longreach is further from Gunns’ major plantation estate at Hampshire but is close to native forests of the north and north-east which should be protected in reserves rather than being felled for woodchips.
The recent changes to the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) have neglected to protect most of the high conservation value forests in the north and north-east of Tasmania. These include the Great Western Tiers, the Blue Tier, North East Highlands, Reedy Marsh and proposed extensions to the Ben Lomond National Park. These areas will be under intense pressure to feed the massive appetite of the proposed pulp mill.
The pulp mill proposal specifies the need for 30-year access to Tasmania’s native forests. Forest destruction and land clearing will escalate as new plantations are established. This means clearfelling of native forests, intense burning regimes, 1080 poison baiting on private land and aerial spraying in domestic water catchments.
The forests of the north-east are already facing biodiversity threats that will worsen if logging escalates in the region. The Wedge-Tailed Eagle and Spotted-Tail Quoll are both at an increased risk of local extinction if planned forestry and land clearing operations proceed in the north-east.
The level of woodchipping in Tasmania is set to increase with this pulp mill. Gunns has revealed that total woodchipping will increase from 5.5 million tonnes per year to 7 million tonnes per year. Gunns is likely to export its plantation woodchips rather than use them in a Tasmanian pulp mill.
The proposed native forest-fed pulp mill will not be Totally Chlorine Free (TCF) as first promised, but Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF). Chlorine dioxide will be used in the bleaching process. The chlorine is required to remove the higher levels of lignin found in old growth and mature trees. (Lignin holds the fibres in the wood together and provides the brown colouring seen in wood.) A 100% plantation-fed pulp mill could be totally chlorine-free. Gaseous emissions from the pulp mill could adversely affect the health and livelihood of the surrounding communities.
The proposed pulp mill will consume up to a massive 26 billion litres of water each year. The current annual usage of water in the Launceston City, George Town, West Tamar and Meander Valley Council areas, including industrial customers, is 15 billion litres. The north-east water catchments, including the Tamar, are already under huge pressure from plantation establishment, and water restrictions are becoming more common. Accommodating a non-closed loop pulp mill with a huge appetite for water will dramatically increase the pressure on the north-east water catchments.
Liquid effluent from the pulp mill, containing highly toxic persistent organic pollutants (POPs), will be discharged into Bass Strait. This will be in an area with limited water movement where it can take up to 160 days for flushing of water to occur. Pulp mill effluent is detrimental to marine life and biodiversity and has the potential to impact fisheries. The proposed outlet is only a few kilometres from the biodiversity hot spot of Low Head.
There are currently three proposals for new plantation-based pulp mills in Victoria, worth $1.7 billion. A fourth mill proposal has just been announced for Western Australia. These are broadly supported by the conservation movement, as they are plantation-based and totally chlorine-free.
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1988 Western Tasmania Stage 2
World Heritage Report
Huon Valley Environment Centre
The Wilderness Society, Tasmania
Save the Blue Tier
