Violence, Parliament Put Australian Forests Process in Limbo
8/26/99
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Title: Violence, Parliament Put Australian Forests Process in Limbo
Source: Environment News Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: August 26, 1999
Byline: Andrew Darby
CANBERRA, Australia, August 26, 1999 (ENS) - An secure Australia's
contentious forests peace process failed in the federal Parliament
today, while erupting among native trees in Western Australia.
Federal government legislation to entrench the Regional Forests
Agreement (RFA) process has run afoul of the Australian Senate.
A Labor Opposition amendment to ensure either house of Parliament
could disallow an RFA passed narrowly in the Senate with Green and
Democrat support.
Strongly opposed by conservation groups, the RFA process is designed
to make a final declaration by both state and federal governments on
which areas of the region in question will be logged, and which
reserved.
The process was jolted recently when the Western Austalian state
government unilaterally modified its RFA under strong environmental
pressure to phase out cutting of old growth forests more quickly than
the RFA signed in May provides.
This led the federal Forestry and Conservation Minister Wilson Tuckey
to speak at timber workers' protest meetings against the
conservationists. Tuckey represents Western Australia. Last weekend
after he toured the contentious area and spoke at a rally in Perth,
two protesters' forest "rescue camps" were burned and wrecked.
Angry timber workers warned shaken protesters Saturday to leave the
South-West part of Western Australia or risk being bashed by night
hit squads. Conservationists were terrorised by 40 armed loggers who
ransacked and burnt a bush camp at Wattle Block, 55 kilometres (34
miles) south of Manjimup. The vigilante loggers wielded baseball
bats, axes and sledgehammers as they wrecked the camp and threatened
to kill eight protesters. Police sent reinforcements into Manjimup
Wednesday to prevent further forest violence.
Tuckey called Western Australia Environment Minister Cheryl Edwardes
"dopey" after she accused him of inflaming tensions in the forests.
Tuckey was censured by the Senate this week on a motion from the
Greens' leader, Senator Bob Brown, for deliberately inflaming the
situation in Western Australia. Such a censure, though unusual,
normally only carries symbolic importance.
Despite the uncertainties created in Western Australia and by the
Senate, the federal government is pushing through more RFAs. The
latest to be signed covers 2.3 million hectares of the north-east of
the state of Victoria.
The federal Environment Minister, Senator Robert Hill, said the
Victoria deal would provide 20 years of security for 500 people in
the area's timber industry.
It also protects high quality old growth forest, some of which would
be added to the state's Alpine National Park. Habitat protection is
provided for species including the endangered spotted tree frog, the
long footed potoroo, powerful and sooty owls.
"This is the third RFA signed for Victoria and the fifth nationally,"
Senator Hill said. "As a result of those five RFAs, over 800,000
hectares (1.9 million acres) has been added to the reserve system."
Another six RFAs are expected to be concluded in coming months. But
the government sees the vital final plank of the RFA process to be a
bill to increase security to the timber industry by providing
financial compensation in the event of government closure.
It was this bill that the Senate today began to amend.
The government has said it will refuse to accept amendments to the
legislation by the Senate. Its next step is expected to become clear
after the Senate finishes dealing with the bill next week.
Meanwhile a spokesman for Senator Brown said, "we are happy there is
a stand-off."